YMMV / Arrested Development

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• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Are all of George Sr's Heel–Face Turn attempts faked, or is he sincerely trying to change but failing at it?
  • Although Tobias has commonly been read by audiences as the oblivious inhabitor of a Transparent Closet, Mitchell Hurwitz contends that he really is straight and simply has a fatal habit of terrible phrasing. This becomes more clear in the un-cancellation, in which he deliberately shifts away from his inadvertant gay innuendo, only to accidentally come off as a straight pedophile instead. It also seems more plausible given his relationship with Debrie in Season 4 and the introduction of an illegitimate son conceived prior to his marriage in Season 5.
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: In the pilot, Lucille claims to love her children equally even though some time ago she admits she doesn't care for GOB. First interpretation of the joke is she simply has a low opinion of GOB. The other interpretation is because she said she loved her children "equally", she's really saying she loved them as much as she loves GOB, which is not at all.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • In season 4, one of the running jokes is a terrible, cheaply shot, early '90s movie about the Fantastic Four. Many fans assume it's completely made up, but that's an actual movie, and in fact the circumstances of production in-universe are similar to what actually happened, although the actress who played Sue Storm is actually named Rebecca Staab.
  • Plenty of people outside California didn't know John Beard was an actual newscaster unless they are aware of his "Hackers on Steroids" clip.
  • The Living Classics pageant where actors dress up and reenact classic paintings sound like another one of the show's trademark Falsely Advertised Accuracy jokes right? It's a parody of a real event.^note It's called a "Tableau Vivant," and it was a legitimate and popular form of entertainment for many years.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The show actually got a decent amount of network support, it lasted 3 years despite being rather expensive to produce, but some theorize that FOX simply did not know how to effectively advertise the show, Emmy winning or not. Basically it's a show about a family of egotistical yuppies where only one man is trying to do the right thing, the rest are either pushovers, flawed to the point of being The Load, or outright unsympathetic characters. The complex narrative, intricate business subplots, and Incest Subtext out the wazoo complicates things further. This was pointed out in the third season by Michael: "Maybe we aren't as likable as we think we are."
  
  However, though the show never caught on when it first aired, the show exploded after its end when it had one of the highest DVD sales for a show and even managed a few syndication deals (100 episodes are considered the standard for a syndicated show, 65 at minimum, Arrested Development had 53). This can be contributed not only to the show's cult following, but also, since the show influenced practically every television comedy that came after it, more audiences became used and started to like some of the trends this show popularized. This lead to Netflix reviving the show for a fourth and fifth season.
  
  Mitch Hurwitz himself gave a reasonable accounting for the show's inital lack of success in an article written in The Guardian, framed as a guide on how to get a sitcom cancelled. It gives such "tips" as to make all the characters unlikeable, stuff 20-minute episodes with convoluted overlapping plotlines, and focus greatly on incest, with the final piece of "advice" being: "Make a show for British sensibilities and then show it in America."
• Award Snub: The all star ensemble didn't do quite as well awards wise as you'd have hoped. Jason Bateman and Jeffrey Tambor got two Emmy Award nominations, while Will Arnett and Jessica Walter only got one, and David Cross and Tony Hale didn't even get in once. The underrated efforts of Portia de Rossi, Michael Cera, and Alia Shawkat were similarly ignored.
• Awesome Music: Has its own page. David Schwartz's score for the show is almost as riddled with running jokes and clever allusions as the show itself. His daughter Lucy Schwartz's song "Boomerang" was great enough (and catchy enough) that after hearing it, Mitch Hurwitz actually re-edited the final minutes of the season 4 finale (even bumping The Tag to after the credits) just to include it in the show.
• Badass Decay: George Sr's Crazy Is Cool tendencies become less apparent by the third season. Part of this is likely due to him no longer having to pull as many Zany Schemes to avoid capture. There's also the matter of Lucille stealing his thunder in the finale when she's revealed as The Man Behind the Man. Still, it wasn't until season 4 that this trope really set in, where George gets totally outplayed by Oscar and loses all of his masculinity before starting to transition into a peaceful a woman.
