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[MAN SINGING JINGLE]

[CARS WHOOSHING]

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Have you heard

ofArrested Development?

-Arrested Development? -Arrested Development...

-Arrested Development! -No.

-No... -No.

-Nope. -No.

-No. -BOTH: [IN TANDEM] Nope!

Never heard of it.

I've heard of it, but I really don't know anything about it.

Tell me about it, what is it?

It's a TV show. I think.

I think I watched it a couple of times.

Who's in it?

Was it on HBO or something like that?

I understand it was a pretty good show...

But they canceled it! Yeah...

I am seriously sitting here, being interviewed on a show...

-[CHUCKLES] -...because I love it so much.

I don't remember ever laughing as hard

at anything on television.

It's just the funniest show I've ever seen. Ever.

It's my favorite show. Ever. Ever!

Arrested Development, across all borders,

is hilarious.

Yeah, if you're watching an episode, and it doesn't

seem funny,

then you know there's something wrong with you.

It's getting to laugh at rich people for being stupid.

-[CHUCKLES] -It's brilliant.

Revolutionary.

People were not ready for this show at all.

You have to be forewarned for this kind of brilliance.

True story.

Um...

Neil, Jeff...

[SIGHS]

I created a show called Arrested Development.

Of which there are more,

um, fans, in this movie

than there are outside of this movie.

I'm Joe Russo. My brother Anthony.

We directed the, uh, pilot.

You know, the show came about in a unique time

in television history.

You know, I had worked a long time in situation comedy,

and sitcoms had become stuck.

And it was sort of born in the wake of

the rise of HBO and HBO's re-invention of...

Of what television is.

I did a show called Everything's Relative.

Which was in many ways a precursor to Arrested Development.

It was about a family that was completely

in-meshed with itself and obsessed with itself.

And we did four episodes, and it was trashed by critics.

And, uh... And it died.

But I... I... [STUTTERS] It started to play with the form

that I had come up in. Having worked on

The Golden Girls and things like that.

A guy named David Nevins was at NBC when we did it.

I'm David Nevins,

I'm the president of Imagine Television.

So when he became president at Imagine Television,

his boss Ron Howard told him he wanted to do a show

that was kind of multi-media.

And it would have this sorta fast-paced, loose, home movie

slash documentary style.

It was a very unformed idea at that point.

-Nevins called us... -And we started

throwing around ideas.

He said "Come in, I want to talk to you guys.

There's this show that we're working on that's

"an idea that Ron had."

I had this notion that it should look and feel and sound

different than,

you know, what you were traditionally seeing

in half-hour television comedy.

They had said that Ron wanted to sort of reinvent

the half-hour.

And we had this idea, that we wanted it to feel very gorilla...

That was one of the reasons we chose the Russo's,

'cause they hadn't done a ton of network comedies.

They were young, and certainly felt like they were

gonna be in tune with that gorilla filmmaking style.

They could get a lot done very, very quickly when

they needed to.

We had shot our first credit card movie

for $35,000. So we really knew

sort of, gorilla filmmaking tactics.

Right from the beginning,

that was how we wanted to do it. And part of the reason

that we hired them is 'cause we knew that they would be comfortable with that.

And then I...

Well, I met with a few writers,

and one of them was Mitch Hurwitz.

Who I'd worked with before on Everything's Relative.

I always had a feeling about Mitch.

And Mitch really, really liked the idea.

He'd kind of come up through traditional sitcoms,

but I always felt that he was probably the best bet to be

the next great comedy voice.

And he had this... Started talking about,

in a second meeting, this family.

Of his.

We started thinking, "Well, maybe [STUTTERS]

"it should be about a family."

He wanted to do a highly dysfunctional extended family.

With extreme characters.

And David Nevins suggested, "Maybe there's some element

"that pushes them together."

My brother and sister-in-law moved in with me,

so we talked about sort of adult siblings coming together.

And I thought that was pretty great.

That was the time of Enron

and all these accounting frauds.

And I actually worried at the time

I'm like "Well, will this be out of date

"by the time we get on the air?" [LAUGHS]

You know? Will there be no more accounting fraud?

And I even said, like, "You could even have

"a narrator if you want."

Ron instantly said, "I like that guy Mitch." And, uh,

we were off and running.

Writing the pilot was the biggest challenge

I ever had up until that point.

Mitch came back with this script, and the story was,

it was just so funny. And it was so unusual.

I kind of wanted to do a show about a family that

because of their wealth, they hadn't developed

as human beings.

What Mitch loves to write... is just people being so wrong,

wrong-headed, and yet so believing that they're right.

I'm always fascinated when I sort of go back and look

at the pilot, of the density of the storytelling in it.

I don't really know how... How close the Bluths are

to his family, but, you know, you listen to him talk about it

and it seems like they're not too far off.

And he graphed it onto his childhood in Orange County...

There are characters that are represented from my real life.

-In there. -I knew his family story,

and a lot of that had been in Everything's Relative...

I was from a family that was

somewhat overprotective.

I did have a cousin,

she did go to schools that didn't have grades.

You know, gave out crocodiles and things like that.

And Mitch sold, I don't know if he told you this...

My brother and I had started a cookie business when we

were kids. Called The Chipyard.

Down at the pier in Orange County.

And there's actually one in Boston still.

And that kind of became the banana stand.

You know, Mitch just has, once he gets going

on something, he has a very like, fertile mind.

Things started crackling.

And it came together very quickly.

I ended up doing 30 drafts of the pilot.

The great thing about the long script was that it really

allowed us to understand what Mitch was thinking.

Every character had three things.

I think that that's one of the things that is so

appealing about the show.

So anyway, I had this script that's

70 pages in its tightest, tightest form.

There were all these backstories for everybody...

The fun of the show, and the charm of the show

really came about in that initial development phase

in trying to condense that down to 30-some pages.

I first came across the script when my, uh...

My good friend Mitch Hurwitz sent it to me.

I thought it was an insanely crazy, funny script.

And I thought that they would never make it

in a million years.

...and turned it in, and then the network like picked it up

that afternoon.

We knew that it was different by,

obviously, the cast that was assembled.

There's never been a cast

that was better, sharper, funnier...

Casting, more than anything, really

defines a television show.

All of it, all of it came out of Mitch Hurwitz.

Great TV writers like Mitch really adapt to who they

end up with as the actors for their show.

It's hard to cast, you know, three out of five parts right.

But, you know, he got nine for nine.

This is a nice place, you guys live in the back?

MALE INTERVIEWER: What's the first word that comes to your mind?

Bateman. Is a [BLEEP] God.

That's a sentence, that's not a word.

Today you're going to be talking to Jason Bateman,

who played Michael Bluth.

-I love Michael! -Michael!

-Michael. -Michael!

He's a single dad who's lost his wife.

Jason Bateman, who knew this guy was that funny?

Michael Bluth is sort of the glue that holds the

show together.

BATEMAN: He was the least eccentric

of the family. Probably the most appropriate to

sort of, channel the show through.

Which was the hardest thing to find for the show, was the

center of the show. The camera friendly.

Uh, network friendly... Who could deliver

a badass joke.

RUSSO: I remember seeing Jason Bateman's name

on the casting sheet.

But there was a concern on the part of the network and studio because

he had been in a series of pilots that hadn't made it

to the air.

I don't know how many people they went through

before they landed on me, but, uh, I don't need to hear it.

I don't want to know what you know.

So their feeling was that he had this, um, baggage of

unsuccessful shows in his recent history.

Didn't really know that much about him. But I knew that

he did a lot of pilots every year.

And I was going to be auditioning for another show

that Mitch Hurwitz was also producing the following day.

Something that looks like it was definitely gonna go

on the air, and that I'd be more sort of, suited for...

So I went in and I auditioned for it...

