Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia Oh That Wasnt Art It Was Garbage

Information technology's E'er Sunny in Philadelphia Chief Character Index
The Gang (Dennis Reynolds, Dee Reynolds, Mac) | The Gang'south Families | Recurring Characters | Other Characters

Ronald "Mac" McDonald

"I gave him an ocular pat down."

Played By: Rob McElhenney, Preston Bailey (young, "A Very Sunny Christmas"), Anthony Loma (dream, "The Gang Turns Black")

Debut: "The Gang Gets Racist"

"When my dad was in solitary confinement, I used to write to him every day to see how it was. He never wrote dorsum, but if he did, he'd would've said, 'Son, you've got to keep your mind active. Besides, I beloved you.'"

One of the co-owners of Paddy's Pub and its self-proclaimed caput of security. He is Charlie'due south childhood friend, and Dennis' high school friend and later roommate. The son of a bedevilled felon, Mac is frequently trying to demonstrate his toughness and gain respect and admiration as the "sheriff of Paddy'south". He also often brags near his hand-to-hand gainsay skills, although he typically flees whatever type of physical confrontation.

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    A-F

• All Gays Are Promiscuous: He seems determined to invoke this after coming out. In "The Gang's Still in Ireland" he admits to having been "Due south'ing and F'ing" his way through life for a while at present and having sex with multiple partners at one time; after going through an identity crisis about his heritage, he heavily considers going on a sex bender through Ireland until he decides he wants to lean into his Catholicism as his principal identity instead.
• Alliterative Name:
  • Calls himself "Vic Vinegar" whenever he needs a pseudonym. Also, he's referred to as Ronald Reynolds in "The Gang Goes on Family Fight".
  • His Embarrassing Nickname in loftier school was Ronnie the Rat.
• Ambiguous Disorder: In diverse episodes, Mac shows symptoms of Histrionic Personality Disorder; his rapidly shifting (and incredibly passionate) mood-swings, his trend to attract everyone'southward attending, his gullibility, his lack of impulse control, his obsession with his appearance (maintaining his glamour muscles and false action-hero persona) and pathological lust for the approval of others (from Dennis and his dad especially). A real-life therapist fifty-fifty brings it upward when observing "The Gang Gets Analyzed".
• Ambiguously Gay:
  • In earlier seasons (1-7), Mac regularly sleeps with women, just it's hinted that he'southward into men every bit well. He gushes over the male physique (particularly that of Chase Utley and Arnold Schwarzenegger), enjoys a homoerotic friendship with Dennis, and while dating a pre-op MTF transgender woman (twice!) says that her penis makes him feel weird things.
  • Later seasons throw the ambiguity out of the window, with Mac losing any attraction he felt toward the opposite sex: he gets aroused only by dudes, actively seeks situations where he can feel up beefcakes, fantasizes about a Heaven filled with sexy shirtless guy angels, and tries to buss Dennis on 2 separate occasions. The creators have confirmed that Mac is, indeed, queer, and from Flavor 8 onwards he is firmly in Armoured Closet Gay territory (come across below).
  • Equally of Flavor 12, Mac no longer hides his sexuality.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: He abruptly confesses his dear to Dennis when the Gang is held hostage past the McPoyles. The admission goes unreciprocated and is never mentioned once again.
• Anything That Moves: Had sex activity with Margaret McPoyle, a adult female he's openly disgusted past, just because she offered. In general, during the early seasons, if Mac has the selection of having sexual practice with something, he'll accept sex with it. This is probably due to him being a closeted gay man; he was so adamant almost proving his not-existent heterosexuality that he was willing to have sex with whatsoever woman who would accept him, regardless.
• Armoured Cupboard Gay: He tries to cover upwards his allure towards men past being a Heteronormative Crusader, upwardly until finally admitting he'south gay in the Flavor 11 finale... merely to backpedal on information technology and claim that he'due south been "cured of information technology" at the very terminate. As of mid-Flavor 12, he's finally out for good, just even then he remains adamant that there were no hints he was gay prior to him albeit information technology.
  • In "Mac Fights Gay Marriage," Mac uses homophobia as an excuse to be jealous that some guy married Carmen, a transgender woman. Information technology is repeatedly pointed out that Mac had sexual practice with Carmen back when she still had a penis, then his objections make even less sense.
  • In "Mac Day", he apparently spent 5 hours lecturing the Gang about the evils of homosexuality (and at one betoken claimed that AIDS is God'southward punishment for gays). Everyone else but points out the incredibly blatant boner he had the entire fourth dimension. Later in the episode, he has himself and the Gang grease up male person bodybuilders, during which the Gang notes he has a blooper once again.
• Aren't You lot Going to Ravish Me?: A retroactive example. In "Charlie Got Molested" he's genuinely offended when he hears that the McPoyle Brothers and Charlie were molested past their simple schoolhouse gym teacher but he wasn't, seeing himself as existence much more attractive than them.
• Attention Whore: Much like Dennis and Dee, Mac is an attending-seeker who desperately craves the attention of others in order to feel pleased with himself.
• Author Appeal: The movie that he writes in "The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6" is then rife with homoerotic undertones that it gets confused for gay porn.
• Back from the Dead: After Mac, Charlie and Dee simulated their own deaths, they hide in the function of Paddy'south. When Frank and Dennis come in, they run out — carrying sparklers — and Sweetness Dee yells "Surprise, bitches! Nosotros're alive and information technology'southward blowing your MINDS right now!"
• Badass Longcoat: "Information technology'south non a jacket, it's a squeegee. It's like a jacket, but it's longer, thicker, and far more than badass. I look like Lorenzo Lamas, and women detect it irresistible." Subverted though, in that Mac is annihilation but a badass.
• Bristles of Evil: Has a beard and is a prejudiced ass.
• Berserk Button: He has many, usually relating to insults directed at him or his mother. A good example is when Dee says that Mac is "covered in stupid tattoos and has a cigarette for a female parent", at which point Mac begins strangling her.
• Animality Is Depraved: In "The Gang Replaces Dee with a Monkey", he smirks when he finds out the monkey may have sexually assaulted him in his sleep.
• Big Eater: To the indicate of gaining a meaning amount of weight in Flavor seven.
• The Big Guy: Seems to retrieve that he's this, what with his constant claims of being the sheriff of Paddy'southward, but everyone else is all too aware that he's anything but. In the episode where his role in the V-Human Band is determined, he fights for the position of "The Muscle" before settling on "The Brain", while in reality he'southward more or less The Lancer.
• Blatant Lies: In "The Gang Misses the Boat", Mac hooks up with an attractive woman named Dusty (she's, in her own words, "super into affections dust") and spends multiple scenes with her in private. Towards the end of the episode, Dennis storms into Paddy'due south back part, from where everyone tin can hear Mac and Dusty having sex... except when he opens the door, Mac and Dusty are simply reading magazines while making sexual activity noises.