• Better on DVD: Watching the episodes in quick succession instead of an episode per week makes the countless running gags and brick jokes funnier because the set-ups are fresh in the viewer's mind. The show is also made even more hilarious when you watch the first season and catch all the Foreshadowing of things you now know are to come. Season 4 is fully aware of this, and features several Netflix-related gags.
• Broken Base: Season 4 was very divisive for the fanbase, especially for its experimentation with narrative style where details of different scenes are gradually filled in over the season. Where some fans greatly appreciated this move, holding it up as innovative and an excellent fit for the Netflix format which encourages binge-watching, others criticized it for making it the first few episodes quite the slog to get through and that the first group's claims of "It gets better" are no excuse for this. The relatively darker mood of the season, due to the main characters often showing themselves from their worst sides, especially Michael, has also been a point of contention.
• Cargo Ship: George Sr. seems to really enjoy ice cream sandwiches in "Top Banana."
• Crazy Is Cool: George sometimes leans into this. The man is clearly insane, doing things like setting up elaborately cruel pranks to teach his children life lessons (including to teach Michael to not teach people life lessons), posing as God in a live painting banquet so he can make a jailbreak, stashing away money in giant banana-shaped food stands, and using his eldest sons to stage "Boy Fights" so he could sell the tapes for money (even though he was already rich as all hell, so said money would be pretty much worthless to him). This is also deconstructed, as his insane behavior ended up greatly helping shape his ludicrously screwed up family.
• Critical Dissonance: Broken Base aside, many fans have enjoyed season 4. Ironically for a show that has been a critic's darling, many TV critics have been underwhelmed by Season 4.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Any time someone other than George Michael mentions Michael's late wife Tracy. Their comments are invariably so painfully insensitive to someone who lost a beloved spouse (even Lucille liked her!) less than two years ago, that Michael evidently just lists them with the family's other exasperating traits he can't do anything about.
  • George Sr. doesn't mind his wife and daughter attempting to use the company medical fundraiser to bankroll their cosmetic surgeries, but gets exasperated that Michael is still going on about ovarian cancer.
  • George Sr., Gob, Lindsay, and Barry all at some point mistakenly call Tracy "Michael's ex-wife" or "Michael's first wife". Michael points out that he's only been married once, and she didn't leave him, she died. Prompting Barry to exclaim in annoyance that he's been claiming credit for handling their divorce.
  • Lindsay defending her failing marriage with Tobias:
    Lindsay: Your marriage wasn't so perfect. I seem to remember you two weren't even speaking near the end.
    Michael: Well, she was in a coma.
    Lindsay: Yeah, I've heard your side of it.
• Discredited Meme: The series' running gags get zigged-zagged all over the place in Seasons 4 and 5.
  • We wave goodbye to the staircar in episode 1. Meanwhile, Michael is driving a Google camera car, which is just as ridiculous. Except the Staircar comes back for one last hurrah in the last episode.
  • Sudden Valley is finally completed, so it's not just a model home on a barren hill. However, it's an unlivable, inaccessible ghost town.
  • Tobias is told early on that the way he talks makes everyone think he's gay, and he vows to do something about it. He doesn't, and his Innocent Innuendo lands him on the sex offender registry. He finally learns not to call himself an "analrapist", but "anustart" takes its place.
  • It looks like George Michael had finally gotten over his crush on Maeby, but he brings her back into his life to try again.
  • Buster gets a bionic replacement for his hook, but it's even more dangerous.
  • Despite the sentiment of returning to form of the first three seasons, the first eight episodes of Season 5 still refrain from "putting the band back together". Only George Michael and Maeby can be seen in the Bluth Penthouse, the Bluth Company offices are empty or in the process of being remodelled (and relocated), the Banana Stand is missing and while making the most appearances out of the regular locales of Seasons 1-3, the Model Home is still in a secondary role to the beach house and other new S5-specific locations.
