How ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT Does Running Gags | Deep Dive
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How does Arrested Development keep so many running gags going at the same time?
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Arrested Development - Mitch Hurwitz
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Fox after cancelling this series: "I've made a huge mistake"
But why did they
It won awards but didn’t get a ton of viewers. The show moved around to different time slots, different days. They made a huge mistake , but it was because the show was before its time. Before binge watching was a thing.
Fox did the same with Family Guy. Difference is, it got revived after its strong dvd sales and kept going.
Seeing where modern Family Guy went, I wish it traded places with AD.
Netflix after season 4: I’ve made a huge mistake
FOX, the kiss of death for any comedy series. Getting it wrong is our business!
A great moment watching it through the first time was the realization that the “Next time on Arrested Development” bits had nothing to do with the next episode.
I felt like I was the only one who got that as well
My sister tried to skip those when she watched and I was like WHAT ARE YOU DOING
Are you serious??? I always skipped them to not spoil it... best I be rewatching it again so
@@JohnJones-yk5qk Lol you really should not XD
I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t realize that until well into the second season…something seriously wrong with me hahaha
One of my favorite gags in the show is when Tobias says “oh those Hollywood shows are always so detail3d with there set design” and as he’s saying it he’s opening a cabinet and it’s empty except for the one mug he pulls out. Then a few seconds later George Michael pulls out cereal also from an empty cabinet. What made it funnier was that it was my third viewing of the show before I caught it.
R3DH00D1E I LOVED that one
Even worse, the one Tobias opens only has a Starbucks cup in it somehow
@@DodaGarcia Game of Thrones could have picked up on this one with their starbucks cup.
@Adolf Hitler on a phone keyboard (androiad anyway) 3 and 'e' share are the same button. probably he held it too long and got a 3
Please what episode is this??
Tobias Funke is one of the greatest characters ever written EVER
ICG best analrapist in the business too
It's Fünke
Buster as well think I
......and... SCENE
I like Job
Best running joke: the whole Bluth family's chicken imitation
ka-cooka-chaaa
No chipchipchipchipchip tho ...
Cha chi-cha chi-cha!
HAS ANYBODY IN THIS FAMILY SEEN A CHICKEN?
It was not complete, they didn't let Gob do his chicken dance, and that's the best chicken dance of all, followed close by Lindsay's.
Bob Loblaw: Somebody in this room could be a mole. They may even have a listening device.
A few seconds later, a boom mic, a listening device, appears in the shot.
God, Arrested Development is genius.
Also, the surrogate Larry Middleman is in the room at that point, wearing a microphone so that George Sr. can hear what's going on from home.
I love that part so much.
At first when they were saying Bob Loblaw, I thought they were saying "blah, blah, blah," like they had forgotten his name or it wasn't important or something.
I had to pause this scene because I kept thinking: "No, no way they'd do that!". That was genius
I’m rewatching the show and I noticed another similar subtle joke. During George’s arraignment, the judge says “There are no cameras allowed in the courtroom”, then the rest of the scene is filmed from the perspective of outside the courtroom.
This show is so incredibly packed with inside jokes, references, innuendos and gags that even after watching the first 3 seasons a dozen times, I still keep discovering new stuff. The writers are goddamn geniuses!
have you noticed that during the show they were setting up tobias to be an albino black man?
elena how?
"The man inside me" ;-)
QJAndra we don’t talk about the 4th season.
When Lindsay has a crush on the bounty hunter, Ice, Tobias says something along the lines of "I can see why you're attracted to him since he and I are so similar."
The “Lose Seal”, “Ann in the attic” and “Annyoung gets revenge for his grandparent for the banana stand” are actually insane levels of a well thought out joke. The Lucile one made me question how much of the show was made with anticipation.
yeah!! especially since the "lose seal" joke didn't come around until season 2
what about the 'Maeby' Funke joke that starts in the pilot and spans over both the season 2 finale and season 3 finale as well? never experienced any joke taking that long and being so stupid and hilarious at the same time
@@MisterChenzy and her “twin sister” was Surely
According to the dvd commentary they named Ann specifically for that joke. The other two probably were not planned that far ahead.
