Holy hell Arrested Development was funny

[Dafones]

Finally got around to watching last Sunday's Arrested Development, and I think it's the best ep so far this season. I was a little worried about season 2 at first - the first couple of episodes seemed a little shaky to me - but after watching the latest one I know the show's in good hands.

I was howling for minutes right after Buster had to get over the wall - "Climb that wall, you homo!", followed by Gob's motivational punch, followed by Maebe's line about telling Steve Holt - "Steve Holt!" - that her mom had a penis. Then the WMD photos and ol' Henry Winkler's expertise in such material.

I love all of the subtle running jokes - the blue handprints all over the house, the hole in the wall of Gob's office, the weird soap opera music that plays whenever Oscar brings up Buster's parentage, the cutoffs - just brilliant. I love it.

[Nth Power]

I agree.  This episode was full of the funny.

Another few hilarious bits :

- Gob being caught with his pants down.
- Tobias climbing into George Michael's top bunk.
- George Sr. wearing a maternity dress with "Bun in the Oven" written on it.

By far, my favority comedy on TV.

[Charlatan]

I almost died when George inferred how he was using the breast pump....

[Larraque]

Sorry to bump an ancient thread, but I wanted to share my recent love of arrested development. One of the funniest shows ever to grace my television.

The wife and I started watching it on Netflix, and simply couldn't get enough. We finished season one, and the next thing we know, I'm at Target buying the full series on DVD. That was last friday. We watched all of season 2 by Monday, and the entirety of season 3 on tuesday and wednesday evening.

The show is just brilliant. I'm sad that it didn't succeed.

STEVE HOLT!

[PR_GMR]

Holy Mother Of Dead Whale Necro Carcass!! 

[Devil]

The show is just brilliant. I'm sad that it didn't succeed.

It didn't succeed because of people like you who waited for it to go off the air before they started watching it!!!! Asshole!!!

(of course I'm kidding) 

Love the show and miss it!

[Larraque]

Holy Mother Of Dead Whale Necro Carcass!! 

Yup. It didn't feel right to make a new thread... plus the title was perfect.

It didn't succeed because of people like you who waited for it to go off the air before they started watching it!!!! Asshole!!!

I'm not part of a nielsen family, so my opinion of television programs doesn't matter - or so the advertisers believe. It was a great show. However very few episodes work on their own, which is why I never 'got it' earlier.

[whiteboyskim]

"I'd cry but I need the moisture" is easily one of the worst (and therefore best) lines ever to grace television.

[hepcat]

 "Why am I not going under water?!?! DEAR, GOD! WHY AM I NOT GOING UNDER WATER??!?!?!?!"   

[Windows95]

It didn't succeed because of people like you who waited for it to go off the air before they started watching it!!!! Asshole!!!

Ouch!  You sound a little touchy.  Maybe you should visit an analrapist for help.

[Larraque]

This is how I presently feel, now that I don't have any more arrested development to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5_Y6Nn-70E&NR=1

[th'FOOL]

You guys know they're about to make a movie, right?

[Azhag]

Now that Cera finally signed on... he lost some points by holding out on it forever 

[Jeff]

I watch the entire series every year. Probably the best sitcom in U.S. TV history, certainly in the top 3.


Gob: Franklin said some things that Whitey wasn't ready to hear.

Michael: Didn't you get severely beaten outside a nightclub in Torrance for that act?

Gob: Franklin said some things that African-Americany wasn't ready to hear, either.

[Pyperkub]

Edit - link wasn't working anymore... but it was to the Analyst-Therapist business card :-)

[whiteboyskim]

Now that Cera finally signed on... he lost some points by holding out on it forever 

Someone thinks Year One is going to be bigger than it actually will be.

[Pyperkub]

Edit - link wasn't working anymore... but it was to the Analyst-Therapist business card :-)

New link, cuz this always busts me up:

Tobias Fünke: You're forgetting, Lindsay, that as a psychiatrist, I was a professional twice over - an analyst and a therapist. The world's first eh-NAL-ruh-pyst.

Lindsay Funke: Yeah, and you were almost arrested for those business cards.

[Frogstar]

Probably the best sitcom in U.S. TV history, certainly in the top 3.

I totally agree.  I was so disappointed when it went off the air.