-...and he killed it! -We're like "[BLEEP]

"We've got our guy! We've got Michael Bluth!"

And Mitch follows me out of the reading room...

And I remember running out into the hallway saying,

"This, right? You like this right?

"Don't come in tomorrow for that other thing."

I said "Great! That's my ride, I gotta go."

[CREW MEMBER SHOUTS]

CREWMAN: Don't mind that.

How do I not mind that?

I think I had the most, you know, serious laughs

where I almost hurt myself with Gob.

-Gob. -Gob!

George Oscar Bluth.

I play Will Arnett. My name is Gob Bluth.

Gob stands for, uh, George Oscar Bluth.

Everyone always called him Gob [PHONETIC].

Gob!

Couldn't cast Gob and we needed that kind of, macho

end of the spectrum to balance off Tony Hale

on the other end, and put Michael in the middle.

I was an actor living in New York and

they were looking for the part of Gob,

I was looking for a job... [LAUGHS] It was perfect!

I almost believe, like, that's who Will Arnett is

just too true a performance.

Will Arnett as Gob took that role to a level I don't think

anybody knew it was gonna go to.

You know, it was such a specifically written thing,

and I thought that would make it easier for actors...

I'd done a pilot for CBS,

it went to series, and in that, between that time,

my character was written off the show.

I remember my manager calling me and saying

"You gotta read this, you gotta read this!"

And I said "I'm not going to do it.

"TV already broke my heart."

You know? And, uh, I'm not gonna go down the aisle again

with lady television.

And he said, "I don't know what the [BLEEP]

"you're talking about..."

CREWMAN: This is very professional.

-Oh, my God! -[PEOPLE CHUCKLING]

Lindsay is my favorite character.

-Lindsay Bluth. -Lindsay!

I'm Portia de Rossi, and I played Lindsay Bluth Funke.

Lindsay is, um,

the daughter of the family and...

...kind of a vapid twit.

Portia's part was written the opposite, in a way,

of what Portia played.

She was very, um, self obsessed.

She wears like, ostrich skinned boots yet

somehow she pretends she wants to save the trees

and help the environment.

dE ROSSI: Not terribly caring about anyone in her family

or anyone around her.

Then she is only focused on what's going to get her some

loving, basically.

And she was the actress that was funny enough

and special enough that made me change the writing.

Which I hadn't done with the other parts.

Very underrated. Portia de Rossi, like,

rocks my socks off.

CREWMAN: Professional here.

Oh, crap!

I really think my favorite character is Buster.

-Buster! -Buster.

Byron Buster Bluth.

Buster is the youngest brother of all the siblings

to Michael, Gob, and Lindsay.

And, uh, he is just

an anxiety-ridden mama's boy?

And no one else is really bothered to spend the time

to break him out of it.

Our delightful Tony Hale.

I think one of the best descriptions of Buster was,

"He was in the womb for 11 months."

He really is, like,

the medical definition of arrested development.

Tape came in from New York...

...and I remember walking into casting one day

and Mitch was just like, so excited. "You gotta...

"You guys gotta watch this casting tape."

Mitch was saying once that I did something with my knees

but the shot was only from here down,

so they don't know what I was doing.

The video just started with him kind of rocking...

And in fact what he was doing was, he was... He was doing this massage

that was in the script but his hands were

out of frame. So all I saw was this...

[IMITATING BUSTER] Hey, brother!

-CREWMAN: Very professional. -[LAUGHS]

Very professional.

I'm Jeffrey Tambor,

and I got to play two roles!

I got to play George Sr., and I got to play his...

His errant brother Oscar.

You know, Jeffrey Tambor wasn't originally

supposed to be on the show.

You know, Mitch had a previous working relationship with Tambor.

We were shooting the pilot, and I had this part of

George Sr...

I think I was doing Hellboy 1.

I had a month off, so I came back to the United States

and literally, as I hit the airport

I was re-checking my messages

and there was a message from Mitch.

I called Jeffrey, really the night before.

"Would you come on it for a day and play the father?"

"Would you come down and do this thing tomorrow?"

And I never thought another thing about it, and then

I got a phone call...

And then fortunately, he said to me "I could actually see

"doing this on a weekly basis."

I was like, "Oh, thank God."

George Sr., Bernie Madoff with heart.

[LAUGHS HEARTILY]

BATEMAN: Somebody like Jeffrey Tambor

when he's on board, you just know it's going to be

a very real sort of comedy.

I always wonder how you follow up a role as iconic

as what he played on Larry Sanders,

and to turn around and get another show where you have

that great a role again...

I think Tambor's blessed.

He really set the comedic tone for the show.

WOMAN: Lucille is my favorite character.

Gangy.

-She's a raging bitch... -She's a drunk.

-Not a good mother. -Doesn't really care

much what happens to the family as long as she

still comes out on top at the end.

Oh, she's just evil.

[GIGGLES] That's why she's great!

We were having a hard time casting the mother,

and there was somebody I really wanted

that the network wouldn't approve.

And Sandy Grushow said to me "Mitch, this is how pilots

"fall apart. We don't have a mother," and

Deborah Barylski once again, the casting director said

"Let's bring in Jessica Walter."

And she was exactly what you see, I mean, she's just crisp

and tight and hilarious and mean and

Sandy Grushow said "Okay. She can play the mother."

[STUTTERS] Like that.

My grandmother was exactly like Lucille.

Just a gold-digging evil person.

God rest her soul.

I don't even know how

you describe a character like Tobias.

I don't think anyone else could be Tobias Funke.

You can never go wrong with David Cross. Ever.

[CREWMAN SPEAKING]

Why? Seems like a waste of time if people already know

who I am.

I love David Cross. I called him and said "Any part

"you wanna play."

I was first talking to Mitch about it,

before I had even met Mitch, talking on the phone.

And I was hoping he wouldn't say Michael Bluth.

And I remember thinking "There's no [BLEEP] way

"that David Cross is going to do a network television show."

He thought about it, and he got back to me and said

"Uh, I think I'd like to play Tobias."

Tobias is a little bit of all of us.

He does get the greatest lines, but at the same time,

he's the one who carries

probably the longest running joke.

I've met a lot of Tobias' in my life.

Out of all the characters he probably makes me laugh the most.

You see a lot of them in Boston.

[BUSTLING NOISE] He lays around the house

all day, and he says funny lines all day long, I mean

that's my idol.

Some people might disagree, but I think he's a real loser.

There's something so blank slate about George Michael.

George Michael is Michael Bluth's son...

His mother has passed away, and he is just this struggling,

conscious of the whole family.

He embraces the fact that his family is kind of messed up.

But he's so soft-spoken and good-natured that

he can't force his conscience on anybody else.

George Michael is the most lovable one of the Bluths.

I mean, he's the only one that really does no wrong,

and I think they need that one character.

MAN: Michael Cera I had seen

in a pilot that he'd done years before.

It was like, the embodiment of sort of Woody Allen

and a 12-year-old kid.

You know, I don't know where they found Michael Cera...

We found out he's in Brampton or something,

in Canada. The casting director calls me and says,

"Great news, Michael Cera liked the script and he

"is willing to read for this."

And I was like, [CHUCKLES] He liked this? He's 14!

Like, he's discriminating?

My name is Alia Shawkat,

I played Maeby Funke on Arrested Development.

[BLEEPING]

Alia I cast off a photograph.

I was actually casting another pilot at the time,

we were looking for a kid, and I came across this picture

Alia, and I put it in this other pile and I just like her little

quirky look, and her bright eyes.

Maeby, the teenage daughter of Tobias and Lindsay...

She doesn't look like either of them, so

question marks are everywhere.

She's like a rebellious teenager who's

street smart, just not book smart.

She's just got that confidence through the roof, and

nothing's gonna stop her.

I think the narrator is like my favorite character.