@@SteveBluescemi idk, they start setting that “loose seal” joke up in season one when Gob gets married to the seal dealer
"Okay, Lindsay, are you forgetting that I was a professional twice-over? An analyst and a therapist. An analrapist."
Anustart 🤣
I’m a therapist and I think about this at LEAST 3 times a year
The Analrapist joke caused me an asthma attack from all the laughter, it was totally worth it.
"Yes, and you were almost arrested for those business cards."
The world's first!
I only just got the "solid as Iraq" joke. Every time I come back to AD there is always a new joke to pick up. A truly timeless comedic masterpiece.
Seriously? They actually spell that one out for you. Someone explains the joke at some point, an advisor or board member or something.
@@manbastard111 you should be more respectful i think
Man Legi it’s michael lol, he goes “ya know i’m pretty sure solid as a rock isn’t the best move since we built houses in Iraq”
Ryan no I agree with Man Legi op is a dumbass. How do you miss that joke when the main character spells it out for the audience?
@@BoxStudioExecutive for me it's because English isn't my first language AND I might just have been paying more attention to subtitles. And as a big genius like u might realize, when translating jokes like these, u have to change the entire wordplay for it to work in another language :)
It's not hyperbole when I say this is the best written show of all time. I can't imagine how much time went into these seemingly simple scripts. The more you watch it the more you realize how incredibly deep and interwoven every scene is.
these were written by a computer program from feeding in every tv show that came before
that would be seinfeld
Unquestionably
@@bobpolo2964 lol not even close to ad in terms of writing
@@tyamem6555i think ad built off of the way seinfeld did comedy. ad is much more complex and thought out with its writing but it probably wouldnt have existed without seinfeld
"from who the Nazis?" is one of the most underrated jokes of all time
hoodwinkedfool a classic example of the underpinning casual punchlines that originally may seem like a throw away line
On the commentary they said that joke was the whole reason they named her ann
Joseph Laramie damn...
Joseph Laramie omg i cant believe i missed that joke for so long
still shocked i didnt get this till now
Just noticed a new running gag from this video: foreshadowing written on blocked off benches (Charlize Theron sitting turns 'Wee Britain' into 'Wee Brain', and Buster sitting turns 'Army Office' into 'Arm Off') Fantastic.
I noticed individual ones the first time through, but it wasn't until like rewatch 5 that I realized it is ALWAYS making a joke when a character is on a bench or in front of a sign. So much genius in that show.
Hol-y shit. 🤯
That's why I can rewatch the series all the way through a couple times a year! Little pop culture references, hidden meanings/references, ALL pop out in repeat watches after you already discovered others. GENIUS show!
- Anonymous (Milford Academy 2003)
"The hand!"
Woah. I did not catch onto this gag and i have been watching AD *at least* once a year, every year since 2012.
I was in HYSTERICS watching the scene where everyone is doing their different chicken impersonations to Michael and my housemate who hasn't watched AD saw it too and she just couldn't understand why that scene was so hilarious no matter how many times i tried to explain the running gag to her.
best scene
you should poison your housemate
That’s by far my favorite running joke.
that is my favorite scene ever
her?
It's really a show that is perfect for Netflix and binge-watching. It's so much easier to pick up on the running gags and callbacks that way.
phillyslasher it was released in the early 2000s, binging was not even a thing to be considered with tv shows at the time. but yeah i think the reason why it was cancelled was because how little episodes they had, other popular shows at the time had 28-32 episodes a season whereas arrested development only had 22, 18 and 13.
@inyrui they're aggressively average, not awful
@@lolar7707 Used to be such a find when there'd randomly be a double feature on BBC 1 at like 11:20 pm. So hard to find it.
Fun fact: Most Netflix Users and people in general do not know this show. Some know the show after 3 seasons and a break of several years when it got rebooted for Season 4 by Netflix. Then the casual people started watching it (was very similar with Game of Thrones, very few people followed the Show from the beginning, most only joined in Season 3 or 4 because it got more and more popular and people talked about it everywhere).