[McBa1n]

For some reason I don't know, I ignored the series way back when but checked it out finally a couple months back...
I kept saying 'just one more episode' after I'd finish one.
1 day later I had seen them all haha. Great show... It's shocking it was killed so quickly, but then again... Fox... firefly.. grr, I'll stop.
The bit I can never get out of my head once it's in there is the 'chicken' bit that came up every now and again.
Crap, so good. So genious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-hFbuWIKAA

[The Grue]

The bit I can never get out of my head once it's in there is the 'chicken' bit that came up every now and again.
Crap, so good. So genious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-hFbuWIKAA

The chicken stuff was one of my favorite bits from the show.  I loved it when it kind of branched out and all the characters had their own interpretation of it.

[whiteboyskim]

The bit I can never get out of my head once it's in there is the 'chicken' bit that came up every now and again.
Crap, so good. So genious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-hFbuWIKAA

The chicken stuff was one of my favorite bits from the show.  I loved it when it kind of branched out and all the characters had their own interpretation of it.

The best was when every family member was doing their own chicken dance and Michael just looks at them. "Has anyone in this family every actually seen a chicken?"

[McBa1n]

Haha - yeah, the signature individual chicken moves kick ass... That's what makes it so brilliant.
Crap, I can't get the noises out of my head.
KOO KOO CA CHA!!
funny
I wish there was a better compilation of the chicken parts on youtube than these annoying remixes and other people recreating them (sigh).

Crap and the Gene Parmesan bits - where he'd just pop out in disguise and the mom would scream in surprise! priceless.

[Freezer-TPF-]

The best was when every family member was doing their own chicken dance and Michael just looks at them. "Has anyone in this family every actually seen a chicken?"

Yep.  So brilliant.

[Canuck]

LOL this one is just as good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlydYLnzY9g

[godhugh]

I know people like to bash Fox for canceling this, but this is probably the one show I can't blame them for. They gave it every chance but people just didn't watch it. If I remember, they had it in a decent timeslot, advertised it well, and renewed it for a third season when ratings probably didn't merit it. If you want to blame anyone for getting this canceled blame all the folks who didn't watch.

I think my favorite bit was probably the "Milford Man" joke where Buster kept blending into the walls .

[McBa1n]

LOL this one is just as good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlydYLnzY9g

Crap I can't stop watching the chicken videos. Going on 2 days now...
It's just one of those things...

[DarkEL]

How funny - I finally invested in a Tivo a while back (instead of just using the crappy cable/satellite providers DVR's), and one of the first shows that it recommended for us was Arrested Development (which I guess has been showing on HDNet).

Just finishing up the first season right now and totally love it.

[metallicorphan]

Apologies for A)bumping an old thread and B)not actually reading the posts(didn't want anything spoiled)


but i have just discovered this through Netflix(that finally launched in the UK last week),and i have been watching the first season and i have been laughing like a loon,It's Brilliant!! I can't believe i have not found this sooner...its probably one of the best series i have seen for a long time,and thankfully although there are only 3 seasons,they have more than 6 episodes for each,like a certain fucking country does for their series


Oh,and why the hell does Jason Bateman still look like Jason Bateman from The Hogan Family????

[rickfc]

Oh,and why the hell does Jason Bateman still look like Jason Bateman from The Hogan Family????

He's a vampire.

[hepcat]

I always envy anyone who is just discovering Arrested Development.  I wish I could go back and see it for the first time since it is, without a doubt, one of the top 10 greatest comedies (in any medium) ever made.  

The writing is pure comedic genius and when you add to that a cast with that much talent and has that much chemistry you get a once in a lifetime show.

Community, while not as good as Arrested Development, shares a lot of the same comic taste and timing. Give it a shot if you haven't seen it already.

[PeteRock]

I always envy anyone who is just discovering Arrested Development.  I wish I could go back and see it for the first time since it is, without a doubt, one of the top 10 greatest comedies (in any medium) ever made.  

The writing is pure comedic genius and when you add to that a cast with that much talent and has that much chemistry you get a once in a lifetime show.

Community, while not as good as Arrested Development, shares a lot of the same comic taste and timing. Give it a shot if you haven't seen it already.

My wife and I have talked about giving this series a try, but then we wind up getting back to Scrubs, working our way through Season 3 at the moment.  We've also been watching a fair bit of The Big Bang Theory on TBS as it's on almost every night of the week. 

[hepcat]

arrested development or community?

[PeteRock]

arrested development or community?

Arrested Development.  Haven't really had much interest in Community.  Most current comedies just don't seem to interest us (30 Rock, Community, Parks and Rec, etc).  And few comedies offer much in terms of "mature" humor, relying instead on juvenile content.  We gain a lot of enjoyment out of Big Bang because a lot of the humor is based in science or various mutual interests. 

