Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today on the Arts
& Entertainment page to mourn the passing of a dear friend.
This friend’s life only lasted two and a half years.
However, this friend made the most of its turbulent life, giving us
memorable experiences, smiles, laughs and tears of hilarity.
In the end, however, our friend “Arrested
Development” could not overcome the terminal illness of
“Cancellation.” Its creator, Mitch Hurwitz, quit the
show on March 27.
That is not to say that it didn’t try until its last
anguished breath.
I’m aware that not all of you reading this knew
“Arrested Development’s” Bluth family like I did,
but as we sit here remembering our dear friends, you may get to
know just who they were a little better.
There was Michael, the one son who had to keep them all
together. There was George Michael, Michael’s wonderfully
awkward son with a desperate crush on his cousin, the
wise-beyond-her-years Maeby. There was the misplaced liberal
outrage of Maeby’s mother, Lindsay, and the ambiguously
effeminate carousing of her husband, Tobias.
There was the lovably dim brother GOB, with his Segway, terrible
magic tricks, exaggerated sexual conquests and obsession with
“The Final Countdown” by Europe. There was Buster, the
poster child for the Oedipus Complex and the adverse effects of
fruit juice on 32 year-old man-children.
And lest we forget the matriarch and patriarch of this daffy
brood, there were the permanently intoxicated Lucille and the
scheming, always-in-jail corporate criminal George Sr.
The times that our friends the Bluths showed us were countless
and always amusing. There was the time Michael decided to teach his
son a lesson about drug use by hiring a troupe of actors to pose as
police officers and break up a “drug deal.” We laughed
with the Bluths when the acting troupe ended up being a group of
strippers called “Hot Cops,” and the tables were turned
on Michael by his father, George Sr., who taught him a lesson about
“teaching lessons” with a one-armed man and a
prosthetic limb.
And who could forget Michael and GOB’s attempt to dispose
of the Bluth family accountant, Ira Gilligan, by getting him to
pass out drunk and believe he had murdered a stripper? How could
one not laugh hysterically when the plan was derailed by Buster
drinking all of the fake blood after finding out that it was
juice?
But perhaps best of all, we all remember where we were when
Tobias’ infamous cut-off jeans and his debilitating
“never-nude” syndrome made their first appearance, or
when our Bluths cried out for help with the “Save Our
Bluths” fundraising banquet.
However, the things that truly endeared the Bluth family to the
few of us who understood them were subtle and over the heads of
those who only tried to relate to this quirky clan. We have all
been there before. We have tried to tell our friends how this
family has touched our lives, has made us laugh, has showed us that
even the most woefully dysfunctional family unit needs to work
together to survive.
All of us tried to explain the subtle jokes, the obscure
references and the reflexive allusions to prior episodes. And
inevitably, many responded with raised eyebrows, blank stares or
yawns. “I can’t follow it,” they’d say, or,
“I hate these people; I can’t relate to any of
them.”
Of course, those of us who took them into our hearts know that
on the surface, yes, the Bluths were difficult to sympathize with.
After all, they were wealthy people trying to deal with the
humiliation of eating at Klimpy’s instead of Spago or driving
an airport stair-car instead of a Mercedes-Benz.
However, upon closer inspection, our selfish, petty,
back-stabbing Bluths revealed ugly truths about us that we wanted
to believe we did not possess. We are all jealous, we all get
selfish, and greed permeates all of our lives in some way. The
Bluths and their adventures illustrated these truths in an absurd
fashion, but the signs were all there.
Truly, our Bluths were ahead of their time: They showed us
things about ourselves that, in this day and age, we are not ready
to confront. Perhaps in 20 years, when we look back on this point
in our history, everyone will gasp at how well the Bluths and their
problems act as a time capsule for these bizarre times in which we
live.
And now, join me in saying goodbye to the Bluth family and
“Arrested Development.”
Goodbye, Michael and George Michael, and remember that both
family and breakfast come first. Goodbye, Lindsay, Temocil, and
other banned herbal supplements. Goodbye, Maeby, inadvertent studio
executive jobs and bizarrely acceptable incest.
Goodbye, Tobias, cut-off jeans, fake British nannies, hair plugs
gone wrong and barely concealed homosexuality. Goodbye, GOB and the
Aztec Tomb, swiftly annulled marriage and “The Final
Countdown.”
Goodbye to Buster and Motherboy, girlfriends twice one’s
own age and hands bitten off by seals. And goodbye, Lucille and
George Sr., and farewell to 8 a.m. vodka tonics, countless prison
escape attempts and subtle jokes involving the
“C-Word.”
The Bluths are survived by their friends on “Scrubs”
and “The Office,” and we will see those who played the
Bluths again in other formats and shows. Hopefully, Dunder-Mifflin
Paper and Sacred Heart Hospital will continue the comedic glory
championed by our Bluths. But truly, the Bluth family can be
replaced but never equaled or forgotten.
Our Bluths gave us more good times than we deserved, but at some
point everything ends. Yet that doesn’t mean we have to be
happy when it does.
So, goodbye, Bluths and “Arrested Development.”
Television won’t be nearly as fun without you.
E-mail Humphrey at mhumphrey@media.ucla.edu.