And the people who had known and loved the show all along are the reason why it got rebootet after such long time. Fun fact: The Show was by far the highest rated IMDb Comedy TV Show and in the Top 5 of the overall TV Shows with the greatest ratings until the Netflix Reboot, it had an average Score of 9.6. Also proves the point that Netflix usually ruin most good Shows or cancel the good ones while producing and sticking to (Mainstream) Shit Shows.
@@MisterChenzy why was "mainstream" in parentheses and not "shit"
My favorite running storyline is when Lucile adopts Annyong and you think he doesn't understand English because all he says is Annyong. Then you realize that he is exacting revenge on the Bluths because of the banana stand idea they stole from his father. Then he tells them that his real name is Hello, which in Korean is Annyong.
I liked it when she gave him money to go see a Star War.
Them thinking that's his name is a good character establishing moment of the Bluths being thoughtless idiots and works well on its own. But then they bring it full circle in the finale in a way that really bookends the series and makes a final punchline to the running theme of their stupid greedy behaviour always having disastrous consequences. Such a well thought-out series.
How dare you force me to rewatch this show for the 3rd time
only third?
Phillip Dvorak thoose are rookie numbers
😂😂
Start chatting when you get past 20
Phil Nye I’ve rewatched the show 7 times going on 8th
Her?
Is she funny or something
Egg
That's bland
*pats on back*
Well, let’s hope so
Brooke Ashley bland?
Lucille = Loose seal. The ingenuity of the writers is unparalleled.
lmaooooooooovthat shit always has me weak
5:06
Notice that George Michael is carrying a plate full of whole eggs which Michael looks down at and immediately associates with Ann.
Now think of of one of Michael's nicknames for Ann.
That's how you do a subtle joke.
tmage23 yea... we all got it lol
You forgot mayoegg
It's as Ann as the nose on plain's face
OMG I NEVER NOTICED THAT
Who's Ann? Ohh..Ann..we love her
Also a season later we get the line "I almost had pop pop in Reno" followed by George Michael saying "me too."
Those long spaces between set up and pay off are the best part of the show IMO. The "Seaward"/"c-word" joke being one of the best.
The fact you call it that at all tells me youre not ready.
I never caught the pop-pop joke until this video loool
Loose seal!
"Get rid of the Seaward."
"I'll leave when I'm good and ready."
The one thing I love about Arrested Development is that everything is “alive” and adds its own dynamic to show. Even the model home is a living character in a sense. From the fact that it’s the only house that was built, or that a similar house was built in Iraq, or that when even you slam anything in the house something comes apart. It’s a genius shows in various ways
I love the way that the model home is a metaphor for the Bluths. It's meant to represent something aspirational, but it quickly becomes clear that everything about it is fake and it gradually falls apart as the show proceeds.
I’ve made a huge mistake
I've made a huge tiny mistake
Netflix after trying and failing to continue the show
I know, but the video was only ten minutes long.
My favorite gag was the Afternoon Delight bit where Michael Tries to Get Oscar to sleep with Lucile but mistakes him for asking him to get weed for her.
"Now The question is how do I put it in her?"
"I don't need any details."
"Maybe... I'll put it in her brownie..."
"HEY!"
This one. Had me literally screaming laughter
genius, I didn't remember about this one.
Yo foreal that was a good one. Half the time the characters are having conversations, they’re almost never talking about the same thing. 😂
The single best writing moment imo: Standpoor industries. Both the exact opposite of Sitwell, but also referencing Lucille IIs vertigo. Both characters were introduced long before this reference, but it fits together so seamlessly that I can’t believe it wasn’t planned.
Usually jokes become less funny when you explain them, but AD is clearly the exception to the rule.
I think probably one of the greatest faces I've ever seen is when George Michael told his dad about Anne and how she eats "mayoneggs." I love that show
Michael’s facial expression during that part
Her?