I wound up being the narrator.

That was kind of an accident.

Then I got kind of, corralled into it.

But I was really glad that I, that I was.

His voice is so pleasant to listen to.

He's an unbelievably creative guy,

and a very ambitious guy.

Here's this like, unbelievably credited director,

who's narrating this show.

But he's not the narrator,

it's Ron Howard talking about his show.

Ron is like my younger brother.

He was in favor of all the rules that we broke.

With Arrested Development, you could have the narrator

exposing the hypocrisy of the characters.

Or creating little jokes by making little observations.

He kind of almost says what you're thinking.

Whenever he talks, you see his face.

I never saw him, you know. He was a voiceover.

In doing the narration, often I was doing it from

you know, like inside the cab of the sound man's truck,

in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

It really not only carried the plot line forward,

but added another laugh, you know, into the mix.

We've been huge fans of Arrested Development

since the series premiered.

On the very first episode...

Oh, I got hooked.

-Pretty much got hooked. -I was hooked.

-Hooked. -Episode one...

We couldn't stop watching it.

I had this really cool teacher in high school,

so I went up and I was chatting with him before

class, and I saw this strange little white and orange box,

and I was like, "What's this?"

nd he's like, "That is the greatest show you'll ever watch."

I'm one of those people that had a friend...

...who wouldn't leave me alone about it.

"No, no, man. Just watch the pilot, man it's gonna be

"so cool, you're gonna totally get into this..."

My friends that would watch it would quote it to each other

all the time throughout the day.

-I just made him buy the DVDs. -Yes.

Didn't even know if he'd like it.

And I wanted to be a part of that.

Then I heard people talking about it...

Everyone was talking about it.

So we'd end up watching five episodes that night.

A few episodes turned into like an eight-hour marathon.

And by then I was completely hooked.

I just fell in love from there.

Instantly.

And that was it.

You want me to explain the plot of Arrested Development?

No, it's not possible to give a rundown of the plot.

[MUMBLING]

You could encapsulate it in a book the size of a dictionary.

At its heart, Arrested Development

is a show about family dynamics.

And it's a show about an adult family.

And how damaged they are.

That's not really what it's about though, is it?

Basically, it's about a, uh, a family with a hell of a lot

of baggage.

That has had money, and acts as though they still do.

And yet one of the sons, he's sort of the only one

that sees the reality of their situation.

These are rich, snobby bastards...

But they're so [BLEEP] up.

That family is probably a lot closer to the average

American family than, you know, any of these other

crap comedies that are on television.

It's a show about family values.

But in a sick, twisted, dysfunctional way.

-Family first. -Family first.

Here we have the family, that at one point

had everything.

Except ethics and scruples.

It's just about a family that lost their money,

and became desperate. And needed to bond together

to make it through this economic storm.

And we, the audience and the cameras,

follow them as they try to, you know,

navigate the challenges of the less privileged.

That's a very unfunny way to say it.

I think everything starts and ends with the writing.

It was the best writing staff I've ever seen put together.

They worked hard. They really, really worked hard.

It was a constant reinforcing of "Wow, these guys are good."

There's so much going on, I mean, there's so much

bang for your buck, every few seconds there's a joke,

a set-up, a joke, a set-up.

Most of the time on network television,

you write to the lowest common denominator.

You want to please the masses.

Arrested Development never did that.

It didn't care if you got the joke or not.

We did the show, more or less, as Mitch wrote it.

And had a lot of faith in our audience to get the jokes.

There wasn't a lot of room

for just rambling.

It wasn't that laugh out loud, and once you got it,

it was belly laughs.

It was so quick. So quick.

It was almost like an Airplane!movie.

While you're laughing, you're missing three jokes.

We did do more complicated shows,

more complicated stories,

so they would be more re-watchable.

HOWARD: You know, I just

wanted every single thing to be funny.

He is a perfectionist.

He would just give you these, you know, brilliant lines to say

and it was a joy. It was a joy just to be able to say them.

BATEMAN: Truly, every time I wouldget a script,

I would get up early those mornings and read it.

We used to call each other and say "Oh, my God,

"have you read this week's script, it's so funny!"

I've never done that before, and I haven't done it since.

They were dedicated to making the best

possible comedy on the air.

Usually, over the course of like a series,

for five years you'd be lucky to get one script that good.

We were getting it on a weekly basis.

I remember people telling me "That's not normal."

I really wanted every character to have a story.

I wanted the stories to be intertwined,

um, and I don't completely know why.

Y'know, it wasn't just like

"What's the king of queens doing this week

"in episode 403?" You know, it's... [STAMMERS] The characters don't

really change in those shows. And this you could see

immediately, the characters were gonna grow, develop.

I just felt like that was the challenge of this

particular series. I don't know what I would have done that

on another show.

It's one of those shows that rewards you

for paying attention.

Who think three years ahead in the arch of their comedy?

Well, Mitch does. Very few other writers can.

I loved the kinds of shows

that you could watch and look for detail,

and try to put the pieces together yourself.

I loved being a little bit behind.

There were a few times on screen where there weren't

multiple levels of comedy going on.

You really have to think, and be paying attention

to get it.

You really had to, you know, focus.

Because there's a hidden gem in every episode.

Every time I watch the show, I pick up something new.

There are so many jokes on a joke on a joke on a joke...

...and they don't care. If you can't keep up

you'll have to watch it again.

And all the pieces fit together. There's not a point where

it just doesn't make sense, or it's out of sync.

They all kind of fall into place.

The running jokes were used in so many different contexts,

that they really didn't have a chance to get old.

Some of them are so far ahead, like, you're like,

"Okay, where is that going?"

And when you get there, it's such, like, a payoff.

To write a sitcom and put in jokes that you're gonna payoff

four episodes later...

That's really, you gotta really have stones to do that.

Sitcoms traditionally

work in a fairly methodical way.

ANTHONY: Television is typically sort of a less focused

format as far as an audience goes.

You know, you can be a little distracted,

you can be checking to see if your kid's done the homework,

or, you know, you can pay bills.

And for the most part, you could not do that

with Arrested Development.

It really required your full attention.

That is not the average way that people watch television.

It was hell to make because each one's kinda like a movie.

I knew it was completely different, than anything that...

That we'd really seen on American television.

We wanted to feel like The Osbournes, like

a reality show, a camera guy, and a sound guy

walking around following people.

We didn't want it to feel very produced.

Basically, it was a handheld show.

Serve low production value, simple cameras...

We were shooting fast and furious,

especially at first. Uh, no lighting to speak of.

We were just shooting off the hip.

Mitch didn't like to limit the show by having to shoot

all of it in the house...

So every episode we were out in a car, driving around...

But it drew you in too.

It's like you were actually following these guys.

BATEMAN: There was a style to shooting it

that was supposed to be very real.

In fact, I think that was sort of

the motto in the first year you'd come to shoot.

No, no, no horse [BLEEP].

We even put on the breakdown

that goes out to actor's agents when actors are auditioning,

"This is how we're gonna make it, so you better be

"comfortable with it. You're not gonna have a giant trailer,

"we'll try to have decent hair and makeup

"so you don't look like [BLEEP].

"But other than that, you gotta be in tune

"with the kind of, very loose filmmaking style."

They would say "Do a chicken dance."

And you would have to do your chicken dance.

You know, [CLUCKS] I mean...

You know, and everybody... I think Will's chicken dance

was the best.

I was always encouraging everybody to shoot with two cameras.

We'd come up with all these rules for the cameras,

and how the cameras were to act, and

have their own personality.

ANTHONY: And so we wanted to kind of capitalize on that,

and sort of play to the idea that we were sort of

flies on the wall, watching this family's travails unfold.

You by yourself a lot of time to experiment.

Actors could improvise, comedy writers could rewrite.