  Dennis: [barges through door] ... what the hell's going on in hither? What is this?
  Mac: Oh... we totally only banged or whatever.
  Dennis: Y'all're fully clothed, Mac! Accept you been pretending to blindside this chick the entire time?
  Mac: ... no.
  Dusty: He can't fifty-fifty go it upwards with me.

• Boisterous Weakling:
  • Mac's always eager to fight, but in the instances where he doesn't simply run away, his fights are always Curbstomp Battles in his opponent's favor. At 1 indicate he knocks himself unconscious when trying to remove Charlie from the bar.
  • Of course, he somewhen wins a one-sided fight himself, admitting on a bunch of kids and with Charlie's help.
• Bouncer: His self-appointed position at Paddy's Pub, though he rarely attempts to ever exercise anything relating to it and proves to be utterly incompetent at it during the few times when he does. When he tries to throw Charlie out as a sit-in of his skill he fails miserably and somehow manages to choke ''himself'' out.
• Butt-Monkey: The later seasons play up his patheticness and cocky-delusion to such extremes that even the other characters begin to discuss what a loser he is, often directly in front of him. It has reached a point where he now regularly contends with Dee for the spot of The Friend Nobody Likes, a title that she held uncontested for most of the show'due south run.
• Catchphrase:
  • "What's upward, bitches?"
  • Many episodes showtime with Mac entering the bar and saying "Guys, I've got news!" or a variation thereof. Lampshaded in "Chardee MacDennis" when the Gang are bored out of their minds and get excited when Mac walks in considering they recall he'll have some big announcement to make that will absolve them of their monotony.
• Celeb Crush: Has a matter for Chase Utley, to the point of writing him love letters (which he claims are platonic). "The Gang Gets Extreme: Habitation Makeover Edition" besides reveals that he wants to impregnate Danica Patrick.
• Character Evolution: Actually manages to accept his homosexuality for skilful in "Hero Or Hate Criminal offence?". While coming to terms with being gay doesn't do anything to affect his horrible personality, his insecurities about who he is are a defining office of his character, so overcoming them, even if information technology'due south only slightly, is still a big step for him.
• Characterization Marches On: In earlier seasons, Mac is portrayed as directly (with a fetish for older women). In afterward seasons, he's a closeted, bigoted gay man. This is mayhap an example of negative Character Development: presumably, equally Mac's allure to men grows more pronounced and harder to deny, he becomes more than reactionary and pseudo-religious in defence force.
• Chewbacca Defense: He tunes out scientific findings that conflict with his behavior by pointing out that the "facts" are continuously beingness corrected equally science develops (World being the center of the universe, tide theory, the medicinal properties of mercury, etc.) whereas the claims of his religion have never been empirically disproven.

  "Science is a lie sometimes."

• Churchgoing Villain: He's a member of the Gang but nonetheless regularly attends church building.
• Coming-Out Story: Over Seasons 11 & 12.
• Competition Freak: He finds opportunity for competition in the most ridiculous of things - e.g. proving that he is the to the lowest degree fond of peachy things up - and whenever he'south excluded from said contest, he tries to foster rivalries between other members of the Gang, as seen in "The Gang Beats Boggs".

  Mac: Aye. I need you lot to showtime a McGwire/Sosa-like rivalry with Dee.
  Charlie: Expect, I remember you're getting, like, besides worked upwardly about this thing. Tin nosotros just drink the beer and hang out, you know?