Scene: Micheal is telling Gob to get rid of his new boat when their mother walks in.
Micheal: "Just a minute mom. Get rid of the Seaward."
Lucille: "I'll leave when I'm good and ready."
I watched that episode twice before it dawned on me.
The scene where Tobias is called to address a group of men described as “blue”, showing up to the meeting in blue paint and proclaiming “I feel like a fucking idiot” made my cry from laughter the first time I saw it.
“A Rube Goldberg contraption of a sitcom” is perhaps the most succinct description of Arrested Development i have ever heard. Beautiful.
Totally missed the loose seal joke. The most underrated character on the show is the doctor. He’s going to be “all-right” gets me every time.
I want the other doctor back..get out
I’ve watched the show countless times, and only recently I realized that The Cornballer was a form of “No Touching!”
oh shit
I JUST realized why the restaurant is called Skip Churches. Ive seen the show a dozen times at least but I still notice new jokes all the time. Incredible.
The best part is that they eat at Miss Temple's on Friday night.
Aaron Capen has
A shabbat shalom bluth fam!
@@susanna9310 is it skip church because they're jewish?
Lindsay's "From who? The nazis?" is an Anne Frank reference. That one joke is reason that Anne got her name an entire season before (only 5 episodes between but from the previous season). Pretty amazing set-up.
Mike Williams maybe
jules5000x *maeby
HAHAHAHA now I get it, this show is amazing
Mike Williams Her?
Also note that when George Michael is taking breakfast to George Senior in the attic, there's a giant bowl of eggs on the tray. In another episode, Michael refers to Ann as 'Egg'. This fucking show, man.
Arrested development is the greatest TV show ever
E mer chng.it/ZPLTzvc am I the only one who wants redemption?
@@armaanchadhafilms I'd rather a movie honestly
My favorite running gag has to be Michael calling Ann something different every time
"Egg" "plant" "plain" "Ann Hog"
"Check out who's on the hog in the rearview mirror!" is my absolute favourite linkup to that gag...
Favourite part of the whole series is the first episode where buster goes "these blue parts must be land" while trying to flee from the police. Sets the tone for the helpelssness of the whole family
he had taken 80,000 dollars worth of cartography lessons
It's my favorite comedy show . It's so complex and well thought out that I am just awe and wonder of it
I laughed during the entire essay even though I've seen the series countless times... Arrested Development is SO good that repetition never dilutes the humour.
Say goodbye to these.
Lidiane Silva cuz it's the last time you'll see them!!
Lidiane Silva goodbye
Spring break! Woooo!
They're crooked
(•Y•)
George Michael stumbling upon George Sr. in the hole was also a joke about Saddam Hussein being captured in a hole, right? The Iraq War was going on during the original run. You'll find dozens of jokes about Bush throughout those seasons.
Great video btw.
George Bush doesn't care about black puppets! I die whenever I see that.
The Iraq war was also going on during the revival...
Solid as Iraq!
The iraq war continues to this day
Surprisingly not this time, although Iran's not looking so hot.
So you're telling me Arrested Development socially engineered me to prepare for future running gags and basically trained/conditioned me to laugh at its own jokes? If true the script is even more genius than I thought. Also going back to season 4 after years it holds up OK especially now that you have some comedic way to explain how the current wave of "Build that wall" culture came into play. By rich people who didn't want their cuatro De mayo ruined.
There is no season 4.
Cinco de Cuatro*
Season 4 just doesnt have the density of the first 3. Its a straight up dumbed down version because every episode on the Fox run built and maintained a lot of momentum especially as the stakes and payoffs got bigger and better. I would give anything to see a 90 minute spritual successor with the same self awareness, detail and rube-goldberg feel. Airpland and Monty Python's and the Holy Grail are really still the only two movies that match what Arrested Development seemed to perfect.
The re-edit of season four was so needed and I couldn't have guessed that it would make it feel so much closer to the first three.