  • Ultimately, this is a series about people who don't grow or change.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • GOB's black puppet Franklin for being a hilariously stereotypical Jive Turkey, even when GOB wasn't controlling him.
  • Steve Holt qualifies due to his hilarious and infectiously enthusiastic Pokémon Speak in addition to being a really Nice Guy and an even bigger Woobie.
  • Gene Parmesan was only in one episode of the original run, but his straight-laced yet humorous demeanor contrasting with his ridiculous costumes him a fan favorite. Lucille's squeeing over every reveal of his only added to it. He thankfully would return in the revival.
  • Maggie Lizer, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is one of the most popular secondary characters in the show due to her hilarious pathological liar traits. Many fans wished she was in more episodes.
• Epileptic Trees: The cliffhanger ending of Season 4 involving Lucille 2's apparent murder caused a explosion of theorizing and analysis by fans trying to piece together clues. It's similar to the famous "Who Shot Mr. Burns" cliffhanger in that many of the characters have a motive and opportunity, so nearly every theory can be given at least a scrap of evidence no matter how ridiculous. Note that the WMG page for the show has an entire folder devoted to speculation about it.
• Franchise Original Sin: The original run of the show was identified by a very brisk pacing of the episodes, with multiple plot lines going on at one that eventually collide, frequent flashbacks to build up twists and Brick Jokes that span multiple episodes and sometimes multiple years. Season four, with its longer episodes, single-character focused episodes and very broad timespan (covering roughly 6 years of material), oddly enough felt a lot slower paced and the multiple plot lines are not even revealed until several episodes later, turning most of an episode into in-jokey Non Sequiturs that won't pay off until later. The recut of Season Four "Fateful Consequences" attempts to fix this.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • In both episodes featuring Maggie Lizer, the blind lawyer, it made no sense that she would often make eye contact with Michael. Then, it turns out she's not really blind!
  • Then in the episodes where she returns and is pregnant, she meets with Michael no less than twice to go drinking, which won't harm her baby because she's not pregnant.
  • Maggie's seeing eye dog, Justice, is remarkably undisciplined and ill-behaved for a service dog. Then we find out that not only is Maggie not blind, meaning that Justice is just a regular dog instead of a service one, it's Justice who's blind.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Community. Both shows were Cult Classic sitcoms about unusual premises, and they share The Russo Brothers as directors for their first few seasons. It helps that stars from both shows make cameos in the other series, with Dan Harmon himself even appearing in one episode.
  • There's also some overlap with Succession. Both shows are comedies about the dysfunctional children of a wealthy business magnate and their inability to function in the real world, albeit Succession is a bit more on the serious side. The characters themselves even have similar counterparts to Arrested Development (though not exact, as Kendall Roy is a bit more incompetent than Michael, Tom a flailing suck-up rather than a barely closeted failed psychiatrist in Tobias).
• Genius Bonus:
  • In Season 4, George Michael starts using the alias George Maharis, noting that at least that name hasn't been tainted by any sex scandal (unlike George Michael and Boy George). It's likely that most people would definitely not be aware of the origins of that name, and how it's also related to a sex scandal.
  • Set in Orange County, California, the show occasionally inserts references or jokes that only someone familiar with the Southern California area would know about or get:
    • In Season 5, a sign at a Bluth party reads "Mother's Chicken Nuggets." The font and red color match Mother's Market, a chain of organic markets in the Orange County area.
    • Buster thinks he's woken up in Mexico, but he's really in Santa Ana, which is a city known for its high percentage of Latino residents (78% as of 2010).
    • The Magic Castle is a real place, serving as a social club for local magicians and a venue for their shows.
    • Michael claims he's going to Pea Soup Andersen's while following George south to Mexico. Both P.S. Andersen's locations are north of Orange County, allowing George Michael to easily pick apart Michael's Blatant Lies.
    • Wee Britain is a parody of ethnic enclaves. The most well known enclave in Orange County is Little Saigon which is located in Westminster, California which was named after the same named city in the United Kingdom.
    • Rita's "little missions" is another clue that she's not who she appears to be. Building miniature Missions is an assignment that many Orange County children had to do in grade school.