• Deceptive Legacy: While researching his Irish heritage, he calls his mom and learns that their family is actually Dutch and his father's real last name is Vandross. Or so she says. The Flavor 15 finale reveals Mac is in fact Irish and the Gang paid off Mrs. Mac to lie because they didn't desire Mac constantly talking near it.
• Badly Craves Amore: Equally a result of growing up with an absentee father and an indifferent female parent, Mac clamors for positive attention whenever he can get information technology.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • While he'due south always presented as far, far less skilled of a fighter than he claims to be, the bear witness switches betwixt whether he is physically pretty strong just lacking in any stamina or fighting ability, or completely weak in every sense of the word. He can also range anywhere from showing explicit involvement in women (and having no standards) to beingness in a Transparent Closet depending on what's funniest (this was dropped afterward and he has officially been out of the closet since Flavour 12).
  • Mac'southward intelligence is another attribute that is subject to variation. Some episodes depict Mac as existence adequately crafty while others portray him as a hopeless ditz, sometimes with less common sense than even Charlie.
• Dirty Coward: Only Dennis tin compare to him in terms of sheer cowardliness. In one example, he decided to beat up Bruce Mathis merely freaked out and bailed before confronting him; in some other, he pushed Dee forward and ran abroad when threatened with a mugging.
• Practise Non Telephone call Me "Paul": Doesn't similar being called past his real name, Ronald McDonald.
• Dumbass Has a Indicate: In "Reynolds five. Reynolds: The Cereal Defence force", the topic shifts to the subject of creationism. Mac, The Fundamentalist, is generally framed as foolish for his refusal to believe in development, merely he manages to make a denoting argument confronting Dennis, because he successfully proves that Dennis doesn't know how evolution really works, then his "faith" in it is no more than valid than his organized religion in Creationism - especially since the scientists he believes in tin can be wrong. Dennis is unable to come upwards with a skilful reply considering Mac has a point: Dennis has never thought almost the topic beyond blindly trusting smart people, and said smart people can be incorrect.
• Impaired Muscle: On the occasions where he really is shown to have some forcefulness, he'south nevertheless likewise dimwitted and unskilled to put it to much use.
• Eat the Dog: Literally. Subsequently spending month going insane from living in the suburbs and feeling like Dennis is neglecting his feelings, Mac spitefully allows their canis familiaris Dennis Jr. to starve to expiry and secretly feeds it to Dennis. When Mac reveals the truth, Dennis is appalled while Mac belts out an Evil Laugh far more than terrifying than annihilation we've seen from him before.
• Eat the Prove: He has eaten paper contracts in social club to make them invalid. It hasn't ever worked.
• Egocentrically Religious: Only ever seems to think that he'due south Cosmic when he needs to rub it in his friends' faces. Otherwise, he's perfectly fine with completely going against the teachings of his religion. Besides, whenever he prays it'southward always for fulfillment of his own selfish, ugly desires (typically in the form of asking for divine retribution against his so-called friends).
• Embarrassing Nickname:
  • In high school, he was called Ronnie the Rat.
  • When he joins The Mafia in "The Gang Gets Whacked", the gangsters take to calling him "Pussyhands".

• Even Bad Men Dear Their Mamas: Mistreatment of mothers is ane of the many things that prepare him off.
• Fifty-fifty Evil Has Loved Ones: Mac is the only member of the Gang who is consistently openly affectionate with his parents. This is straight tied with his "Well Done, Son!" Guy nature, equally both Mrs. Mac and Luther more often than not respond to him with indifference or outright annoyance.
• Fifty-fifty Evil Has Standards:
  • He is typically the only i to protest a scheme that the Gang cooks upward if information technology'due south as well morally reprehensible and when he wants out, he sometimes just leaves and says "I'yard washing my hands of the whole situation!" He unremarkably comes back to their schemes after leaving, though.
  • He finds Dennis'southward predilection towards Date Rape disturbing, and once told Dennis and Dee off for their plan to go along welfare after their unemployment runs out.

  Mac: Welfare is for people who need information technology, like drug addicts and single mothers. It's not for over privileged pieces of shit who want to waste millions in taxpayer dollars.

  • In "PTSDee", he's appalled by Frank's casual killing of women and children in the virtual reality game they've been playing.
  • He's disgusted when a priest he'd befriended turns out to have pedophilic urges rather than being gay similar Mac had assumed.
• Everybody Knew Already: The Gang'south nonchalant reaction to Mac finally announcing that he's gay.

  Dee: No shit.

  Mac: Oh, you lot knew this already?

  Dennis: What, that you're gay? Yeah...

  Frank: From the day we met.

  Charlie: Yeah, ever.

• Extreme Doormat: Not initially, but he does gradually become ane over time. Mac was never as tough as he claims to be, although, to his credit, he was more assertive in the show'southward earlier seasons. Over time, nonetheless, Mac has become more meek and docile, namely towards those he craves approval from, like his male parent or Dennis. Compare his regular bickering and fighting with Dennis from the earlier episodes to his more submissive demeanor in the later ones. Justified in that years of living with a man like Dennis have gradually eroded Mac's self-esteem, making him less confident and more susceptible to Dennis'south domineering ways.
• Fake Band: Chemical Toilet.
• Faking the Expressionless: "Mac and Charlie Die" Parts 1 and 2. He and Charlie faux their expiry in society to escape from Mac's father, who they believe is trying to kill them.
• Fatty Bastard: In Flavor 7, where he gains a rather grotesque amount of weight.
• Feigning Intelligence: Office of his M.A.C. system involves posing equally Dennis' approachable Cute Bookworm roommate to lull women into running to him for condolement after Dennis inevitably breaks their hearts. If you lot've seen whatsoever episode of the series, you'd know he'southward annihilation but.
• Fetish: A recurring trend with Mac is his interest in various niche fetishes, such as older women. The staff describes him as "spinning around, trying out unlike things, but inevitably ending upwardly on a dick".
• Fighting Irish: He is a very hot-blooded and confrontational Irish-American. However, in Flavour 15, the Gang leads Mac to believe he is actually Dutch, which makes him go through a complete identity crisis, every bit he'd always prided himself on being this trope.
• Flanderization:
  • While Mac's homoerotic obsession with muscles and Dennis was ever a thing, it steadily increases beyond the series, to the indicate where he is outright confirmed to exist a closeted gay man in the later episodes and his repressed sexuality has become 1 of his defining character traits. Charlie lampshades this in "Fourth dimension's Upwardly For The Gang", where he struggles to ascertain Mac's role in the group before settling on him existence "just, like, our gay guy now."
  • Similarly, Mac'due south Desperately Craves Amore side has steadily been played up more than and more until, by the later seasons, he by and large spends more than time interim similar a simpering puppy canis familiaris than he does playing up his usual pseudo-badass schtick.
• Freudian Alibi: His parents' neglect led him to constantly seek approval and attention in adulthood.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: He becomes this in "Mac Day" due to his repeated deprival of who he really is. Later episodes prove the Gang expressing more than consistent frustration with him, to the point of openly stating that they hate him several times. As well hinted to be this in Flavor 1 earlier Dennis, Charlie, and Dee went through major Flanderization. Dorsum then the Gang would never hesitate to point out what an asshole he was and people exterior the Gang could never stand him.
• The Fundamentalist: More so equally the series progresses. Dialed Upwards to Eleven in "Mac Day", where he openly admits he's using his twenty-four hours to try to convert the rest of the grouping to his faith. He scales it back later on finally coming out in Flavour 12.
• Fun T-Shirt: Punny/funny T-shirts are a staple of his wardrobe.