We'd send operators onto the set without seeing

a rehearsal and they'd end up banging into each other

but they would get the most amazing stuff.

We were able to move very quickly in keeping with

the whole psuedo-documentary style.

I remember Joe Russo turning to me one time and saying

"Jimmy, can you believe

"they're letting us do this [BLEEP]?"

I knew that we were following the beat of our own drummer,

and that it was gonna feel very different than any other show.

And secretly I was always wishing I could direct

an episode... But I never had a chance to.

Nowadays in television it's not surprising, because a lot of

shows look like this now, but at the time,

for a scripted show, it was unconventional

to look as bad as Arrested Developmentlooked.

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

WOMAN: Franklin. Do you remember one of his sayings?

It ain't easy being white.

BOTH: ♪ It ain't easy being white! ♪

Franklin is one of the greatest characters on the show.

♪ It ain't easy being brown ♪

This is Gob's big idea

for racial harmony.

♪ All the pressure to be bright ♪

MAN: It's this puppet that sings

this highly offensive song.

♪ I got children all over town! ♪

That was used in an act that, that Whitey wasn't quite

ready for and...

My name is Justin Grant Wade,

and I played Steve Holt.

-Steve Holt! -Steve Holt!

BOTH: Steve Holt!

He's just a, uh, fun guy. Uh, definitely likes himself.

My name is Mae Whitman. I played Anne Paul Veal.

Nobody could figure out why George Michael liked her.

You know "her?"

WHITMAN: She's sort of, plain.

And let me just add that I was wearing a fat suit on the show.

People always come up to me and they're like,

"God, you look great! Jeez, you've lost a bunch of weight."

You know, we had just fabulous guest stars

on the show.

My name is Justin Lee, and the character I played

is, uh, Annyong Bluth.

Lucille adopts a son from Korea. [GIGGLES]

"Annyong"in Korean means "Hello."

And the only thing that I ever say for the next few episodes

is"Annyong."

They keep saying annyongto him and so he just keeps

saying it back to them...

Then, that... That became my name, Annyong.

My wife and I use it all the time.

We just go [MOCK VOICE] Annyong!

-Annyong! -Annyong.

-Annyong. -Annyong?

Annyong!

My name is David Reynolds, I got to play the, uh,

character of White Power Bill.

I would like to say that he's like probably a retarded racist

because like the only person he attacks in the film

are like, white people.

[GRUMBLING] White Power!

[CREW MEMBER CHUCKLES]

The first big get was Liza Minnelli.

I was able to hear that somebody was interested in

doing the show and then write it right for them.

-Julia Louis-Dreyfus -Zach Braff.

Amy Poehler.

We all knew it was pretty special when they got some

heavy hitters.

-Charlize Theron. -Ben Stiller.

-Carl Weathers. -Carl Weathers!

When you have people of that caliber,

it just, as a writer, it just forces you to do better.

We gotta do better, we gotta do better.

And then there were people we were never able to get in

that said they'd be willing to do it.

Ricky Gervais said he'd be willing to do it.

Sacha Baron Cohen I desperately wanted.

We also heard at one point that Christopher Walken

was willing to be in the show.

I'm Ed Begley and I played Stan Sitwell.

He has physical characteristics that are

quite unusual.

Stan Sitwell couldn't grow his own hair because

-he had, what? -BOTH: Alopecia?

So he doesn't want to go au naturel,

doesn't want to go for the bald look.

He's got different eyebrows that he moves around.

Well, he doesn't intend to move them around, but they do.

It is a disturbing character that he ended up creating.

My name is Andy Richter...

I remember we had Andy play himself...

But the guy on set started to really push me and be like,

no, no, no. I want you to do it as if you're like, you know...

You're a big fat guy that just wants to eat.

And I said "Oh, you mean the old fatty loves to eat joke?

"You want me to be a big fat [BLEEP] loser

"who just wants to [BLEEP] fill his fat [BLEEP] face?"

And the guy went "Yeah, that's what I want."

Andy had just done a show for Fox called Quintuplets.

Google it.

And I don't know if it was his idea, but a writer

on the show, Jim Vallely...

There was something about me being on the show

that he found endlessly amusing.

I called up Mitch Hurwitz,

and he goes "Well, we already had him on the show,

"as Andy Richter." I go, "But what if the teacher's

"Andy Richter's twin brother?"

I do remember one of them's name's was Chareth.

And then Mitch goes, "What if he's one of

"Andy Richter's quintuplet brothers?"

But Quintupletsfailed too, I dunno maybe it's just me.

Maybe I'm, you know, showbiz cancer.

I like Barry Zuckerkorn.

Barry Zuckerkorn the complete idiot attorney.

He's very good.

I just want to say, I am in a shirt and tie,

because Barry was very well-dressed.

When I heard that Henry was going to be on the show,

I was in heaven.

WINKLER: The best part of playing Barry was his ties.

I got to keep some of them.

This is not it... But...

He's clearly the worst lawyer ever.

He's so gross and creepy.

He has no idea how the judicial system works.

His character is so unlike what he's known for.

And for him to have been, at one point,

the coolest guy in the world as The Fonz...

The biggest problem he's got is he has no idea

what his sexuality is.

Probably next to the Fonz,

I think, I bet it's his favorite character.

He believes he might have a vagina, but he's actually

never said that to anybody.

The weirder his guy got, the happier Henry was.

Mitch and the writers paid homage to

Happy Days, or the Fonz, twice.

'Cause, you know, the episode where he's in the bathroom,

and they're having a conversation in the bathroom,

and he turns to the mirror and he's like,

"Hey." And I looked at my hair, and went,

"Pfft, I don't have to comb it."

You're like [BLEEP] that is so brilliant!

Then the second is I am the only actor

in the world

who has jumped the shark twice.

The history of jump the shark is, there was a scene

in Happy Days where Fonzie, played by Henry Winkler,

was in a leather jacket

on water skis, going to jump over a shark,

and Ron Howard, Richard Cunningham

was driving the boat.

And that's the quintessential point where it's like, "Come on!"

'Cause that's what jump the shark is.

Jump the shark is that the producers have sold out.

And it gave birth, really, to the phrase. And so

you take that metaphor,

and you apply it to any television show...

AMODEO: We did a cross promotional episode with Burger King

which is just sort of absurd for a show like

Arrested Development.

When you talk about Arrested Development,

with respect to jumping the shark,

I could talk for hours.

Buster gets his hand bitten off by a seal.

We made it a seal 'cause that rhymed with Lucille's name.

They eventually find, um, a shark who they think

ate the seal...

Okay, now we gotta get Henry Winkler down there...

And I jumped over it.

If you didn't know that that's where the term

came from, it would totally be lost on you.

And I was like... "Oh, my God,

"did they really just do that? Oh... Wow."

Without having to say a word, just the subtle look

at the shark... jump over it.

But the joke's not done yet,

because there's no other meaning of jump the shark.

It should be in an episode where we jump the shark.

So we actually shot a scene in a Burger King.

We all got commitment to Burger King.

'Cause they put our name on their little table tents.

And then the punctuation point on it was Henry's line,

"Going off to Burger King and jumping the shark."

I don't think Arrested Development

ever jumped the shark. I don't think

it was on long enough. I think they got out,

whether they wanted to or not, they got out at

the right time.

Sometimes, like that whole thing came

together for that joke.

I knew that Winkler was the attorney,

and you know it was one of those things I just

didn't quite do the math.

I am Scott Baio and I pay... [CHUCKLES]

I am Scott Baio and I play Bob Loblaw.

It was a good choice after having Barry Zuckerkorn.

I was sort of the, um, younger Fonzie?

You know, in retrospect it seemed natural that I would

just take his place.

I actually liked a guest character solely for his name.

And that of course would be Scott Baio.