  • In "The One Where They Build A House", Buster tries to take advantage of a collapsing house facade to injure himself and evade enlistment in the Army, only to find the wall to fall with the window around him, leaving him unharmed. The character's name and the visual gag are a reference to the work of silent-film comedian Buster Keaton, perhaps most famous for first performing the same stunt and visual gag.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Let's just say that the constant Executive Meddling wasn't exactly what the creators had in mind when they came up with the title Arrested Development or the numerous jokes based on the title (such as the newscast by John Beard announcing "Arrested Development").
  • During a cameo by Rance Howard in Season 5, Ron Howard says that his father "may not say a lot, but we're glad he's still around." By the time Season 5 was released, Rance had passed away.
  • The "No touching!" Running Gag revolving around George Sr.'s imprisonment became a lot less funny when Jeffrey Tambor was accused of sexual assault.
  • Lucille constantly calls Lindsay fat. It's treated negatively in universe, but it's still deeply uncomfortable to watch knowing that Portia de Rossi went public about her struggles with anorexia after the show ended.
  • All the jokes about G.O.B.'s brief marriage and divorce have become somewhat bitter in light of the actors playing G.O.B. and his wife (Will Arnett and Amy Poehler) announcing their Real Life breakup in 2012.
  • The scene in which Tobias, as Mrs. Featherbottom, crashes into the table of the model home is quite uncomfortable to watch after Robin Williams' death.
  • Maeby's only successful movie during the original run of the show was Gangie. Out of the entire cast, Alia Shawkat ended up being the one with the least successful post-show career.
  • Bob Loblaw and Lindsay's numerous miscommunications aren't nearly as funny after many fans took Scott Baio's response to the death of his old Happy Days co-star Erin Moran as saying she deserved an early death because of her drug problems, which he then hotly insisted wasn't what he meant.
  • In "Everyone Gets Atrophy" of Season 5, Michael wonders if he might have been too verbally hard on Rebel. Afterwards, the season became Overshadowed by Controversy in the aftermath of Jessica Walter accusing Jeffrey Tambor of verbally harassing her on set, and Jason Bateman got accused of attempting to brush her feelings aside during an interview.
  • Jay Johnston's appearances as Officer Taylor are either this or Hilarious in Hindsight after his arrest for participating in the January 6 United States Capitol riots, especially with his felony charge of obstructing police officers.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Maeby and Lucille were always implied to have a better relationship than with the rest of the family, which was mentioned in earlier seasons, this becomes rather sweet considering that in the infamous interview promoting Season 5, where Jessica Walter breaks down remembering an unfortunate event with Tambor, Maeby's actress, Alia Shawkat was the only one defending Walter, her fictional Gangie.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Through Foreshadowing and jokes that soon enter the annals of Arrested Development's Running Gags.
  • A good part of the humor in Lindsay and Tobias' relationship is that he's living in a Transparent Closet. In Real Life, Portia de Rossi (who plays Lindsay) came out as a lesbian after the show ended. She's now married to Ellen DeGeneres. Which, incidentally, means that her spouse is gay.
  • Oscar's and George's Sr.'s actor Jeffrey Tambor had twin children born in 2009.
  • Try hearing Gob and Franklin's signature song without thinking of "Accidental Racist", which may be impossible if you've watched the show afterward.
  • The Running Gag of how plain and unmemorable Ann is, when it's now impossible not to hear her as Katara. Mae Whitman later reunited with Michael Cera in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World as an evil ex-girlfriend exacting revenge.
  • The scene in which Maggie interrogates Buster is a lot funnier to watch now that Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tony Hale star together in Veep.
  • George Sr.'s Season 4 storyline eventually comes down to him adjusting to life as a woman after most of the testosterone in his body was replaced by oestrogen. Jeffrey Tambor would later star in the TV show Transparent, where he plays a transgender woman.
    • Speaking of which, Oscar's hair greatly resembles Maura's on Transparent, and that's not counting the many times either he or George Sr. cross-dressed.
