Despite being heaped with critical praise and
winning multiple Emmy awards, FOX had slated Arrested Development
for cancellation last season. True to snarky form, the writers
incorporated the cancellation rumors into the plotline. Adam
Sternbergh wrote in New York Magazine (April 2005)
“Its tenuous status has become an explicit metajoke on
the show. When Fox recently cut the show’s season from
22 episodes to 18, the writers had Michael Bluth complain that
a construction contract for his company had been cut from 22
houses to, yes, 18. (His father grouses, ‘I heard about
the reduced order. Those bastards!’)”
The
ever-present threat of cancellation is due in part to the fact
that the show is not an easy sell. There’s no single comedic
situation with which you could easily describe it. Almost a
mockumentary, the irreverent Arrested Development skewers
white-collar crime, conservative Christianity, actors, magicians,
and the recovery movement.
Every
institution deemed essential to American life is up for grabs.
Here's a few examples:
On
liberal, letter grade-free, education:
LINDSAY: (to Maeby) Okay, look. I know you got a “crocodile”
in spelling, but this has gone too far!
On
motherhood:
LUCILLE: I don't have the milk of mother's kindness in me
anymore.
MICHAEL: Yeah. That udder's been dry for a while though, hasn't
it?
On
alcohol:
LUCILLE: I'll be in the hospital bar.
MICHAEL: Uhh, you know, there isn't a hospital bar, mother.
LUCILLE: Well, this is why people hate hospitals.
On
Christianity:
MAEBE: Do you guys know where I could get one of those gold
T-shaped pendants?
MICHAEL: That's a cross.
MAEBE: Across from where?
On
work:
MICHAEL: (to his family) I'm moving to Phoenix. I got a job.
[There is an awkward silence]
MICHAEL: Something you apply for and they pay you to... Never
mind, I don't want to ruin the surprise.
On
sex:
MICHAEL: My mom is very stressed out, and she needs something
I can't give her, um... maybe a little "afternoon delight".
NARRATOR: Uncle Oscar thought that Michael was referring
to a particular brand of cannabis named Afternoon Deelite, a
strain famous for slowing behavior.
OSCAR: Well sure, my question is, which way do I try to get
it in her?
MICHAEL: I don't need any details.
OSCAR: Maybe I'll put it in her brownie.
MICHAEL: Hey!
On
family:
MICHAEL: What have we always said is the most important thing?
GEORGE MICHAEL: Breakfast
MICHAEL: Family
GEORGE MICHAEL: Oh, right. Family. I thought you meant of the
things you eat
Arrested
Developmentboasts a multi-layered, smartass humor
that has created a rabid fan base, and has remained unseen by
all the other viewers who like their entertainment to be just
a little less challenging.
For
example, when the family lawyer Barry Zuckerhorn (Henry Winkler)
jumps over a toy shark, it’s a dual nod to 1970’s
television (when Winkler’s ”Fonzie” literally
jumped over a shark on an outlandish episode of Happy Days)
and to the phenomenon of “jumping the shark” (a
pop culture term borne of that very episode of Happy Days),
that “very special” moment when a television show
finally loses all credibility.
It’s
no wonder that a 2004 article about the show in The San
Francisco Chronicle was titled, “Too Smart to Make
it?”