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Scrubs: Arrested Development as circus peanuts: tiramisu. 

[hepcat]

Community is a critical darling because it is incredibly witty and smart.  I tried Big Bang Theory but didn't see why it was so hyped by the geek community.  A few chuckles here and there, but nothing that made it stand out from its peers.  

Scrubs is okay but it's bread and butter was juvenile humor and pop culture references...which is fine.  I enjoyed it and actually remember it fondly.  Community uses a lot off pop culture references as well, but is much funnier imho.  

Arrested Development though is just so far beyond anything on television in terms of intelligence and wit you'll think you've been watching episodes of According to Jim for everything else.

[Bullwinkle]

You should give Big Bang another shot.  We watched the first couple of episodes and wrote it off.  Word of mouth made us give it another shot, and now it's one of our favorites.

Scrubs was very up and down (especially toward the end), but mostly I enjoyed it.  One episode in particular stands out as an all-time great, in fact.  It had Brendan Fraser in it, but I won't go into more detail than that.

A similar thing has happened with the Scrubs' creator's most recent show Cougar Town.  We didn't even watch the first episode of that, as my wife just couldn't take the title.  Word of mouth again worked wonders. The first couple of episodes does seem to be about what you expect, but then they get rid of the whole Cougar aspect, and let the characters and comedy shine.  Also, they hate the title, too.

Community is one my wife gave up on right away.  Partly because some of the characters were irritating.  However, the writers honed in on what made those characters irritating and have mined a lot of comedy out of it.  It's also very clever.  They've had a number of stellar episodes, but there are two that are just superb: The one where Annie's pen goes missing and the one with the alternate universes created by a die-roll.  These are just above and beyond what should be expected of a quirky comedy series (in a similar way to that Brendan Fraser episode of Scrubs I mentioned, though that went in another direction).

30 Rock is absolutely fantastic, and I don't see how someone who wants smart comedy can ignore it.  Frankly, they shouldn't ignore it.

30 Rock comes close, but none of them are as consistently amazingly brilliant as Arrested Development.

[hepcat]

I remember that episode of Scrubs.  It was a very well done episode.  Touching yet not cloying.  

Someday I'll give TBBT another shot.  I did only watch a few of the first season episodes and in all fairness, many good comedies don't click until season 2 or later...with the exception of Arrested Development which came out of the gate with legendary episodes.

For some reason, women seem to hate Community.  My friend's wife told me it was because of Joel McHale.  I guess because he's a smug womanizer...but as you said, they actually make those negative characteristics into comedic bits on the show.  Too bad dames don't get that.   

[metallicorphan]

I love Big Bang and Scrubs also


I think the Brendan Fraser one was a double episode IIRC

my favourite scrubs episode was the musical one,it was well done and funny to boot

Big Bang although the sciency jokes go over my head(perhaps they are meant to ),i get the gist ..but i love the geeky side(the playing Halo or the Rock,Paper Scissors,Lizard,Spock and the constant Comic Book references),and although i like Leonard,and of course Sheldon,i love the pervy Howard,he just makes me laugh all the time,(his skin tight pants are even funnier)...in fact a bit of each one of them reminds me of me and my friends when i was i dunno 16-20,although these guys are older(more my age now actually-35)

[Bullwinkle]

I love Big Bang and Scrubs also


I think the Brendan Fraser one was a double episode IIRC

my favourite scrubs episode was the musical one,it was well done and funny to boot

Big Bang although the sciency jokes go over my head(perhaps they are meant to ),i get the gist ..but i love the geeky side(the playing Halo or the Rock,Paper Scissors,Lizard,Spock and the constant Comic Book references),and although i like Leonard,and of course Sheldon,i love the pervy Howard,he just makes me laugh all the time,(his skin tight pants are even funnier)...in fact a bit of each one of them reminds me of me and my friends when i was i dunno 16-20,although these guys are older(more my age now actually-35)

To me, Howard is the weakest part of the show.  It bugs me that he makes more than Raj.  I get that some people like him a lot, though, and I certainly don't hate him or anything.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I too have tried Big Bang Theory and have never found it all that great. It's like it's a show about nerds, rather than a show for nerds (e.g. Community).

30 Rock is good, but I think it's gone downhill over the last year.

I just blasted through three seasons of Parks & Rec on Netflix and it's great. A bit slow at first, but it really picks up in the second season.