Arrested Tenenbaum or The Royal Development: How Wes Anderson's most dysfunctional family influenced one of the funniest shows of all time.

Holy really long blogpost title Batman. If you had not guessed I recently watched Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums. As I watched it I began to notice a striking amount of similarities between the movie and Mitchell Hurwitz's series Arrested Development. In fact Arrested Development was described as Royal Tenenbaums shot like COPS. Hurwitz almost didn't pitch Arrested Development

     Let's start off with the heads of the family, with Wes Anderson we have the titular Royal Tenenbaum. Royal is rich, irresponsible and shows little affection for his family. His Arrested Development double would be none other than George Bluth. Like Royal, George is rich, a criminal, and a pretty terrible father. Both men are extremely selfish and irresponsible, forcing the responsibilities on his children. 

     The family's only daughter in both RT and AD is an adopted daughter who is unhappily married to their husbands. In both cases the husband is oblivious to their wifes dissatisfaction with the state of their marriage. Lindsay Bluth however is more of a step down from Margot. While Margot simply holds ill will towards her family, Lindsey takes after her father much more, as do most of the Bluth children. Margot also serves as the inspiration for Maeby Bluth, as both Maeby and Margot are adopted but also fall in love with a family member.

Last but not least is the overprotective son/father. Ben Stiller's Chas and Jason Bateman's Michael have a lot of similarities. Both are overprotective and have lost their respective wives.They both seem to think that they have control over a situation when in fact they do not. 

Both the show and the film use a similar style of narration to deliver backstory though AD's tends to editorialize more. 

Though not capturing his signature style (probably a good thing) Arrested Development takes a lot from The Royal Tenenbaums. Wes Anderson's film is like a father too the series, but a good father, not like the ones seen in both works.

Arrested Development

When I find a television show that I like I become completely infatuated with it and can not stop watching it. Since my parents are so generous and frankly just don't know how to use their Netflix account I have been watching as many TV shows on it as possible. Recently I have found my self spending an excessive amount of time watching the 2003 television show "Arrested Development". I'm sure many of you have heard if not seen the show but if not its about Michael Bluth the level headed son in his family. When his father is imprisoned for shifty account practice of his company Michael takes over his family affairs while the rest of his spoiled dysfunctional family members are making his job unbearable. The show only lasted 3 season but Netfilx has recently announced that they will be airing 10 more episodes and there has been rumors of a movie in the making!

-Tori

Extracurricular Projects

A lot of people may stop after they finish schoolwork or required materials but I often find myself wanting to create and do more. Sometimes class work can get tiresome and boring so finding something you actually enjoy creating and doing is very important. Recently I have created a few different side projects not associated with school that I have been really proud of and would like to share.

My first project I created last week after watching a few parody videos online. After the announced hiatus of a great sitcom called Community there has been an outpouring of fan made videos showcasing how special this show really is. My friend and I stumbled on a video where a user created the opening credits for Community yet in the style of another great show called Parks and Recreation. We then realized that it would be interesting to see Community’s credits in the style of Arrested Development, a show that like Community had cult fans and network scheduling problems in its third and final season.

A few minutes after this discussion I went right to work seeing if this was doable. After playing around in Photoshop about if I could do it, all of the sudden it was all I could think about. For the next two days every free minute I had I would work on this credit sequence. I first created all the images in Photoshop by using pictures of the cast from online. Then I put them all into Final Cut and animated the slides to move and change at the exact same time the original credits changed. Next came adding the videos included on the slides. Finally I had to figure out how to make moving arrows, circles, and the hanging pictures. I then just sat down and tried different things and used trial and error to problem solve these things for myself. Two days later I was done and posted it online. In 48 hours I nearly had 2000 views and now as I write it has over 4000. I am very proud of the outcome and how I may finding people I don’t even know post it themselves on sites like Twitter and Tumblr! To view my video click here and to see the original I based it on click here.

Another side project I have been involved in is called Dual Redundancy. Dual Redundancy is an entertainment and television podcast my friend Mike and I created and host every week. On the show we have different segments where we discuss the week in entertainment. These include “In and Out Points” where we jump in and out of the week’s big headlines and “The Flashback” where we highlight a great new episode of a show from the last week. We also give movie reviews and have done a variety of theme episodes. These have included an Emmy prediction episode and another where we revealed the list of the top ten TV characters from the last ten years. For the latter podcast we created a survey and asked our listeners for their votes. We received over 100 votes before we closed voting! We are still going strong and have created ten episodes so far.

If interested in learning more about Dual Redundancy you can find us all over the Internet. We have a Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube page where you can find out about the latest episodes, contribute content for the show, and even participate in contests. Most importantly you can subscribe and listen to our show on iTunes or download it to your MP3 player.

The Genius Writing of Arrested Development

During the years of 2003 and 2006 one of the funniest and best-written shows was on television struggling to find an audience. Arrested Development was an American sitcom created by Mitchell Hurwitz and follows a wealthy and dysfunctional family as they fall apart due to their father’s arrest. Even though it earned six Emmy awards in its first season including best comedy series, due to the network’s program and time shifting it could not attract an audience when it was on. After its cancellation it has developed a huge cult following and it was just recently announced that it would be coming back for a 10 episode season before a full feature length movie.