    Yard-Due north

• Given Name Reveal: His total proper name goes unmentioned until "The High School Reunion, Role ane", which dramatically reveals it to be "Ronald McDonald".
• Global Ignorance: Apparently thinks Philadelphia and Detroit are states.
• Gym Bunny: Mac shows shades of this stereotype, e.yard. his love of sports stems partly from his obsession with the male physique, and he merely ever goes to the gym to ogle beefcakes and work on his glamour muscles.
• Pilus-Trigger Atmosphere: Intense, moody and aggressively passionate are some of the best traits to describe Mac and his example is a chip due to how violent and threatening he tin can be when he feels offended.
• Has a Type: While he'south not picky about who he has sexual activity with (see Anything That Moves), he has consistently shown a preference for beefy hunks (making his attraction to unfit and waifish Dennis very ironic).
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: When in the cupboard, Mac would vent his repressed homosexuality either with a sense of Catholic homophobia or would try and make his gay urges seem straight by roping his friends into it, such as when he tried making all his friends oil up trunk builders in "Mac Day" or insisting in that location exist a shower scene (consummate with an unnecessary ass-shot) in "The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6". After he officially comes out as gay in "Hero or Hate Criminal offence?", he ends upwardly completely switching gears and frequently bringing up his sexuality to justify things in his favor whether it actually makes sense or not.
• Heaven Seeker: Much to the incredulity of his friends, Mac volition occasionally pass up to participate in the Gang'due south schemes if he believes they compromise the likelihood of him getting into heaven (which, for him, is populated by hunky angels and a buff shirtless god). Played for extreme drama in "Mac Finds His Pride," when Mac tries to communicate to his begetter the tension he feels betwixt beingness gay and wanting to be accustomed past God through a beautiful and genuinely moving contemporary dance routine, with a woman representing God as his partner.
• He-Man Woman Hater: While all the male members of the Gang are pretty misogynistic, Mac'south the merely one to explicitly country that he hates women. Out of the Gang, he also has the worst relationship with Dee. It'south to the point that even Charlie of all people acknowledges that Mac has "really weird women bug".
• Hereditary Homosexuality: Mac, whose Armored Cupboard Gay status is a longstanding Running Gag for most of the series, has two gay cousins. The first one appears as an easily forgotten Chip Character from the airplane pilot. The other one, "Country Mac", is presented as a Foil who acts similar Mac but without all his bad qualities (including being open and confident with his sexuality). Mac's father has as well displayed bisexual tendencies, although that might exist a consequence of having spent years in prison.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners:
  • With Dennis, though "heterosexual" is debatable in this instance. The commentary for "Mac and Dennis Pause Up" has the staff (perhaps jokingly) suggest that Mac and Dennis are peradventure queer and in a pre-sexual romantic relationship that neither is completely conscious of.
  • Mac plays the trope straighter (...ha ha) with Charlie, who he has known since childhood.
• Subconscious Depths:
  • He comes out to his father via an interpretive dance routine that's both technically impressive and genuinely moving. In general, there's an implication that most of what makes Mac a bad person is that he feels the need to obsessively live upwards to his ideal of masculinity and to expect cool in front of the residue of the Gang.
  • Judging from "The Gang Buys a Roller Rink", he actually was a successful drug dealer in his youth, though however non as much of a badass he tried to look while doing information technology.
• Loftier-School Hustler: A negative case. He dealt weed in loftier schoolhouse in a selfish bid to be popular, and ratted out his contest to clean up the market, earning him the nickname "Ronnie the Rat".
• Hilariously Abusive Babyhood: His dad is a Notorious Parent who spent a bulk of his son'south life in prison, tries to utilize him has a mule for his misdeeds whenever he tries reconnecting with him and purposefully named his son "Ronald MacDonald" every bit a savage joke on him. His mother is a chain-smoking woman who sees her son more as a nuisance than her ain child. Both are shown to be emotionally-distant to him at best, genuinely contemptuous at worst, and are a contributing gene to Mac's pathological need for the approval of others.
• Holier Than Thou: Mac is decumbent to being very cocky-righteous, though he's definitely not a shining pillar morality.
• Hot-Blooded: He is quick to acrimony, and has a tendency to act outset and retrieve never (eastward.k. he offers to take a Blood Oath and slices his hand before everyone actually agrees to it).
• Hypocrite: Mac considers himself to be a very devout Catholic but demonstrates a poor noesis of the church'south beliefs and rituals and lives by absolutely none of the church's teachings. About notably, he joins an anti-ballgame movement until he believes that he got a girl pregnant, so suggests that she get an abortion. Afterwards on, he goes to confession with the intention of asking the priest to smite the residue of the Gang, even as the priest explains Mac is supposed to be repenting for his own sins.
• I Am Large Boned: In the seventh flavor, after putting on 50 lbs., he kept insisting that it was muscle, or that he was "cultivating mass", fifty-fifty after discovering he had become diabetic because of his weight gain. He finally admits that he is fat after in the season.
• I Banged Your Mom: Sleeps with Barbara Reynolds in the accordingly titled "Mac Bangs Dennis' Mom". In Season 9, when Dennis jokes that Mac has never had an orgasm, Mac immediately blows up and screams in Dennis' confront: "I've had orgasms! I've had tons of orgasms! I've had one with your mom, dude!"
• I Just Want to Exist Badass: Mac possesses a desperate desire to emulate the tough-as-nails manlike stars of the 80s activeness movies that he's obsessed with. Unfortunately for him, his Dirty Coward nature and lack of existent strength makes that zip simply a distant dream.
• I Merely Want to Be Loved: Along with his desire to exist an ultra-badass, Mac is as well deeply insecure about the possibility that his friends and parents don't care about him, and volition pathetically do whatever he can to earn their affection. However, his deportment tend to only lead to them disliking him even more.
• Implausible Deniability: Mac has a trend of making ridiculous and blatantly faux subconscious justifications for things about his life that he doesn't similar (about ordinarily, his weakness, his cowardice, his sexuality and his parents not caring about him).
• Incompatible Orientation: He has a thing for Dennis, who is at least ostensibly direct and outright tells Mac that it's never going to happen.
• Incredibly Obvious Bug: When he and Charlie fake their own deaths, they hibernate in the air-vent during their joint funeral at Paddy's, talking at full volume. This alerts Dennis that they aren't actually expressionless.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Likes to hype himself up every bit an ultra-tough man'due south homo, just is actually a deeply insecure person who constantly worries (and not without good reason) that his friends and family don't care about him.
