There's Always Money in the Banana Stand

Cult tv phenomenon Arrested Development will return on May 26, and the Bluth family's frozen banana stand is making straight its path.

I immediately loved the show when I first saw it on Netflix a couple of years ago. What's that got to do with writing? A lot, actually. Unlike a lot of contemporary comedies, Arrested Development features nuanced characterization and gets most of its laughs from crafted jokes instead of appealing to the lowest common denominator. But those touches aren't the main reason for the show's acclaim.

Arrested Development is noteworthy as a body of writing for mastering self-reflexivity and intertextuality. It's hard to find another narrated tv show whose narrator supplies a host of genuinely funny moments. It does help when the narrator is this guy.

The seminal nature of Arrested Development's first run is well attested by its imitators. It's not uncommon for other networks to copy a successful show's formula. What's odd about this case is that the show in question wasn't exactly successful. It's also hard to point to a single imitator employing a derivative style. Instead, similar postmodern sensibilities have saturated countless series and films in nearly every medium.

I don't claim that Arrested Development was the first tv series to make extensive use of self-referential and intertextual devices. It is, however, the gold standard for postmodern television humor. And although causality is difficult to prove, I've noticed a strong correlation between the show's initial run and a general increase in self-awareness and pop culture references in tv and film.