I've never seen the original season 4 but the remixed version still feels like a different show, it's very odd
Oh, that's why I felt it funnier. I watched season 4 years ago and it felt weird, but I binged watched it last month and it was better.
i thought season 4 was genius
Dan Bing part of that has to do with pragmatism. The show had been off air for a decade and the writing needed to explain what had happened to each character in the past ten years. In a sense, S4 is totally different from the first three because most of it retroactive exposition as opposed to present development. This means the whole narrative is substantially altered. I hated S4 when it first was released, but I just rewatched the whole series with the remixed S4 this summer and it’s significantly better, especially when you consider the unique position the writers had. I also found S5 to feel much more like the original trilogy, but it’s painfully short, only like 8 episodes.
+Jacob That's only the first half of the season. The second half comes later this year. Is the remixed version on netflix?
My favourite reference is at 9:52 when Buster tries to get hit by the falling wall. That was a stunt that Buster Keaton did
Rest In Peace to the legend Jessica Walter! Lucille Bluth is one of the most funny characters in the history of television!
I think you’re right that the first three seasons are really a different show, but I’d love to see a deep dive on S4, which is brilliant for different reasons. It does the same kind of interweaving running joke thing not just with the actual jokes, but with the storylines. I think people dislike the season because it’s different, but I think it’s pretty awesome for what it is.
Jacob Crites I don't dislike but I like it less than the other 3. And not because it's different but because there's not enough character to character interaction.
Episodes focus on 1-2 people and the show really shines when the entire cast is together
Season 4 rewards those who pay attention.
Season 4 isn't as bad as its made out to be. That being said i like that season 5 is a return to form.
it has good moments but it just loses the original spirit of the first 3 seasons, so it just doesn't have a reason to exist being a different show
There is no season 4.
Hands down the most underrated sitcom or all time. Constantly hilarious. It is up there with, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.
Definitely two of the best shows ever
Omg I just noticed “Arm” “Off” on the bench that Buster was sitting on! I love this show
That entire season is filled with foreshadowing that Buster loses his arm. In fact, the entire show is filled with foreshadowing of many other events, which makes it perfect to rewatch multiple times.
In season 3 there's another bench that says wee britain, but Rita is sitting covering "it"
When Buster finds his chair shaped like a hand at the maid's house: "I never thought I'd miss a hand so much"
OsKarMike1306 they didn't even plan on cutting his hand before that... you're talking out of your ass because of coincidences. the creators even said so
Emily Nicholas you're WRONG. that was a coincidence
I loveeee that one scene where Lucille is like, "there was a coloured man in the house!" Hahaha
What _color_ was he?
@@pitmclord …𝓑𝓵𝓾𝓮!
@@pitmclord BLUE!
This show was really ahead of its time with how it was built for comedy. It needed to be binged to be appreciated, and it couldn’t’ve been at the time
OMG after so many years (english language isn't my main one) I understand "loose seal" to "lucille" :'D
SAME !!
Don't feel bad. English is my main language and I just got it 💀💀💀
Now go watch it all again!
Each individual scene is so dumb, but you thread them all together and its a masterpiece. It's like making a Mona Lisa out of a collage of Kindergarten drawings. I love it so much
Adding to the “you’ll notice something new every time you watch” conversation, I just noticed when Buster was sitting on the park bench before he jumped in the ocean, that his body was partially covering “Army Official” so that it read “Arm Off.” 😂
"The mere fact that you call making love 'pop-pop' tells me you're not ready."
I probably saw that _wee brain_ bench scene over 20 times by now and never once realized the scheme building up that marvelous joke hahaha Just another piece of evidence that AD will always have something to unfold a newly found gag on you and knock you out in laughter
This was such a great analysis from someone with such a small following(for now). Super impressed with the work you put into this, it very much reminds me of the quality of work someone like The Nerdwriter would produce. Loved it!
JuniorSkeptic thank you so much!
9:10 my favorite part about the lessons was when George Michael saw the hot cops, "One of the hot cops is my choir teacher."
I genuinely believe that arrested development is the funniest show to ever air
"Daddy horny Michael."
😂😂😂😂😂😂. That episode gave me the best laugh I may have ever had!