• Insane Troll Logic: He believes that due to his realization that he's gay, God can't possibly exist existent. After surviving the boat sinking, he flips it effectually, claiming to be direct because God supposedly saved them from drowning.
• Insufferable Imbecile: Despite his self-appointed position every bit the groups "Brains", Mac is an big-headed, Holier Than Thou, misogynistic dimwit who badly clings to a hopelessly untrue vision of himself every bit a respected badass and devout Catholic despite him barely understanding the religion and misinterpreting the bits he does know (information technology'south unremarkably Dennis, who is openly an Atheist, who corrects him). He besides needs it spelled out to him why he shouldn't tell people in advance that he plans to manipulate them, or why he should keep quiet about of import information, until later on he's already done so.
• Instant Proficient: Oftentimes believes himself to exist this only he really, really isn't.
• Is That Cute Kid Yours?: After finding a baby in the dumpster behind Paddy'due south, Dee and Mac decide to enhance it and put it into showbiz. When a passerby asks his proper noun, Mac replies with D.B. — which is short for Dumpster Baby.
• Jerkass to Ane: While Mac can be a pretty big wiggle to the entire Gang, he's mostly at his nigh vicious towards Dee, and has no problems snapping at her and telling her to "close the fuck upward."
• Wiggle with a Middle of Gold: While non as evident every bit Charlie, Mac can come off as this occasionally. For example, underneath the overblown transphobia he seemed to genuinely take feelings for Carmen. Additionally, he has the best parental relationship out of the Gang (even if the affection is mostly i-sided), and multiple They Really Do Love Each Other moments with Dennis and Charlie.
• The Kirk: Mac is temperamentally directly in between the mindlessly impulsive and aggressive Frank and Charlie and the rational-notwithstanding-calculating Dennis and Dee. It varies depending on the episode which one of these extremes he gravitates closer towards.
• Know-Aught Know-It-All: With respect to religion, Mac likes to act like he's spiritually wise, but it'south clear that virtually of his noesis of faith is what he's gleaned from Small Reference Pools. He is utterly blindsided when Carmen's boyfriend manages to counter his attempts to cite the Bible to justify homophobia with a Biblical passage nigh beating slaves to death.
• Like Father, Like Son: Mac tries to deliberately invoke this trope by dealing drugs, emulating his father's appearance and acting tough. Subverted in that Luther used to exist a genuinely terrifying and capable criminal whereas Mac is a cowardly, incompetent pocket-size-time cheat. Meet "Well Washed, Son!" Guy beneath. A later episode does reveal, however, that Luther is bisexual, further highlighting Mac's own repressed attraction to men.
• Likes Older Women: As a result of sleeping with Dennis and Dee's mother. He later tries to claw up with Barbara'southward sister at her married man's funeral.
• Limited Wardrobe: Mac has been wearing the same blackness gainsay boots and blue Dickies chinos since Episode one, with few exceptions beyond costumes. Rob McElhenney claims Mac only owns the one pair of pants, and that the wardrobe department has contradistinct them for McElhenney's various weight fluctuations.
• The Loins Sleep This evening: Past Flavour 10, he can't even get an erection while trying to have sexual practice with a woman anymore, as Mac'due south electric current "fling", Dusty, reports in "The Gang Misses the Gunkhole". Mac claims information technology's because she isn't hot enough, though nobody's fooled.
• Dearest Martyr: Later seasons increasingly portray him equally harboring romantic feelings for Dennis, who routinely abuses, belittles and demeans him.
• Manchild: While Dennis, Charlie, and Dee show shades of this likewise, Mac is past far the biggest example. He's constantly doing childish stunts for his "Projection Badass" videos, and notice how he acts someday he shares the screen with his parents.
• Manly Gay: Played with. While Mac, who is attracted to men, has an obsession with the male physique and stereotypically masculine hobbies such as sports, farthermost stunts and actions movies, his interest in these pursuits is distinctly framed as being the effect of his extremely kittenish concept of manliness. So while he in reality isn't actually this trope at all, he very much wants to be.
• Martial Arts and Crafts: Inserts arbitrary roundhouse kicks and karate chops into pretty much everything he does.
• Miles Gloriosus: He brags about being a swell martial artist. In reality, he'southward a Dirty Coward who knows nothing about fighting. He did block a punch from a black belt once, but only to get knocked out soon afterward.
• Mistaken for Gay: Seen in the original pilot that was pitched to FX. (The scene didn't make information technology to the series proper, wherein he is, in fact, canonically gay).
• Mistaken for Murderer: The episode "Mac is a Series Killer." He's actually banging Carmen the Transsexual. Again.
• Mistaken for Racist: In "The Gang Gets Racist." Subverted as other episodes reveal him to have some pretty potent racist tendencies.
• Mood-Swinger: In "The Gang Gets Analyzed.", Mac goes from angry ranting to low to maniacal laughter in the infinite of about a infinitesimal at the beginning of his session. Lampshaded by the therapist, who asks him whether this is normal.
• Mr. Exposition: Generally gets left with the duty of explaining the Gang'due south various rituals to Frank and the audition, as well as speedily informing the others of any events currently going on in Philly in gild to go the plot rolling. Lampshaded in "Chardee Macdennis: The Game of Games".
• Mr. Fanservice: Season 13 has him learn an impressively chiseled physique, which is shown prominently in promotional ads for the season.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: In Season 13, his new muscular physique makes him strong enough to elevator Dee up by the crotch one-handed.
• Neat Freak: Much similar Dennis, he'south very make clean and organized where his living infinite is concerned. He even cleans Charlie's flat when he moves in with him for an episode. He and beau Nifty Freak Dennis do, still, manage to trash Dee's apartment and the suburban home they buy to escape information technology.
• Never My Fault: Whenever he fails to perform well in something he brags about, whether his fighting prowess, bouncer skills, religious cognition or physical toughness, he always has an alibi. These range fron the light in his eyes to an undetected gradient in the terrain, but often circumduct effectually somehow beingness too potent, fast or smart to properly react to the trouble. Subsequently coming out every bit gay, he blames his lack of a fellow on how "it'southward difficult out there."
• No Bisexuals: Despite showing overt interest in women in the first seven seasons, Mac is only e'er described as existence gay after his sexuality begins getting discussed in-universe. While the idea of the Gang simply existence too ignorant to fifty-fifty consider the possibility of bisexuality is very plausible, Mac himself notably stops showing interest in women afterwards this indicate. Given the kind of women he used to pursue, notwithstanding, information technology'southward not hard to imagine these were simply The Beard.
• No Shirt, Long Jacket: Sports this wait in "Brand Paddy's Great Over again" with his duster in society to evidence off his new physique.
• Non Helping Your Case: Mac has a tendency to prove people right when they signal out his character flaws. From "The Gang Dances Their Asses Off":

