Funny, I just now watched the first Annjong episode for maybe the 5th time. Never caught this one:
Michael meets George Michael’s substitute ethics teacher, Miss Bearly. She’s substituting for Mr. Daniels, who had a stroke.
Much later in the episode, GM is wondering who he’s going to take to the school dance. Maeby doesn’t know who she wants to go with either. “I asked Mr. Daniels, but he started breathing funny and dropped the phone.”
“That’s not a Volvo.”
One that I caught recently on a re-re-watching:
Dave Thomas’ character (Charlize Theron’s character’s guardian) is showing Rita the gold star in a lidded box. She reaches for her prize, and he slams the lid shut, surprising her. Rita erupts in a laugh that is an obvious reference to Julia Roberts’ laugh in a Pretty Woman.
And another that I caught again:
Oscar is under house arrest, with an ankle alarm, and is seeking to escape. He discovers a hole in the wall behind the refrigerator, and Ron Howard narrates something to the effect of, “Surely this was a way to get past the sensors.”
The next line is when Buster walks in and sees the fridge is askew, and says, “If Mother sees this, she’ll blow a cow!”
I’m a huge huge arrested development fan and am also firmly in the camp that it is the best comedy ever made. The meta-comedy and the sheer punchline density makes it so rewarding to watch and I can watch an episode and spot something new every time.
Here are some of my more obscure finds:
The episode where GOB is essentially a pimp under the guise of Franklin for the prostitute who Michael mistakenly believes to be ‘Nelly’ his sister. Michael voices his disbelief at the idea of Nelly being a prostitute and GOB says something along the lines of ‘it is true, she is a lady of the night. She pulls illusions for money…I mean tricks’. This is a ridiculous throwback to the first ever episode where George Senior tells Gob not do bother with any tricks at the boat party and Gob says ‘illusions dad…they’re illusions. Tricks are what whores pull for money’. So yeah, pretty cool joke.
When Gob and Franklin sing the song ‘it ain’t easy being white, it ain’t easy being brown/ All this pressure to be bright, I got kids all over town’. This is extra funny because Gob is white and is not bright, and also has kids all over town (EG Steve Holt).
Another one I noticed is, when Rita calls Michael a ‘pussy’, with Michael not realising that she is actually praising him, they flashback to a British WW1 soldier being told by, presumably his girlfriend or romantic interest, ‘oh you’re such a pussy’. In a future episode where Buster is pretending to be in a coma, after agreeing to go to Iraq to demonstrate his bravery the nurse who is his romantic interest affectionately calls him a ‘pussy’. This scene is an exact modern day replica of the WW1 scene, even down to their body positions, and the fact Tony Hale (Buster) is the WW1 soldier and the nurse (name i don’t know) is the soldier’s girlfriend. Cool. There is also a similar joke about the use of the word ‘fag’.
Another really cool running joke is the George Senior ‘bear’ nickname gag. When the family think G Senior has died due to the literal doctor, Gob starts crying and says ‘bear…big bear…big bear didn’t get to know my honey business’ or something like that, and Lindsey says ‘I didn’t even know we were calling him bear’. George is first called a ‘bear’ in the episode where Michael arranges an intimate meeting for Lucille and George in a marital prison trailer. There are more subtle bear references that are kicking around.
Another really cool joke I saw on Youtube is where Gob gifts George Michael the game Monopoly as part of a magic trick in order to get a free banana. In a future scene with I think is in a different episode, Lindsey bumps into George Michael in the attic where he is solemnly placing a game of monopoly on an already high pile of other games of monopoly.
Conclusion. Mitch Hurwitz is a genius.
George Michael’s favorite movie Les Cousins Dangereux is a straight-up parody of the David Hamilton film Tendres Cousines.
In the episode where Michael has his appendix removed, the doctor is played by Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson. He manages to sneak a “d’oh!” into his dialogue.
I, for one, welcome the resurrection of this zombie. No, no, I don’t even mean this ironically; I’ve dutifully read both pages again, and welcome new input. We have the new Netflix season to contend with now, too.
To further de-zombie-fy, then…
Yeah, Jason and Justine’s exchange was one of the funniest things from A.D.
“Weird on so many levels.”
Ann’s full name was Annabelle, and there were a number of digs about the “bell” in her name suggesting her being round like a bell. (as well as the Ann Veal wordplay.)
Trying to remember which episode it was where Lucille is holding a pair of scissors in a way that definitely brought Play Misty For Me to mind.
“I knew it!”
It wasn’t at all subtle, but the “Captain and Tennille” joke made me, I’m quite sure, go literally blind for about two seconds due to its brilliance.
It cracks me up that in several episodes after Tobias joins Blue Man Group, in scenes at the model home you occasionally see little smudges of blue paint on the walls.
Along with the missing bits of blue from his back and other parts of his body that he couldn’t reach. It was very obvious he blue himself.