"he said some wonderful things"
"Rita corny Michael ;) "
AngryTechGuy what episode is that
I'd say when he first said that "Daddy Horney Michael" line - that may be my biggest laugh of the whole series ... except Maeby (sorry) when "Franklin" Is "speaking" with George Sr, giving him a hard time and George says, "ENOUGH!!" (That line/set up was possibly my favorite moment of the whole series - one that I think possibly literally had me on the floor laughing).
The flashback to that line when Lucille asks if George asked for her is amazing!
I really love that you used Tobias' body paint colour for his timeline blocks in that graph
This show was so ahead of its time. It’s a shame fox cancelled it so early in its seasons
The greatest comedy ever. You can always tell a Milford Man!
I know everyone hates season 4 but when gob is getting married and the name of Anne’s church shorten is “her” completely cracks me up
“Get rid of the seaward” “I’ll leave when I’m good and ready.”
Nik Carroll HA old claptrap
i’ve watched the show at least 4 times and every time it still feels like a weird fever dream with people saying random phrases
Arrested Development's fandom page is one of the most loaded I've ever seen when it comes to explaining a lot of hidden details per episode
3:50 - 4:05
Notice the consistency of the blue stains on the walls and cupboards, those were everywhere in the house even several episodes past Tobias' Blue Man thing.
Also I never noticed the Snoopy reference in good grief before, fucking genius
There's a scene where Henry Winkler (Fonzie himself) literally jumps over a shark. This show is fucking amazing!
May be well known, but that episode of Happy Days is known as the day it ended effectively. It has 'lost the plot'. People refer to it as the shark effect or similar.
the conversation between tobias and carl weathers with the extreme burger king product placement - one of the most obvious jokes but one of my favorites too
I’m a 40 year old man and to this day when my mom calls I answer in Buster’s sardonic “hello Mother”
3:30 that's my favourite one-off joke, it caught me so off guard the first time I watched it
I desperately want that shot of Tobias peeking through the hole in the wall as a poster for my actual bedroom wall
There are dozens of fans of Arrested Development! DOZENS!
Just seeing Franklin Delano Bluth makes me laugh uncontrollably. Thank you for this.
Okay, here's one Happy Days/Henry Winkler callback: The phrase "Jumped the shark" that is, the point where a sitcom has crossed the line into nonesense, comes from a a later episode of Happy Days when the Fonze, Henry Winkler,, ski-jumps over a shark while wearing swimming trunks and his signature leather jacket. In Motherboy XXX the characters are standing around a dead shark lying on a dock, and when he exits the scene, Barry Zuckerkorn, AKA Henry Winkler, hops over the shark.
The writing is genius but how insane is this ensemble cast? Every single actor is perfectly cast, even the side characters
The way they tie jokes together with foreshadowing as well. Buster says, “Oh! I use to have a hand like that” when he sees his hand chair, and there’s so many more hand related foreshadowing with Buster as well.
just finished the 4 seasons .. can't wait for the upcoming 5th
man 3 years before I downloaded s01 .. after 1 episode I deleted it .. just .. this year I gave it a second chance .. best decision in my life ... I binge watch it in 3 days
did you like the forth season? I hated it and i'm kinda dreading the fifth.
Honestly, the 4th season is actually great after a couple viewings, it wasn't perfect but due to their long ass break because of the cancellation and then the actors all being so busy I'm glad they managed to throw something together and when you go through it again you naturally pick up a lot of the jokes you missed before and enjoy the story, Cant wait for season 5!
the 4th season had a different style and also was too damn repeatitive that made me so disappointed but i got used to it eventually..
I hope they bring the old seasons style back again with the upcoming 5th.
Congrats on making the best decision of your life. Now it's time to go rewatch it and catch the 8 million jokes you missed.