    • On top of that, both the Bluths and Transparent's Pfeffernans are well-off, out-of-touch Orange County families led by a business-minded patriarch.
    • It may be worth pointing out that Transparent creator Jill Soloway revealed that she explicitly wrote the part of Maura with Tambor in mind. It's entirely possible that season 4 is what inspired his casting in the show (Tambor had also previously portrayed transgender judge Alan Wachtel on the police procedural Hill Street Blues).
    • And we're sure a wrestling fan cannot hear Larry Middleman's voice without thinking of John Laurinaitis.
  • Mae Fünke's nickname is Maeby. So, in other words, she wants you to call her Maeby.
  • In Season 4, Tobias briefly strikes up a friendship with a washed-up actress who played Sue Storm in an awful low-budget Fantastic Four movie in the 1990s, and Hilarity Ensues when he tries to make money by dressing as The Thing for tourists. At the time, that subplot was a rather esoteric jab at The Fantastic Four, Roger Corman's 1994 movie adaptation that was so bad that it was never released. But two years after that episode, the Four were thrust back into the public spotlight again after Josh Trank's Fantastic Four (2015) ended up as one of the biggest flops of The New '10s after a bizarre Troubled Production. With that in mind, watching the show's merciless mockery of the Fantastic Four is even funnier. Adding to the hilarity is the fact that Josh Trank appeared in that very episode.
  • A brief flashback in "Motherboy XXX" shows Tobias despondent after apparently failing to secure the title role on House, M.D., which had just premiered to critical acclaim at about the same time as Season 2 went into production. A few years later David Cross, the actor who plays Tobias, married one of the series regulars on House, Amber Tamblyn (who played House's medical student Martha Masters in the final two seasons of the show).
  • David Cross gets his own chance to play the one decent guy in a family of rich jerks on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
  • "Here's some money, go see a Star War" is funnier now that Ron Howard has directed a Star War, also including a lead named Tobias. Not to mention that Season 4 revolves around a large celebration on May 4th ("Cinco de Quatro"), a date informally observed as a holiday by many Star Wars fans (as in "May the Fourth be with you").
• Hollywood Homely: George-Michael's girlfriend Ann is often treated like this by Michael. While not particularly unattractive, she has a dowdy appearance and appears very unemotional and bizarre, failing to make any lasting impression on people in-universe.
• Hollywood Pudgy: A few characters, notably Michael, make jabs indicating that Ann is fat. While the actress isn't exactly slender, she wouldn't be considered overweight by normal standards.
• Improved By The Recut: Season 4. When it premiered, many fans said the show should have stayed dead. However, this backlash eventually died down, partially due to how many jokes were structured to make sense only after the full season had been viewed. Once the season got a Recut, many viewers began to appreciate the twists and Rewatch Bonuses that were lost when watched in chronological order.
• Informed Wrongness: Michael gets pissed at Gob in Season 4 because he filled Sudden Valleys with sex offenders. The problem is: Sudden Valley actually was a real estate disaster, far away from everything, in an economy where no one wanted to buy a new house, let alone one that is still waiting for the nearest city to expand enough to incorporate it. Gob tapped an unknown marketing and managed to sell every single one of the houses that Michael never could.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Gob. He's probably the most openly antagonistic of the main cast members, but he really does try to please his parents, and is deeply insecure due to his harsh upbringing. It would probably make it into Tear Jerker territory if it wasn't so damn funny.
  • Lucille actually inches toward this in season 4 due to an implied Freudian Excuse from her Abusive Parents. She also finally starts to realize that her children actually do hate her, or just don't care.
  • Maeby Funke. If you take away her resourcefulness, cunning, deceitfulness, and rebellious attitude, you'll see a young girl horribly neglected by her self-centered parents who is desperate and will do anything to get some kind of attention from them.