  Frank: I put us all on a ranking organization so y'all kids would care about your jobs.
  Mac: What'south my rank?
  Frank: Y'all're 3rd.
  Mac: What? Why am I third?
  Frank: Likewise volatile.
  Mac: BULLSHIT!

    O-Z

• OOC Is Serious Business: Later finding out Dennis, his all-time friend, has been keeping letters from his incarcerated father from him (and ripping them up). Rather than go aroused and trying to attack Dennis, similar he normally would, Mac is totally serenity and sadly sits on the floor, despondent.
• Only One Proper noun: Mac. Merely Mac. Information technology was believed to be his last name, because his parents are referred to as Mrs. Mac and Luther Mac to go along the gag going. But in "The Gang Cracks The Freedom Bell", in which Mac, Dennis and Charlie tell the story of The Gang'south 1776 counterparts swell the Liberty Bell, he is referred to as "MacDonald." "The High School Reunion" gives united states of america the whole affair: Ronald McDonald.
• Just Sane by Comparison: Despite his greed, overblown self-conviction, stupidity and cruelty, he can be the the But Sane Human at times. He's generally more rational and sensible than both Frank and Charlie while besides being much less sociopathic and insensitive than Dennis and Dee, making him the closest thing the Gang has to a "regular guy" and allowing him to have a slightly greater amount of lucidity in sure situations. This is best shown during Dennis' infamous "implications" voice communication, which he reacts to with understated horror (compared to Dee, who is shown to not just approve of, just have her own variation of the scheme), and Charlie's assault on a mall Santa, where he attempts to restrain him. The terminal few episodes of Flavor 12 emphasize this in him.
• Oral Fixation: Has a addiction of chewing/sucking on pens, probably as a manifestation of his repressed homosexuality. Information technology gets so bad that Dennis has to keep all the pens in their apartment hidden.
• Paper Tiger: To his credit, Mac is fairly impressively muscular, merely Dennis claims that he only works out his "glamour muscles", significant he only builds muscle to wait good and is actually worthless physically. From what we encounter of Mac's able-bodied abilities, Dennis wasn't lying. Played with in Flavor 13 in which he manages to lift up Dee past the crotch with 1 paw; however, despite his improved physical abilities, Mac is nonetheless a terrible fighter as in Flavor fourteen, Charlie manages to overwhelm him in a fight.
• Playing Both Sides: In "Frank Retires", he switches betwixt siding with Dennis/Dee and Charlie, and subsequently Charlie/Dee and Dennis, depending on which side he thinks volition benefit him the about.

  Mac: I'm playing both sides so that I always come up out on peak.

