I downloaded the first season of Arrested Development today - it's a new show that's been airing on Fox. Anything that shows up on Fox is typically about as worthwhile a way to spend your time as standing on the corner actually taking the time to listen to the panhandler's reason that you should actually give your money to them rather than the other panhandlers.
Oddly enough, it turns out that Arrested Development is pretty hilarious. I don't know how it happened. How did this show land on Fox, instead of HBO, where it belongs? I can only guess that a comet struck the head offices of Fox and killed everyone in them, and the janitor got to choose what shows made the cut.
My first tip-off that the show might be good was that the cast had some promising members. Most notably, David Cross, all time awesomest comedian, and Jeffrey Tambor, from The Larry Sanders show (Hey Now!). There's a bunch of other interesting choices, especially Jason Bateman, who I recognized from his sublime performance in Teen-Wolf Too (that's spelt correctly). Not only that, but the creator and director's must actually be intelligent - or at least, be casting roles specifically to my tastes. The show has tons of cameo's with actors and comedians from a ton of shows and movies that I've loved, but have managed to fly somewhat under the radar: The two main actors from a movie called Melvin Goes to Dinner are in there, Bob Odenkirk shows up for a role played alongside David Cross's recurring character (who, as an aside, is a never-nude - someone that is incapable of ever being nude. He has to wear jean cut-offs all the time to accomodate for this), along with several of the other members from Mr. Show (The best, and only consistently funny sketch-comedy show in existence). They've even got Liza Minelli in a bunch of the episodes, playing, basically, herself, and just now I noticed that the weird guy from Saved by the Bell who was an actor/Max employee is in there.
The show has some similarities with News Radio, in that there are a lot of different types of comedy, and a lot of characters that are relatable, though each in different ways. The only person I'd really like to see in here is Phil Hartman. Tragically, this can never happen, but every now and then, I imagine the character he would be playing, and wish that it could be. The only thing I don't like about the show is that Ron Howard is the narrator. He does a decent job, and that's a petty problem. The main reason I don't like Ron Howard is because I think he's a dick for what he did with The Grinch, and I'm really not a very big fan of his style of directing. The narration throughout the show adds a slight tongue-in-cheek feel to the comedy, which I'm a big fan of (Sort of along the same lines as Amelie).
Anyhow, there's a kind of funny post in the works, but damn, these bastards take aeons to write. Oh, to have a job where I can devote four hours of my day to writing humour articles. Nah, I don't want that.
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