  • Lindsey and Tobias are both horribly neglectful towards their family (especially their daughter) and are massive Attention Whores, but Lindsey has huge self-esteem problems because of her emotionally abusive mother and Tobias isn't knowingly mean, just completely out of his depth and desperate to fulfill his dream of being an actor.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Michael is, at worst, an inconsiderate and condescending jerk, but he's miles above most of his family in terms of basic decency. Still, that didn't stop him from getting a Ron the Death Eater treatment from the fandom who believe that other characters (namely GOB) are far more sympathetic and possess more Freudian Excuses than he does.
• Magnificent Bastard: "Best Man for the GOB": Ira Gilligan is an account who has stolen money from the Bluth Company for many years. To escape the company with the stolen money, Ira puts George Bluth Sr. in a state of fear by threatening to testify against his illegal dealings, causing George Sr. to plan on framing Ira for the murder of a stripper. Ira masterfully uses George Sr.'s plan as a smokescreen for his escape, and even has the stripper sabotage George Sr. By the time Michael Bluth figures out Ira's ploy, Ira has already fled America with the stolen money while keeping the stripper for company.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "I've made a huge mistake".
  • "I don't know what I expected." Preceding the line is Michael finding a paper bag labelled "DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT" and looking into the bag anyway. "Dead Dove, Do Not Eat" has become an official tag on Archive of Our Own as a way to warn readers that a story has problematic elements in it and those elements are being played completely straight.
  • "I mean, it's one [X]. What could it cost, ten dollars?" An unaware Lucille essentially summing up just how out-of-touch wealthy people can be, with people often substituting Banana and the price for something else.
  • There's always money in the banana stand...
  • "There are dozens of us! DOZENS!!"
  • "Just [X], and baby, you've got a stew going!"
  • Hello darkness my old friend... (Mariachi band playing "The Sound Of Silence")
  • The .gif of GOB dancing with playing cards.
  • The $5,000 dollar suit is a popular reference, and has popped up in Left 4 Dead and Costume Quest, among others.
  • "Bees?", especially with Cards Against Humanity fans, where it's often used as a nonsequitur response.
  • "If you're saying I play favorites, you're wrong! I love all of my X equally! *earlier that day...* I don't care for [insert an X-es name here]."
  • "Here's some money. Go see a Star War."
  • "COME ON!"
  • Replying to a suspect "I didn't [X]" claim with Ron Howard's "they did" narration.
  • "What a fun sexy time for you."
  • "I have the worst fucking attorneys" and "There's a good chance I may have committed some light... treason" have seen some resurgence following the 2017 Russia Investigation.
  • "Good for her."
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Some fans feel that John Beard and his goons crossed it in "A New Start" by basically framing Tobias for pedophilia and then kicking the crap out of him for no reason.
  • Similarly, Michael's Season 4 storyline deals with his descent from a Nice Guy to an all-out asshole after various failures. Perhaps the first sign of this is him ripping up Tobias' contract moments after he signs it in "Smashed".
  • Season 4 ends with Lucille 2 killed, and every Bluth family member with a motive for the murder. Whoever did it, this is certainly their Moral Event Horizon.
  • Lucille 2 herself crosses it in "Off the Hook" when she manipulates Buster into getting drunk (on juice) and missing his mother's trial, while attending herself to ensure that Lucille would be incarcerated, essentially ruining Buster's life in the process.
• Narm:
  • In rare case of one work making another Narmy, many have reported being unable to take the song "The Sound Of Silence" seriously after its usage in the show as Gob's Leitmotif.
  • The same goes for "The Final Countdown," which went from "epic" to "hilarious" for many fans after being used as the centerpiece in Gob's lame magic shows.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • In-universe, Buster's arm after losing his hand is treated like this by most of the other characters, particularly Gob. And while it's usually given a Gory Discretion Shot whenever he's not wearing his hook or a prosthesis, it's still visibly bloody in "Motherboy XXX" and other episodes immediately following the accident. Gob's very visceral freak-out at this point is not so much funny as real enough to sell it.
  • George's attempted suicide in the Season 5 episode Sinking Feelings could be considered as uncharacteristically dark for the series, and rather sudden for first-time viewers to boot.