From the acting to the directing everything on the show was top notch. However it was in the writing where it really excelled. Most comedies and sitcoms do not plan or have arcs for a full season. Usually when something wants to be referenced the earliest you may see it be mentioned is an episode or two before. On Arrested Development they would bring up something in season one and then it would show up and be explained in season three! A lot of the jokes would feel like they were written with the entire series planned out. For example, Buster who is socially inept due to his mother Lucille’s sheltering and dominance begins dating another older woman named Lucille. In one episode Buster is told not to go into the ocean by his mom because it was dangerous. Later on he goes in the ocean to go against his mother and what happens? A loose seal (sounds just like Lucille) bites off his hand! His hand is later replaced with a claw. Earlier that season the production team made clear points to show Buster’s hand chair and him winning a seal in a toy claw game. Talk about genius writing! Other great jokes include the family accidentally calling their adoptive son Annyong (which is Korean for hello). This happened after when they originally asked for his name he said tried to say hello before he said what his name actually was.

The show is also full of pop culture references. A great situation was in the episode purposely entitled “Good Grief.” Every character has a depressing moment and walks slouched over like the character Charlie Brown. They even used the music and put a red dog house with Snoopy look-a-like in the back! Another pop culture reference went all the way back to Happy Days from 1977. Fonzie, played by Henry Winkler, literally jumped a shark water skiing in one episode. Since then the term “jumping the shark” has become an idiom for when a show hits a decline in quality beyond recovery. On Arrested Development Henry played the family lawyer and in one episode when they found a shark that bit off the tracking device on the seal that bit Buster, Henry hopped over the shark on his way to Burger King!

The references on the show even include their own show! In one later episode Michael Bluth is on the company phone complaining how it was unfair that they were cutting their housing construction orders from 22 to 13 when they already have the blueprints made up. This is a reference to when their episodes were cut back from 22 to 13 episodes due to low ratings! In another episode Tobias, who wants to be an actor, explains how those Hollywood show sets are so detailed and life-like. As he says this he opens up the cabinet in the model home the family lives in to find one conveniently placed food prop and a McDonald’s cup left by the crew. They further picked on their ratings by having the narrator just come out and say please watch our show and to tell your friends!

Arrested Development was one show that was cut too soon and was not a show made for network television. Today if it was on a cable network like FX or even on something like Showtime I think it would have been more successful. In the end I am happy that it is coming back and that I get to spend at least a few more hours with the Bluth family.

'Party Down': The Little Show That Should've

Back in the late summer of 2010, I discovered the show Party Down as I was lazily flipping through the hundreds of options on my cable provider's OnDemand menu. I recognized Adam Scott from The Aviator and decided to give it a shot. I was addicted instantaneously. I watched all twenty episodes in a matter of a few weeks. After I'd finished with the two short seasons, I went on a search to figure out when I could tune in for the next season. Much to my surprise, I found that Starz had canceled this wonderfully dark and quick-witted comedy.

A little background on Party Down. Premiering in March of 2009, the half-hour show is about a Los Angeles catering team, made up of aspiring actors and writers. Each episode revolves around an event the team is working and the shenanigans each member ends up getting tangled up in. It was created by Rob Thomas (90210), Paul Rudd (I Love You, Man), Dan Etheridge (Biodome), and John Enbom (Veronica Mars). The show was directed by Bryan Gordon (Curb Your Enthusiasm) and Fred Savage (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). The recurring characters included some recognizable actors:

• Adam Scott, as Henry
  
• Ken Marino (The State), as Ron
  
• Ryan Hansen (Veronica Mars), as Kyle
  
• Martin Starr (Freaks and Geeks), as Roman
  
• Lizzy Caplan (Mean Girls), as Casey
  

With all of these big names associated with the show, it came as quite a shock when Party Down didn't get a chance at a third season. According to this article, the ratings simply were not there. While the show may have had staggering potential, I think there are two main reasons why Party Down never got to come full term: Starz and censorship. Starz is a little-known channel that comes up with very few contending programs in comparison to its ever-growing rivals, HBO and Showtime. The viewership for anything on a channel like Starz is low from the get-go. And Party Down is too graphic for the likes of NBC or FOX, which has to cater to parents' wishes to keep their children naive. We are still living in an time where censorship and media regulation laws rule, often leaving winning shows to die in the outer limits of obscure cable channels.

But there is hope on the horizon! There have been rumors circulating all over the internet these past few months, hinting at a potential Party Down full length feature. Rob Thomas has even gone as far to say that his people are well into negotiations for a movie deal. Along with all of the buzz from Arrested Development supposedly being picked up for a few more episodes AND a movie deal, this could make for some interesting coming years.

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'Party Down' Reunion on 'Children's Hospital':

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To read more, try these links:
The Complete Oral History of Party Down - details.com
Interview: Lizzy Caplan on the Party Down cancellation - hitfix.com