More than you’ll never know: Looking back on Arrested Development

By Jim Feighan
Collegian Staff
September 20, 2006

The term “dysfunctional family” is thrown around constantly when discussing sitcoms on television, but Arrested Development’s Bluth family is the dysfunctional family. Barely held together by the middle son Michael (Jason Bateman), the Bluths are a once-wealthy family from Orange County. The father, George Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor) founded the Bluth Company as a corrupt model-home housing corporation. After George Sr. is arrested on charges of personal expenses, fraud and “light treason,” the rest of the family must depend on Michael to save their failing business; hence, they are in a state of arrested development.

As mentioned earlier, in the center of the Bluth family is Michael, the nice-guy businessman who is eager to become president of his family’s company. Always looking down on him is his father, George Sr., who, despite his efforts to humiliate and control his children, is actually a loving father. Then there is his wife, Lucille (Jessica Walters), the martini-soaking aristocrat who may be the world’s worst mother (and driver). Lucille is closely followed by Buster (Tony Hale), Michael’s panic-stricken younger brother who is bizarrely dependent of his mother — it may have something to do with the 11 months he spent in her womb. The oldest son is G.O.B. (Will Arnett), the hopeless magician who has a reputation of making “huge mistakes.” I would also like to note, without bias, that G.O.B. is quite possibly one of the funniest television characters ever.

Lindsay Bluth (Portia De Rossi), the only daughter in the family, is an activist more interested in meeting a new man than saving The Wetlands. Somehow married to Lindsay is Dr. Tobias Fünke (David Cross), a flamboyant psychiatrist with aspirations of becoming a famous actor (with a little help from Carl Weathers). Throughout the series, we find out that not only is Tobias an experienced analyst, but he’s also a qualified therapist, making him the world’s first “analrapist.”

Other characters include Maeby Fünke (Alia Shawkat), Lindsay and Tobias’ daughter who is able to get away with anything due to her parents’ naivety. Secretly in love with Maeby is George Michael Bluth (Michael Cera), Michael’s son and Maeby’s cousin. George Michael, a hard-working, button-down 14-year-old, is dedicated to making his father proud of him while winning over Maeby’s affection.

There is also Oscar, George Sr.’s pot-smoking identical twin brother, Annyong, the family’s Korean immigrant whom Lucille adopted to make Buster jealous, Ann Veal, George Michael’s girlfriend whose high school yearbook picture said “not pictured,” and last but not least, Franklin Delano Bluth, G.O.B.’s African-American puppet who doesn’t know the meaning of the term “political correctness.”

The celebrity appearances are endless, too, from Ron Howard, who narrates the show, to Charlize Theron, who plays Michael’s special love interest in the third season. Other notable celebrity cameos include Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a blind attorney, Ben Stiller as G.O.B.’s magician rival, Liza Minnelli as Buster’s (and G.O.B.’s) lady friend and Martin Short as Uncle Jack, a crazy 90-year-old fitness buff.

Now that you have a moderate understanding of the show, I must ask, wouldn’t you watch it? Well, unfortunately, America didn’t. For three seasons, Arrested Development was neglected by FOX, even after the cast and writers of the show accumulated six Emmys. In late 2005, the cast and crew had been told that the show was to be canceled, and that they only had permission to create 13 episodes, as opposed to the standard 22. Any hopes of the show being picked up by HBO or Showtime were dashed by creator Mitch Hurwitz, who admitted that he had put too much of his life into the show and that he had to finish.

Why couldn’t such a brilliant show make it on the air for more than three seasons? There seem to be two factors that come into play: the poor marketing on FOX’s behalf, and the intelligence of the show. When Arrested Development started out, I recall seeing a decent amount of commercials, but after the first season, I had assumed that it was going to be canceled because I never saw anything about it. And if I did happen to see something for the show, it was only because there was a little advertisement after The Simpsons on Sunday nights telling viewers to stick around for Malcolm in the Middle and Arrested Development. I only became addicted to the show after it was canceled. I had no idea how good it was — few people did.

The other problem with Arrested Development was the ingenious writing that seemed to be much more intricate than the other shows that were/are on. The attention to detail and the dialogue of the characters became so meticulous that it’s almost impossible to find a plot hole within the show’s three seasons. There seemed to be so many jokes and references in an episode that much of America watching FOX on a Sunday or Monday night would not catch.

Fortunately, there have been numerous insinuations at the possibility of an Arrested Development movie. In the series finale commentary on DVD, Will Arnett begins probing Hurwitz for any information he can reveal for the future of Arrested Development, and there are a few hints that the show might make a better movie than a continuing TV show.

So how can you help save the Bluths? Well, the third season was released on DVD Aug. 29. Maybe if DVD sales are good enough, Arrested Development can return to television (or at least a movie) like Family Guy did from the success of their sales.

For three seasons, we’ve watched members of the Bluth family burn down frozen banana stands, perform the infamous “chicken dance,” lose body parts, sleep with high school teachers and audition for the Blue Man Group…who knew it wasn’t for depressed men who were feeling blue? Even if we can’t have any new material of the critically-acclaimed show that died too young, we can remember the countless insults from Lucille, the blatantly homosexual comments from Tobias, and of course, G.O.B’s horribly entertaining magic acts performed to Europe’s “The Final Countdown.” Goodbye Bluths.

feighanj1@lasalle.edu