• One-Scene Wonder: Private investigator Gene Parmesan. Jack Dorso, too.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Season 5 was marred by the sexual harassment accusations leveled against Jeffrey Tambor that got him fired from Transparent, which occurred after the season was largely already shot. In addition, a disastrous cast interview for The New York Times included Jessica Walter breaking into tears when describing Tambor's treatment of her during an argument on-set. Critics accused the Walter's costars Jason Bateman, Tony Hale and David Cross of trying to downplay the incident at the expense of Walter's feelings. Backlash ultimately caused the rest of the press tour to be canceled, and it overshadowed the show's premiere.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Seth Rogen playing a younger George Bluth Sr. in flashbacks in Season 4, due to bearing little resemblance to Jeffrey Tambor. That said, those who have seen Tambor in his younger days in films such as ...And Justice for All will note that he did bear at least a passing resemblance to Rogen. It really doesn't help that his scenes usually have him opposite Kristen Wiig, who is absolutely uncanny as a young Lucille.
  • Even more pronounced in the second half of season Season 5 with Taran Killam as a young George Sr., and especially Cobie Smulders as a young Lucille. It later turns out that this is actually from a Show Within a Show, making it an in-universe example of both this trope and Adaptational Attractiveness.

• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Yes, years before and in another universe, Scott Pilgrim and Roxy Richter used to date.
  • The guy who takes Maeby's "Marry me!" seriously? It's Howard Wolowitz.
  • There's a slew of office workers NBC viewers might be familiar with in early Season 2: The guy who Lindsay thought she had a date with? Andy Bernard. Phyllis worked for the Bluth Company before tranferring to Dunder Mifflin. Kevin worked as a gun shop owner who sold a rifle to Tobias. Darryl worked as a security guard at a movie studio where Tobias was looking for a role.
  • Remember the incredibly ugly woman GOB tried to set up Michael with in "Shock and Aww"? Iqbal Theba, better known as Principal Figgins from Glee.
  • There's also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot of Andy Samberg at the tail end of the season 2 finale, as a stage manager for the Blue Man group.
  • Bob Odenkirk has a cameo as a marriage counselor. If you didn't already know him and David Cross from Mr. Show, you certainly do now in the wake of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
  • Kenneth Parcell from 30 Rock appeared twice as a waiter.
  • The first actress to play Ann Veal later became better known as Zoe Graystone.
  • Sue Sylvester shows up in season one as Cindi Lightballoon.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting:
  • Jeffrey Tambor and Tony Hale look like the same person with a couple of years difference.
  • Isla Fisher looks enough like Ron Howard's real-life daughters to pass as a fictional illegitimate one.
• Seasonal Rot: Season 4 was subject to a lot of criticism. The change in overall style of the season with each character getting A Day in the Limelight largely separate from the rest of the family essentially removed the family interactions that defined the show. In addition the longer episodes on Netflix (30-35 minutes vs. 22 in network tv) slowed down the trademark fast pace, leading many to complain of it being boring. Season 5 tried to fix many of these issues, and was for the most part seen by critics and fans as a substantial improvement over Season 4, though most also agree that it didn't quite live up to the first three seasons either.
• Special Effect Failure
  • Uncle Jack is wearing a hilariously obvious fake muscle suit.
  • No one even bothered to make Buster really look like he lost his left hand, and Tony Hale isn't just hiding his hand in his sleeve: in addition to his left arm "growing" noticeably longer (except when he wears certain prosthetics) , on some occasions where his nub is shown, such as in "The Ocean Walker", his fist can clearly be seen, despite being pixelated.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • In addition to being a hilarious sitcom in its own right, Arrested Development is also probably the best comedic reimagining of Classical Greek tragedy that you'll see on the small screen. It could easily be a modern retelling of Aeschylus' The Oresteia (with a few elements of the Theban trilogy thrown in), with the Bluths standing in for the House of Atreus. All the tropes are there: intergenerational conflict, random mutilation and disfiguration, a powerful Big, Screwed-Up Family's fall from grace, a complex web of backstabbings and infidelity, an ambitious scheming matriarch manipulating a clueless patriarch behind his back, an Only Sane Man son trying to right his parents' wrongs, boatloads of Incest Subtext, and a surreal courtroom trial at the climax—all set against the backdrop of a brutal war in Asia Minor (though one involving battle tanks instead of a big wooden horse).