Well, uh, first of all,

when they sent me the script, and...

I'm from New York, and my accent

got in the way of the names.

So I looked at it and said Bob Loblaw. And...

I was doing the scene with Bateman,

and he said, "Here's our attorney Bob Loblaw."

And I went, "That's the name?"

I was so completely thrown out of the scene by

him saying that.

Why would you name a character Bob Loblaw?

Simply so you could say, "Blah, blah, blah."

-Bob Loblaw. -Bob Loblaw.

So I think in the end they agreed to

Bob Loblaw.

No. Bob Loblaw.

Yeah.

It just became a, just a big joke.

And without him there would be no

-Bob Loblaw's Law Blog. -Bob Loblaw's Law Blog.

Bob Loblaw's Law Blog.

But I knew going in that it would be, uh,

just nuts. And it was.

It almost seems very improv'd.

I don't know how much improv they did on the actual show...

We heard that a lot, uh. Pretty consistently.

And there's no better testament to the writers,

uh, than... The fact that people think that.

They didn't need to improvise. They didn't want to improvise.

The writing was so good.

It was supposed to sound like we were improvising.

The show looks spontaneous.

But it's so unbelievably not spontaneous.

The words were very good.

You don't want to fix something that isn't broken.

It was such a, uh, a dense show as well,

in terms of just pure volume of script-age.

That you knew that if you improvised too much

most of it wouldn't get in the show anyway.

Although, we weren't discouraged.

Once we would get a scene done, as written,

sometimes we would say different stuff.

Different jokes.

The comedy was very specific.

The dialogue had to be delivered pretty much on book.

A lot of improv took place on the set.

HALE: We would improv some stuff and Mitch would

be like "What do you think?" And just, it wasn't as funny

as what's in the script.

The cameras were connected to Mitch's office.

And if he didn't hear what he wanted to hear,

if I thought I was being funny [CHUCKLES] off the script,

he would all of a sudden appear in front of me,

like a genie.

When all of production and all the guys are not sitting around

and hanging out outside in their trucks,

and they're all on stage,

watching the action,

You know that there was something going on.

-But the only time that we would improv... -[SIRENS WAILING]

would be... [BLEEP] ambulance, right?

[BLEEP] people dying.

When you've got guys like David Cross,

and Will Arnett and all these guys going for it,

you're gonna get hilarious stuff.

It's something I can't even help, it's almost

like a form of Tourette's, where you just can't shut up.

Let well enough be...

I wonder what kind of show you could put together

with all the cut footage.

Find that.

Find that footage. You know how you do that?

Follow the money.

Follow the money.

[CHUCKLES] One of my favorite moments was

Michael Cera walking the Red Carpet

and all you can hear is "Michael, Cera, Michael Cera.

"Michael, Cera." And he's like "What the [BLEEP]?"

And then he realizes that he's right in between

Michael Douglas and Sarah Jessica Parker.

And so [LAUGHING] the photographers are

yelling "Michael, Sarah!"

-CREWMAN: Is that for real? -Yeah, that's a true story.

No, I lied.

They won the Best Comedy first year, out of the box.

And I was elated, 'cause I thought, you know,

-That's it! -And it was

really like, out of nowhere.

They were clearly all surprised.

Wasn't that incredible?

That Emmy?

When the show won the Emmys...

...it was gratifying and sort of, uh, encouraging and affirming.

That was an awesome night.

That was an awesome night.

It was like the craziest sensation.

The craziest victory.

I don't think we'll ever have an experience like that night.

It was such an incredible feeling.

And hey, I've won tons of Emmys

before, but that Emmy. No, I haven't...

I remember Ellen DeGeneres saying it, and the words

came out, and I remember jumping up!

It was a great moment for Mitch.

It was a great moment for the writing staff.

It was a great validation.

Mitch Hurwitz and those speeches at the Emmys...

We found out that Hurwitz is actually one of the best

Emmy speech givers in Emmy history.

It was probably the best acceptance speech

I've ever heard.

HOWARD: You know, kind of as funny as anything you'd ever see

on the show.

He was like "All right, great! Now watch it!"

He was kind of brilliant, wasn't he?

I'll get myself in trouble here.

Hmm...

The night we won the Emmy,

I saw Gail Berman, and she was then the president of Fox Entertainment,

and she showed me an email that, on her BlackBerry,

that she had gotten from Peter Chernin, her boss.

She had texted him "Arrested Development

"just won." And what he wrote back was "Oh, [BLEEP]."

As sort of the way that the awards and nominations

kind of went out in the schedule, it would often

coincide with the schedule of having to give producers

notice of whether they need to write more scripts.

And she said "Can you believe it?"

I said, "Gail, that's not... Holy [BLEEP]!"

"Oh, sure it is!" "No, he's... He's

"blown away." said no, that's "Oh, [BLEEP]."

WOMAN: Are you more apt to watch a comedy

if it won an Emmy for a Best Comedy?

No, I don't think so.

I don't really care about like, awards and stuff like that.

It's not like, oh, well, that won the Emmy so

I need to watch it.

Those Emmys were like, "Oh, are we finally

"transitioning into some sort of popular acceptance?"

And unfortunately, it never materialized after that point.

All of America was supposed to say "Man, that show won

"an Emmy, I've got to check it out."

[FART NOISE]

I think it gave us more credibility.

And it kept it on.

But I don't really know if it actually, honestly,

improved the ratings. [LAUGHING]

We sort of thought, "What show is that... That won?"

And that we're not really gonna spike audience-wise from it.

It turned out to be true.

I think that each time it got nominated,

and won, it was just like a little sphincter pinch for everybody

at Fox. Like "Mmm, damn it."

"There's another eight shows we have to do."

It's really what kept us on the air.

Jim actually told me a funny story about it,

that after the Emmys, that next show

there was an anticipation of a ratings bump.

So that gave us, uh, a little injection of hope and optimism.

Uh, before that came crashing down, of course.

The day after, we pulled up to Fox...

CROSS: You know, when you drive onto the Fox lot,

there's massive billboards. They have those huge

crazy big, big billboards. And there was like...

...a huge billboard in the front for like Jamie Kennedy's

new movie, and then we drive around the corner,

and there was a tiny little banner on the inside

of the studio.

The kind of thing you get for like, "We're raising money

"for the firehouse, come to our barbecue chicken night."

Congratulations Arrested, for five Emmys.

That banner was up for a few days, and then

the morning after

that much anticipated airing of the next show,

that banner changed to something like really depressing.

Like that, you know, show where they blew up cars

and showed a lot of [BLEEP].

[CHUCKLES] It was like that thing.

Like, "Coming up, exploding [BLEEP]!

Check it out this Fall.

On Fox.

Well, and that show did seem to be written they day before

it was shot.

Our scripts were notoriously late.

Yeah, the script definitely did come in late.

We used to get the scripts on Wednesday, or sometimes

even Thursday morning.

Mitch is notorious for not having scripts.

He can be a little infuriating, 'cause he'll be re-writing

to the last second.

I think Mitch was a bit of the kid who

would write his report the night before it was due.

I really did feel like, I wanted more time with it.

On Arrested,it reached the point of absurdity.

It was probably not terribly disciplined in terms of

when you got the scripts.

And the scripts came in late because I was putting my

creative expression ahead of

the studio's creative expression.

I mean, he always came through, and he came through

with A-level material obviously, but it was... It was incredible...

You know, instead of seeking the counsel of the studio

and the network, I kind of took my own counsel

and said let's just keep going and try to make this better.

The poor directors really had nothing to prep with.

By Mitch and the gang kind of getting these scripts

and always sort of right at the nick of time...

It just created this extra bit of energy.

If something wasn't working,

um, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't [STUTTERS] you know? I couldn't

eat. It just bothered me.

And that created the style of it.