• Politically Incorrect Villain: He'southward a homophobic fundamentalist. And he not only thinks Blackface can be done tastefully, but has done it himself. He has as well referred to Italians as "dagos" at least twice onscreen, started going to a different church when his regular one become popular with Vietnamese people, and believes that Mark Zuckerberg "and his Jews" are involved in a conspiracy to topple various governments. He appears to have loosened upward his homophobia considerably following the events of "The Gang Goes to Hell", to the point of not just calling Frank out for using homophobic hate spoken communication against him, just being able to eloquently and effectively explain why the slur that Frank used should be considered as hate speech during the events of "Hero or Hate Crime?". At the end of that aforementioned episode, he finally accepts himself as gay, seemingly removing his homophobia entirely in the procedure.
• Progressively Prettier:
  • Inverted in Season 7, where he of a sudden gains 60 pounds and becomes a lot less good looking. Rob McElhenney was actually really bellyaching at the trend of Progressively Prettier in tv, particularly for actors that play characters that would accept no access to (blatantly obvious) plastic surgery or personal trainers, so he put on a ton of weight merely to mock the do.
  • Played straight in Flavor 13, where he goes in the reverse direction and develops an extremely well-sculpted physique and becomes even more muscular than he ever had been previously. Rob McElhenney did this equally another, more on-the-nose parody of this trope, noting the absurd number of male characters on television that possess perfectly chiseled abs, even when there is no logical reason for them to, for the sake of existence able to do Shirtless Scenes.
• Puppy-Canis familiaris Eyes: 1 of his signature looks, which he flashes whenever he wants to become his fashion or is feeling sympathetic or confused.
• Raging Stiffie: A recurring problem for Mac, who gets hands aroused when in shut proximity to beefcakes.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech communication: The simply member of the Gang to be deservedly and accurately called out by the others on a regular ground. His constant fibbing and bragging tend to get on everyone's fretfulness pretty quickly.

  Charlie: Learn how to boot. Accept one karate class, if you're and then into karate!"

• Ruby-red Oni, Blue Oni: The Ruby-red Oni to Dennis' Blue, though it's played with a bit. Mac is quick to get angry and resort to violence, but besides tends to be one of the more reasonable and level-headed members of the group in times of crisis.
• Religious Bruiser: Mac believes himself to be this. In reality, he'southward incredibly weak-willed and cowardly and is simply ever peculiarly religious when it immediately benefits him.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: He vocalizes his kicks and punches to make himself announced badass.
• Schemer: When he was younger, he was a drug dealer in high schoolhouse and ratted on all the other dealers to gratuitous up the market place and he also created The M.A.C. system for seducing Dennis' castoffs: Move-in After Completion.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Whenever he's really, really happy, he emits loud, high-pitched squeals of delight more befitting a v-year-one-time (best demonstrated in "A Very Sunny Christmas" when he'due south psyched virtually the Christmas gifts).
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Played with in his dynamic with Dennis. While Mac is obsessed with stereotypically "manly" pursuits such as body building, extreme stunts and martial arts, he's distinctly the more emotionally-vulnerable and submissive half of the duo.
• Serial Rapist: It's stated early on on that he took function in sexually assaulting Cricket during the Gang's teen years (where they would chase him downward and tea-bag him), which he outright points out is rape when Dennis performs it on him during his sleep. He'southward not quite every bit much a monster every bit Dennis, though, as he's actively disturbed past Dennis' more extreme and explicit sexual assaults/harassment, but he's still then much a predator that his problematic behaviour was outlined in "Fourth dimension's Up for the Gang".
• Serious Business organisation: He takes the revelation that he's supposedly Dutch and not Irish very seriously.
• Seven Deadly Sins: Pride and Gluttony.
  • Pride: As a means of detracting from his homosexuality, Mac overcompensates past trying to make himself seem more badass than he really is. On multiple occasions he tries to make himself seem impressive and badass, building upwardly his glamour muscles instead of physically useful muscles, trying to do martial arts moves that he does not know how to apply and trying to plough everything into a competition that he himself thinks he could win, only for his attempts at accomplishing them to fall apartment and make him look like a weak loser.
  • Gluttony: In Season vii, Mac gains 50 pounds, becoming gluttonous to the point of conveying an entire trash bag of chimichangas everywhere he goes. This was meant to be a Deconstructive Parody of sitcom characters never seeming to age or change over years of the show's timeline.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Invoked in "The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Honour", where Dennis forces him and Dee to have this dynamic to draw in customers a la Sam and Diane. Unfortunately, rather than flirty sexual tension, Mac and Dee's tension is much more aggressive, violent and founded on common hatred rather than any sort of attraction.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Mac usually wears sleeveless t-shirts in order to announced more than badass and show off his tats, and fifty-fifty makes the rest of the Gang do the aforementioned when they have to all listen to him for the mean solar day in "Mac Twenty-four hours".
• Smart Ball: Easily the biggest victim of this. Depending on the episode, his intelligence tin can vary wildly from being the most rational fellow member of the Gang to even dumber than Charlie.
• Smug Serpent: Mac is a cocky-righteous narcissist with an overinflated ego and delusions of grandeur and this obnoxious behavior ofttimes makes him disrespected by the remainder of The Gang which is total of Smug Snakes like Dennis and Dee.
• Sore Loser: The Gang has to boom their Chardee MacDennis game board to the bar because Mac will always endeavour to flip it in one case he inevitably starts losing.
• STD Immunity: Averted. Mac never uses condoms during sex due to his Catholic behavior, and accumulates diseases as a upshot.

  Frank: Mac, you're too low-class. All those women are going to retrieve they volition catch something from you.

  Mac: (happily) They will.