Harrison Moses
I didn't miss that much ... but yes i will rewatch it again for sure 😂
Two of my favorites: Mr. F and Look at banner, Michael LOL
That's why Arrested development will always stay my favourite comedy tv show. I mean like nothing can beat this amount of masterpiece jokes
There's so much to love about the first 3 seasons, it's like cutting into a cake you assume has 3 layers and slowly you see more and more until it's impossible to count them
My favorite subtle joke in this show is that the actress who plays Marta changes constantly.
A great moment of this show is when it still gets you 20 years later. I’ve seen it all at least a half dozen times and only just got the “Skip Church” bit.
"They don't allow you to have bees in here."
Beads!?
They don’t want you
I love every soundtrack from arrested development! They are parts of some running gags as well! Every character has his own theme! This is sooo cleverly done that makes me love this show even more!
Not sure if anyone else recognized this Easter egg, but Maebe is named Maebe because she is maybe George Michaels cousin. Took me too many times rewatching this show to realize that one. 😂
I’ve probably watched AD’s first three seasons in full at least 4 or 5 times and I notice new stuff every time. It’s incredible.
Season 4 is different by I like it as much as the first three seasons. It builds jokes over the entire season some it explains many episodes later. this is great and really arrested development style. Few shows succeeded that well at a revival.
As an experiment I think S4 does something really interesting. It was a full acknowledgement of the way people were starting to binge-watch shows, because the trick with S4 is that each new episode you watch changes your appreciation of the previous episode. You get a new piece of the puzzle which retroactively makes stuff which seemed mildly funny or weird in previous episodes suddenly incredibly funny. But to fully appreciate that, you need to a) binge watch the episodes but, more importantly, b) watch the whole thing.
In a way what S4 does it a complete inversion of the Rube Goldberg machine of comedy that the previous seasons did. Instead, you are shown the punchline to a joke in one episode, then over the course of several more episodes, you see everything in the lead up to the punchline and suddenly it's even funnier. It really rewards repeat views in a way that most shows can't even comprehend.
I hear a lot of dislike for S4, and sure it takes a different approach which won't gel with everyone, but I think the main reason a lot of people dislike it is because they watched maybe the first couple episodes and they didn't see what the show was doing. The whole really is much greater than the sum of its parts. I actually really like S4. I don't know if I could, hand on heart, say it's _as good_ as the first three, but that's an incredibly high benchmark and definitely does not reflect badly on S4 that it didn't quite live up to three seasons of one of the greatest shows of all time.
Given the limitations they had around people's schedules, and the challenge of living up to their own hype, not to mention the long break between 3 and 4, I think it was incredibly smart and brave to attempt to mix up the format in the way that they did.
Pretty genius explanations. This show does running gags better than any other I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t matter who started the chicken dance or in what episode because it is gut-bustingly hilarious every single time someone does it. And it’s even funnier every time cuz there was so much time in between and the setup and timing is always impeccable
This show was way ahead of its time. The original run is way funnier than Friends or The Office ever was. I hope it eventually gets the appreciation it deserves as Community did.
Still my most favorite show ever. Pure genius. The amount of intelligent jokes, running gags and interweaving storylines is mindblowing.
3:40 "Wee Brain" on the chair - never noticed that haha
Having tried to get my family to watch this show.. the part where you said, "if you haven't watched the show, I'm probably speaking gibberish to you."
I really connected with that.
Great video, original examples, deep analysis. Keep up the great work! Would love another video on AD!
the use of the "Buster"-Keaton gag at the end, really reinforced what you said throughout the video.good work!
Stopped at 5:38 to point out the “visual gags that pop-pop completely unexpectedly”
What an awesome video! I'd always admired the show but you've shown me how brilliantly crafted it really is.
“LOOK AT BANNER MICHEAL!”
Lady: *looking at Michael "There are very few intelligent, attractive and STRAIGHT men in this town"
Tobias: "Well that certainly leaves me out" *everyone looks at him silently
Tobias: "She said single..... You did say single right?" *as Lucille looks at him in disgust*
that scene will always be golden! it is also a play on the running gag that Tobias is in the closet gay.
i am having a love affair with this ice cream sandwich
"Well then why don't you just marry an ice cream sandwich!"