It... To me when I see it now, it's clearly the work of, um,

a maniac.

I think it was probably more difficult for

the production. 'Cause they had to pull things together

really quickly.

The writers would write, write, write, write, write, up until

the very last minute that they had to turn the script over to us...

Wonderful crew. They had very little prep time.

I... I... [STUTTERS] I don't know what went on in Mitch's head

most of the time. It was a mystery.

Everyone on the crew had to be fairly creative,

because you had to do stuff without it really being

on the page, often.

I remember once at a Christmas party

we called up John Amodeo, our producer, and asked him

if he could get us the Queen Mary.

[FOGHORN BLOWING]

[LAUGHS] "When?" "For Monday!"

It's like, Saturday night. [LAUGHING]

In the middle of Christmas season.

"Can you get us the Queen Mary?"

He calls us up Sunday "Hey, I got the Queen Mary!"

[CHUCKLING]

Oh, I love Mitch, and we have a great relationship,

but I think it's fair to use the word insanity.

The double-edged sword of being Mitch is the

fun of working with the staff and the cast, but...

You know, he also had this real heavy lifting to do,

which is supervise the editing.

The editing room was just another phase of the writing stage.

He didn't edit in a timely manner.

He didn't do anything in a timely manner.

I know Mitch would go into the editing room and...

When they would edit, would basically re-write the show...

...and try to make things, you know, funnier.

Not go the other direction. 'Cause you're losing jokes.

But instead, how do you scrunch it?

He could come up with new lines, and I know he'd actually

sit at the edit bay with a microphone,

and temp in lines.

So you would see shots of people's shoulders

or backs.

If you watch it, there's dialogue on people's backs...

He'd put different words in.

So in effect, he was re-writing beyond last possible moment.

So he didn't get it done to start with,

he did it on set, and then he did it after.

I do love that they were able to insert some

political aspects into the show.

We did get a note early on, from the network,

'cause we had all this stuff about the Iraq War.

The whole Iraq War thing was really genius.

The concern was, you know, "Won't the Iraq War be over

"by the time this airs?"

"Aren't you a little worried it will be outdated?"

[CHUCKLES] I was like, "No, no, no."

Our grandkids will be part of that.

Bush, if he did give this country one thing,

it really was a deep sense of shame and irony

that was not lost on our, um, our writing staff.

It was... It was generous of him.

We got away with murder.

Yeah. You don't see a lot of people throwing themselves

under buses. You know?

The subject matter was kind of risque.

With the war, and Bush, and, I mean,

it wasn't that subtle.

One of my favorite lines is when the newscaster

comes out and goes "WMDs found in Iraq.

"What this means for your weekend, tonight at 10:00."

When they're driving through Iraq they talk about

Halliburton Way, and Cheney Drive.

In the background, during one of the scenes they have the

"Mission Accomplished" banner. [CHUCKLES]

[SINGING TUNE] Solid as a rock!

One of my favorite subplots was the, you know,

Saddam Hussein, [LAUGHING] as a client.

TAMBOR: I actually was made up as Saddam when they buried me,

which was hysterically funny.

On these kind of major issues that are going on at the time,

they magically weaved them into the show.

But it wasn't the show. It didn't supersede the comedy.

I kind of hate political satire, but this show approached it

in a way that was funny, and topical but wasn't

bashing you in the head stupid about it.

These guys had balls.

When you see the copyright dates of some of those

episodes, and the things that they were suggesting...

This is 2003, 2004, we've just invaded Iraq,

and someone had the balls to go in and to poke fun at it?

And put it on the Fox network of all places!

These guys... These guys have to go through those doors

sideways. You know? Those are some balls.

You kind of feel like

we slipped it past them somehow. You know? [LAUGHS]

It's great to make, uh, humor out of something bad, y'know?

If you don't have that, what do you got?

It's a money laundering scheme...

It's corrupt businesses...

It's a fine line to be able to write political satire

that works as humor

even if you don't carry the politics into it.

And very, very perceptive vision in advance.

Um, by Mitch. This was a con job.

They just take things that

you should not even broach the subject

and they turn it into gold.

It's a little startling at first.

Like if you try and tell someone,

you know you kind of get some weird looks.

"What the hell are you watching?" You know?

It kind of shows you a microcosm of the risk

that this show took.

He's so cute and innocent,

but yet he has this, um, little dark secret.

He's just this classic 14, 15 year old guy,

with some crazy crush. And it just happens to be his cousin.

Ultimately at the heart of the

George Michael-Maeby relationship, were,

you know, two kids that were really lonely.

It was actually my first kiss ever, that kiss with Michael.

And I remember one of the execs from Fox was there,

and I was like, "You know, I'm really nervous, actually,

"'cause I've never kissed anyone."

It was not a salacious relationship

between the two of them.

It was a boy who needed a sister.

And then wanted to see his sister naked.

-Ew! -Ah!

What the [BLEEP]?

-That's rad. -Yeah, yeah, incest is just a riot.

Especially on network TV It takes a special touch

to do incest. I think. To make it accessible to the masses.

I like the fact that he was constantly chasing her.

Which could be really offensive to a lot of people.

But there's such a fundamental sweetness to it.

You didn't think of them in terms of cousins.

You didn't care, because he was just so in love with her.

Their relationship and non-relationship as the case

may be, is probably one of the best conflicts in the entire show.

It's not gross, they don't do anything

that's necessarily wrong. You know? But it's just

kind of there.

But are they cousins? Is this my cousin, Maeby?

So maybe it's not.

[CARS BUSTLING]

[LIGHTNING STRIKES, THUNDER RUMBLES]

CREWMAN: A lot of the fans have talked about your rant.

Can you speak to that?

Um, I don't know exactly what triggered it,

but I do remember that we had just gotten,

I mean literally maybe 15 minutes ago,

or 10 minutes prior to that, we had just gotten a...

Yet another piece of bad news. I don't remember what it was,

it was, you know, we're gonna go on a break,

we're gonna shut down, or one of those things.

Jeffrey and I were talking about something and I just...

You know. You get angry. And you...

I wasn't doing it for the camera but I mean, I stand by it, you know.

I kind of knew that we just weren't gonna make it at Fox.

Fox gets so much bashing I guess for however they

you know, promoted or marketed the show.

This show is a weird animal. It was always very hard

for them to figure out what to do with it.

I do think they tried to market it.

There was a lot of support for the show.

And some people would disagree with me...

Fox didn't advertise. That was a big problem.

Yeah, I mean maybe they could have marketed

a little bit different.

They didn't have

the backing to aggressively promote the show.

There's a lot of power in marketing.

And they really can change the outcome of something.

I think they... I think did everything that they knew how to do.

I don't want to comment on how well they did it,

I know that they [BLEEP] tried.

Hard.

They were held responsible for my belief,

which was that if you try to make every single part of it

funny, an audience will come.

And that really was my belief.

I felt that they didn't get it.

It's difficult for a network to promote to its viewers

a show that really doesn't resemble anything

that's out there.

I don't think they knew what it was, or knew

who the audience was.

And obviously Fox has had a really hard time

breaking any comedy hits. Other than animation.

Period.

I wasn't trying to do something that was

so obscure that people didn't get it.

I was trying to create something that people

had to make an effort for.

They didn't have a lot of great time slots,

and the whole Sunday night at 9:30pm, you know,

was a death slot.

Their network at the time was Simpsonsand King of the Hill,

and Family Guy on Sunday night.

And this didn't fit into either of those boxes...

They had a difficult task.

And I think it lasted longer than

anybody at Fox really would have wanted it to.

I think it was a sore point for them.

Mitch told us once that he had actually gone to someone

in the network, and I swear to God they said to him:

"Do you mind dumbing it down just a little bit? Come on."

Many times people wanted to reshape the show,

or try to find a single focus as opposed to the

several stories that the show has.