• Pasty Fingers: He ofttimes instinctively steals things he doesn't really need (e.g. trying to pocket an ashtray in "The Gang Goes on Family Fight" despite having given upwardly smoking by that time).
• The Stool Pigeon: Mac was a drug dealer in high schoolhouse, and would articulate the marketplace of other drug dealers by snitching on the competition. This earned him the unfortunate nickname "Ronnie the Rat".
• Stout Strength: This varies in Flavor seven when he puts on 50 pounds.
• Straight Gay: Played with. While Mac doesn't ever display any stereotypically camp behavior, his uncanny ability to constantly spout out homoerotic innuendo still makes his attraction to men obvious. After finally coming out, he expresses pride in the fact that he shows no outward signs of his homosexuality, and gets angry when Dennis implies otherwise. Downplayed in Season 13, where he starts to human activity more than effeminate, though not enough to qualify as Military camp Gay either.
• Straw Misogynist: While all of the Gang have misogynistic tendencies, Mac is the nearly open almost his hatred of women, something implied to exist a product of his closeted homosexuality and the diverse coping mechanisms he uses to justify it.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Later seasons take him slicking his hair back, making him resemble Luther more than closely.
• Tattooed Crook: He has a number of "tribal" tattoos on his arms which he likes to show off. Subverted, of course, in that Mac's non the hardened criminal he pretends to be (although much similar the balance of the Gang he has done a lot of illegal things).
• Teeny Weenie: Dee and Charlie joke about him having one after he brags nearly "hanging dong" on the trolley in "Thunder Gun Express".

  Dee: Looked similar a push in a fur glaze.

  Charlie: It was more than of a ding than a dong, really.

• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Frequently greets the Gang with "What'south up, bitches?!"
• Throw the Canis familiaris a Bone: As Mac has go more of a Butt-Monkey in later seasons, the show occasionally makes an endeavor to be nice to him:
  • Downplayed in "Hero or Hate Offense?", when he finally comes out for practiced and the rest of the Gang is actually supportive. Of form, they all still hate him, only they decide to let him have this minor victory and non ruin the moment for him until the side by side solar day.
  • In "Mac Finds His Pride", he actually manages to impress Frank and a large grouping of prisoners with his dance performance. The episode treating Mac's feelings seriously is likewise throwing the canis familiaris a bone in and of itself, since his religion and sexuality had both been treated as punchlines up to that bespeak.
  • In "The Gang Carries A Corpse Upward A Mountain", Mac actually pulls his weight when helping the Gang carry Shelley'due south corpse up a cliff, and the episode never mocks his physical strength although it's worth noting that Mac surprisingly doesn't brag about his muscles here. Lampshaded by Dennis, who tells Charlie and Frank non to acknowledge to Mac that he is pretty potent (at least in comparison to the rest of the Gang).
• Token Religious Teammate: The but member of the Gang to profess whatsoever kind of religious faith.
• Too Dumb to Live: He tells a mob dominate's wife that he won't sleep with her because she's gross in "The Gang Gets Whacked".
• Took a Level in Kindness: He's notwithstanding violent, short-tempered and misogynistic, but he'south slightly less of a jerk in the later on seasons, particularly after he comes to terms with his sexuality and tones down his The Fundamentalist tendencies accordingly. This is particularly notable due to information technology being the only instance of positive grapheme growth in the serial.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Blue Gatorade and Mac'southward Famous Mac and Cheese.
• Transparent Closet: By Season 9, Mac's sexuality is obvious to the rest of the Gang, even though he himself is still in denial. No longer the case every bit of Season 12's "Hero Or Detest Crime?", where Mac finally accepts his homosexuality for good, but he even so insists that he showed no outward signs of homosexuality before he came out.

  Charlie: I know we've never said this as a group, just Mac'due south gay, right?

  (the rest of the Gang agrees)

• Uke: No matter how fat or muscular or regular he gets, a power bottom Mac is non, and he displays consistent and needful servile behavior whilst anally pleasuring himself when he's alone with such implements every bit pool drains and a customized exercise bike that fists him as he pedals chosen the Donkey Pounder 4000. That is non to say that he is harmless or docile, equally he'due south sexually blackmailed at least one priest and he is non beyond engaging in some Münchausen Syndrome in his ceaseless quest to be useful.
• Underdressed for the Occasion: His idea of formalwear is a tie over a polo shirt. The occasions where he does apparel upward almost e'er have him ridiculously overdressed.
• Unfortunate Name: Ronald McDonald. And his nickname was Ronnie the Rat for narcing on drug dealers in loftier school.
• Verbal Tic: Tends to pepper his sentences with the word "bro" oftentimes.
• "Well Done, Son!" Guy: Mac, nonetheless stuck on adolescence, desperately seeks the blessing of his creepy wayward father Luther. While Luther is in prison, Mac tries unsuccessfully to evidence him that he's "hard." When Luther get-go gets out of prison house, Mac becomes emotionally invested in getting his parents dorsum together, sputtering, "This is about happy boys!" He fifty-fifty tries to bail with his father by driving him to the houses of everybody who was responsible for getting him convicted. In the end of "Mac & Charlie Die Office II," Luther leaves a note telling Mac that he still loves him, fifty-fifty though Mac has driven him away with his abiding screw-ups.
• What the Fu Are You Doing?: On the occasions where he shows off his martial arts skills it becomes painfully obvious that he has none. He too consistently uses the term "roundhouse kick" to describe what'due south closer to a leaping version of a Taekwondo-fashion spinning hook kick. An actual roundhouse kicking involves no spinning or jumping any.
• Wimp Fight: Often, given all the above tropes, but a highlight would be his "fight" with Charlie in "Frank Retires." Said "fight" consisted of Charlie going limp and Mac strangling himself into unconsciousness.
• Would Hit a Girl: Has no issues elbowing Dee in the face or punching her in the crotch.
• Would Hurt a Child: Definitely. After all, they can't really fight back that well, unlike their parents.
• Yes-Man: Mac can exist a existent sycophant who's desperate for approving and serves every bit a Bumbling Sidekick to both Dennis and Frank. Frank even calls him a follower.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphiaMac

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