  • According to Word of God, the show was intended to be a White-Collar Played for Laughs take on The Godfather. George Bluth was meant to be the stand-in for Vito Corleone, and Michael, GOB, Lindsey, and Buster corresponded with Michael, Sonny, Connie, and Fredo Corleone respectively; The incest subplot between Vincent and Mary inspired the subplot between George Michael and Maeby; Carlo Rizzi matches up with Tobias. etc.
• Squick: "Sounds like you saved enough skin to make ten new boys."
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • One recurring track playing throughout the show, I Get Up, has an intro and beat similar to Everybody's Got Their Something by Nikka Costa, which itself was used in the pilot.
  • Subverted at first in "Making a Stand", where a montage of stills is put to several different songs made for the series in an attempt to "make it funny". At one point, The Narrator mentions that it was "pretty funny to Yellow Submarine... but who could afford it?", at which point the music cuts out. Parodied later in the episode with a second montage set to a similar-sounding "Yellow Boat".
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Lindsay is almost entirely absent from season 5 thanks to Portia de Rossi retiring from acting. While it's better than the alternative of her being completely absent, it's still a shame that one of the main characters winds up getting nothing to do, and her absence definitely messes with the cast's dynamic.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • The constant references to the Atkins diet, the Enron accounting scandal and the Iraq War date the first three seasons to the Turn of the Millennium.
  • The fourth season is built around the housing market crash and the rise of social media (especially in an extensive parody of The Social Network).
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Gob is clearly not supposed to be liked all that much by the audience considering he is one of the bigger jerks in the show which is no small feat, but given how he’s spent his entire life being The Unfavorite to everyone and a lot of his actions are the result of trying to get some sort of acceptance in his twisted view, it's also easily understandable why he's like that.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Conversely, while Michael is supposed to have the audience feel bad for him due to being forced to put up with all the craziness his family causes, his behavior shows that he isn't really that much better than the rest of his family. Even before taking a major Jerkass level in the fourth season he could often act pretty smug and pulled some pretty despicable acts himself, such as sleeping with the teacher his son had a crush on and then setting Gob up as a scapegoat when he found out, and agreeing to let Uncle Jack have sex with Lindsay completely without her consent or knowledge. He also repeatedly treats George Michael just as roughly as his own father treated him and his siblings and though he’d often come to the realization that he was acting just like his own father and promise to do better from then on he almost always winds up forgetting this by the next episode, and that doesn't even take into account how he's often treated Ann like crap for no reason just because she was dating his son. CollegeHumor made a list that takes a look at TV characters who show signs of this trope, with Michael earning a no. 3 spot.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Gob is hated by pretty much everyone in the show, including his own mother (and with good reason), but as noted under Ensemble Dark Horse he's one of the most popular characters on the show amongst viewers due to his hilarious Cloud Cuckoolander personality.
• The Woobie: George-Michael. Especially in the pilot.
  • His father as well. In fact, many of the Bluths could be considered this due to their abusive and/or neglectful upbringing.
  • Poor Steve Holt(!), probably the Bluth family member with the least amount of negative traits. All he wanted to do was reconnect with his father. Once he ages, he becomes a genuinely good man, but is unrecognizable and unwanted company to everyone in the Bluth family.
  • Oscar due to constantly being framed, manipulated, and abused by his criminal brother. Reaches its zenith in season 4 where George Sr. twists Oscar's genuine desire to mend their relationship for a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme.
  • DeBrie, a drug addict who is either being wrongly supported to near-abusive levels or put down in cruel ways, by Tobias and Lucille, respectively. She really needs help, but whenever she tries to get her life together, Tobias interferes trying to use her old Sue Storm role to try to make it as an actor, often ignoring what she wants or needs and making her life constantly worse.

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