And he just, would always resist it.

The only things they could give notes on,

were the scripts.

The note was, "Can you do 15% less?"

You know, "Does it have to be so complicated?"

There was a time I thought there were too many stories.

You know, it's hard to follow that many stories...

Not a bad note. Actually.

Probably, if we had taken it,

um, I wouldn't be in this [BLEEP]!

[LAUGHING]

HURWITZ: They were very respectful.

And they were very worried. You know, they...

They put a lot of money into this thing.

I mean, they probably put over 50 million dollars

into making this.

What people tend to forget though, is that they did give

us two and a half years, and they didn't have to.

They didn't feel it was worth the extra step of

also spending a lot of money on promotion, and that's

just an equation that studios have to make.

We also thought that

the country would catch on.

That's what I don't get.

For the most part,

the heart of the country did not watch the show.

And

by the heart I mean

the middle.

Like the Midwest.

They're to blame.

In every definition of the word "missed", uh, America missed it.

America Ferrara? The girl who plays Ugly Betty?

I don't know if she ever watched it!

Huh...

Every critic at every newspaper says,

"This is the best sitcom on TV."

But for some reason, America says,

"Oh, I've never heard of it."

Unfortunately a lot of the really good shows that are critically

acclaimed, they don't... People don't watch them.

The audience has been systematically taught

over the generations,

"Just sit there! We'll throw this stuff at you!

"If it hits you in the forehead, you'll enjoy it!

"If not, we'll cancel it and throw something else

"at you."

I mean most people don't even know it existed, really.

We sure did our part. We told everybody we knew about it.

[SCOFFS] I don't know, people just didn't watch it.

I'd hear her talking about it,

"Yeah it's one of my favorite shows..."

Nothing.

I would call my family, who lives in different parts

of the country and say, "Did you see my show?"

And most of them would say, "Yeah, I didn't like it."

I wouldn't watch the show, 'cause I don't watch shows.

Uh, and I don't like when I'm filming to watch the show.

And Jason would get really mad at me. He would go,

"You know, we'd all... We'd all like a little help!"

I would guess that half the people that saw the show

saw the show on a digital video recorder, you know,

like a TiVo. Or on, um, on DVD.

And as soon as you do that, you're off the ratings grid.

We also just missed, you know,

like the Nielsen Rating Group started following you know, college dorms.

And that was a big part of our, uh, fan base.

We would have it on the TV in the background

to get ratings, you know. Like on every TV in the house.

But I don't think

we had Nielsen, so it was probably useless.

I think Arrestedreally believed in its audience.

More so than maybe any other show I've ever worked on.

In a way I think it's good that it never had that mass appeal.

I know it doesn't help everybody's pocketbook

at the end of the day, but it was never gonna

appeal to the, uh, the entire country.

It required some work as a viewer, where as

most shows are like

warm gruel that gets

spoon-fed to you while you lay on the couch,

calcifying.

You kind of lose hope in people.

You know, we need to be hit over the head with a joke.

People need to be reminded, Oh, guess what? That's funny!

Laugh!

And the fact that this show did not have a laugh track,

and didn't telegraph the areas

where the audience should laugh, I think

hurt it with the vast majority of people.

How sad is that?

I think America missed this show by six months.

Over at NBC, uh, when The Officecame out,

they knew that they were, even though they weren't

getting big ratings, uh, they were...

People were downloading it, people were paying for it...

You know, maybe it's a good show to be downloaded.

Easy to stop and start, go back and catch that joke again...

Because then they would have been able to go

over to Rupert Murdoch and say "No, you don't understand,

"Rupert. It's making money."

Money!

I think that maybe America wasn't ready for this show.

The part of America that did miss this show,

is the same America that watches reality TV

It's better than 95% of the [BLEEP] that's on now.

When shows like Dancing with the Stars

and American Idolare the most popular TV shows...

I don't know. I think there's something wrong with that.

'Cause reality TV is just...

It's just awful. [LAUGHS] It's just [STUTTERS] It's...

-Yeah. -There's no writing.

Look at all the crap we have on TV!

-Crap. -It's all crap.

You just kind of want to tell people,

"What the [BLEEP] is the matter with you? Why are you

"watching stuff like this?"

I don't know how else to put it really.

America, what were you thinking?

God, you should...

I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed, America.

I'm a great parent to America, by the way.

Anyway, go ahead America. You're fine.

I hate to say this, but when I started watching the show

even from the first season, I always kind of thought

it was doomed.

I was at the, um,

Vanity Fairafter party for the Oscars one year.

And, um, Rupert Murdoch was there...

We really were a ratings fiasco.

He was very excited about talking about 24,

which is a Fox show.

And I said "Yeah, 24. That's great.

"And I'm really... I love Arrested Development."

No matter how brilliant a show is,

it does not mean that it's gonna stay on the air.

And he said,

"That's a cable show. That shouldn't be on the networks."

And I just kind of went "Ha. Eh, ah, we're [BLEEP]."

[CHUCKLES] We are [BLEEP] now.

Basically a show gets canceled for one reason,

it doesn't get ratings.

You know? It's not that complicated.

[CREWMAN SPEAKING]

Canceled!

I do want to say I was a little surprised

that it lasted as long as it did.

I never got involved when a TV show was canceled.

I, you know, they come and they go.

But when that show got canceled it really

bothered me deep down.

I felt the need to like, sign petitions.

You know? For a TV show. I never did that before in my life.

When I finally read the news that they'd canceled the show,

it was like a punch in the gut.

I wanted to cry.

We weren't canceled. We were taken into an alley

and shot in the back of the head.

This show had

lymph node cancer and was diagnosed with

multiple compound fractures, contusions, internal bleeding,

from the beginning.

No one expected the pilot to get picked up.

I thought I had the way to make it a hit.

I was wrong.

No one expected to get the second season...

It was just like,

"When are they gonna cancel it?"

That was all we ever said.

"When are they gonna cancel it? When?"

And no one expected to get the last half.

Every time we'd do a section of 13 episodes,

we really didn't know if we were coming back.

We never really felt like

a ton of people were watching it.

Turned out to be true.

We really did a cable show on network television.

You know, you just can't have a show on network TV

and not get the numbers that make sense for them.

It's all about advertising and all these crazy things

that have nothing to do with creativity.

This sounds so odd,

in a way I was glad we were canceled,

because I was... I was just sick of the fight.

And sick of the, that, that hanging on the ledge,

Oh, our numbers?

I don't know if the ratings ever really changed. [LAUGHS]

We felt like the ratings changed.

It had to do with the 18-49 audience,

which is, you know, the audience everybody wants,

because of advertising.

And, um, we didn't get the numbers, as they say.

You know? That's what... That's what happened.

It wasn't that much of a shock.

You know, we... we kind of saw it coming.

We didn't know week to week

whether we were going back to work.

For a long time.

Maybe all along it really needed to be a cable show.

You know? Who knows.

So I don't mean to be sour grapes about it

but the one thing that was slightly amusing in retrospect

was they had heavily, heavily promoted their new

Pamela Anderson show called Stacked.

And I just thought that was hilarious that like, a show

about Pamela Anderson being some kind of like...

In a bookstore? Or something like that?

It was like, you know, Desperate Housewives

was a hit...

And they have breasts.

We'll just call it [BLEEP]!

[CHUCKLES] You know? Stacked!

Ah, it's the biggest hit that's ever been on TV, Stacked!

I just couldn't understand it.

You know, and then it did less numbers than we did.

It was just really disappointing

that Fox put the last four episodes in a row,

two hours, back-to-back.

Right up against the Winter Olympics.

And the airing was ridiculous.

What a way to end the show.

That was kind of, you know.

"Guys! What are you doing to us?" You know.

"We don't even have a chance."

Felt like, "You guys don't have anywhere you can put this

"to get some ratings?"

It was indicative, again, of how the show was sorta...

Treated.

You know, corporate is corporate.

There's nothing better than to watch, you know, your blood

and sweat and tears thrown away.

I don't know. When a network cancels a show,

they no longer give a shit.

I think at that point I just, it was like totally

made for the fans.

I kind of thought, "Well, maybe it will be easier.

"You know maybe I'll just be able to do anything I want."

And I realized, no. It's...

"It's gonna be just as hard,

and we have to make it all fit.

It was frustrating. But having been a network executive

I... I know the rules of the game. And

once they cancel you and they say there's not a future,

you know, they just throw you out there.

I do think they tried.

At the Iowa caucuses,

my wife Cheryl and my kids all went.

At this point, Cheryl and I were working on behalf

of Hillary Clinton.

And there were these two guys... These young guys.

I eventually went over and sidled up to these guys,

and all they wanted to talk about was

Arrested Development.

And I turned and I started to go.

And, um...

The tall guy said "Ron!"

"I'll make a deal with you.

"If we're asked to choose another candidate

"we'll go with Hillary.

"But you have to promise me

"you make the Arrested Developmentmovie."

No matter where I go in the world,

the question is...

"Is there gonna be a film? Is there gonna be a film?"

"Hey, when's the movie coming out?"

-Movie. -Movie!

Movie, movie, movie!

I think it would really lend itself to the big screen.

Just as a fan, I pray that the rumors are true.

I think it'd be the best thing in the world.

I think everybody wants to see that team back together again

and then they really could pick up where they left off.

The principle element to it is,

an opportunity for all of us to enjoy them. Again.

I don't know what the status of the movie is, to be honest.

CREWMAN: Can you say that without the glass?

I don't know what the status of the movie is. I... Um...

I'm not entirely sure what the status of the movie is.

I think the movie is gonna happen, you know. I know

Mitch has been talking about it.

We, uh, we have been talking about doing this movie.

That's why he ended that last episode saying, you know,

"Maybe a movie."

I know that Jason has been talking about it in the press.

A lot.

We've all really been very honest with the media. I mean,

almost to a fault.

Mitch is supposedly writing it.

A script could be written. It may not be written.

It may never get written.

We'll see how much they zoom, and...

And make the audience seasick on the big screen.

The movie has been rumored ever since the show

first got canceled.

We were talking about the movie

as early as the first season.

I remember talking to Mitch about it.

I think about doing the movie. I have some plot ideas.

I think they had a lot more to say, and a lot more to do.

I read stuff on the internet that people are like, "Enough

"already with the movie rumors." You know?

It's like "Guys, either do it, or don't."

Do you think I should do it?

And then Mitch started making phone calls around to us

finding out who would be on board, and who wouldn't.

He was just pretty much like "So, if we do make it,

"would you be a part of it?" And I was like...

"All right. Sure."

I mean, the fact is I think we would all love to do it.

They all want to.

I certainly would welcome it. I love it.

I've talked to Bateman, I've talked to Will,

everybody wants to do it.

It seems like a pretty simple question for me.

I mean even when we were being canceled,

he took advantage of the cancellation and

wrote it in. So I know he'll write whatever is going on

or whatever stories are going on, who's on board, who's not

on board... Whatever. It's all gonna be in there.

It's very possible.

Whether or not they call me, I don't know if there's gonna

be room for all the many characters who came to visit.

Maybe I'll come back as a twin brother.

You want to know...

You know, "Where the [BLEEP] is Maeby gonna be in five years?

"What happens to Buster?"

Maybe his hand becomes bionic!

There's got to be an Arrestedmovie.

You know, come on!

There's obviously been a lot of talk about it,

you know. And I hope that happens, I wouldn't bet

on that one either.

For some reason, Arrested Development

and money have never been friends.

[CHUCKLES] Maybe 'cause the show ultimately

makes fun of people who had money.

Maybe we actually did try to say something.

Maybe we change the world.

Just a little bit.

You know, the other side of that is that you have

Ron Howard, who can get movies done.

Look, it's happening.

By all accounts.

I was in the bathroom at the DGA

and I look up and Ron Howard is

in the, um, the urinal.

There were a lot of rumors flying around.

I'm not the kind of guy who approaches guys

at a urinal...

I'd, by God, be the narrator.

They can't give anybody else that microphone!

He was a big fan of the show.

So I mean, maybe...

We're now no longer talking about who's in, who's out,

what's it gonna be, when's it coming out?

He says they have the money to make that movie.

-[CHUCKLES] -CREWMAN: So I can't...

You can ask anything you want.

[LAUGHING HEARTILY] Ask away!

I think everyone needs closure, although I don't

know how he's gonna wrap this thing up.

Well, at the very least a Christmas special,

where they sing songs.

[CREWMAN SPEAKING]

Not happening.

[CREWMAN SPEAKING]

The show is not coming back.

It's gotten a lot bigger on DVD, a lot more fans...

Nothing likeFamily Guy.

WOMAN: Would you watch it?

-Yeah, yeah totally. -Yeah.

I would definitely watch it.

WOMAN: So you would watch it today?

Yes, sure.

I'd probably give it a shot.

Yeah, I'd probably watch it.

Yes, I would. Yes, I would.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Tomorrow, the next day, and the next day on.

-Yeah. -Yeah.

Yeah!

-Yeah. -Yeah.

-Yeah. -I'd probably be interested.

I would.

-WOMAN: Tomorrow? -Tomorrow.

-The next day? -Exactly.

Historically it will be viewed as one of

the most important shows in television.

If more shows like Arrested Development

were on television, then TV would be good, and not just

a guilty pleasure.

It really was lightning in a bottle.

This combination of

a brilliant cast,

a really original idea,

it's such a rare convergence.

It's a god [BLEEP] shame. I really feel bad for anybody

who's a big fan of TV who

hasn't seen Arrested Development.

Arrested Development was the show

that could have changed the face of

American television.

It just never got the chance.

And, um, I think it will be viewed as such

in the annals of television history.

I hate the words "ground-breaking,"

but really, I mean. Come on.

It was ground-breaking.

I'm really proud to say I have any involvement

in Arrested Development.

It was pretty damn funny if I do say so.

I think Peter Chernin once called it, uh, us, a

a noble experiment. Or, you know, even he said

"We're proud of the show, it was worth... It was worth it."

You know, it was just a [BLEEP] [BLEEP] pleasure.

CREWMAN: Describe the show in one word.

Oh... [SIGHS]

Phew.

Threw a curveball there.

Smart.

Insane.

Hilarious.

-Brilliant. -Visionary.

-Perfect. -Complex.

The song Tennessee.

I mean, I wish it wasn't so.

But they were first.

Family.

Rest in peace.

Good evening.

The end.

I love the fans of Arrested Development.

There really is something about the kind of people

who love the show.

The Aztec tomb, saw this on eBay, and this is

sort of the first big purchase I made.

As you can see, the revolving door does work.

It's a tight squeeze.

I've never met a person who said "Hey, I love that show"

that I didn't like. And it's not an ego thing, because

I have met people who have liked Golden Girlswho I just

wanna punch in the face.

I have this water bottle from Army.

The infamous Girls with High Self Esteem.

And then I have Kitty's sunglasses.

Up here, Michael.

This one old lady couldn't shut up about it the other day.

I was like "God, you smell like death!"

The Cornballer is a culinary wonder machine.

It's something like a deep fryer,

and, uh, it's very dangerous.

So I would always enjoy these conversations that I'd have

with the fans. Because you know, they got it.

They got it.

Arrested fans rarely smell like death.

[CLAPPING, HOLLERING]

[MAKING CHICKEN NOISES]

[MAKING CHICKEN NOISES]