A cast reunion occurred at the 2011 New Yorker Festival on the evening of October 2, 2011.
The entire main cast, Ron Howard, and Mitchell Hurwitz gathered together in New York for a 90 minute reunion interview. The planned fourth season and movie were discussed. At the end, the cast performed the Chicken Dance.
Season Four
Quotes
Fun Facts
- The fake teasers at the end of each episode began, as Hurwitz put it, as “a craven way to get the pilot picked up. Anything to create that promise of ‘You’ve got to come back!’”
- Hurwitz and executives at Fox were reluctant to cast Jason Bateman because of his sitcom past, but were instantly won over by his audition.
- When asked about the Bluth family’s ambiguous religious identity, Hurwitz said they were originally based on his wife’s family: “It started, it had a real Gentile vibe to it, but it got more Jewish.”
- “Arrested Development” was cancelled before Nielsen began measuring DVR viewership, which Bateman thinks was the show’s natural format. “I think people quickly realized, ‘Well, I’m better served to watch this show after I’ve recorded it,’” he said.
- Alia Shawkat shared her first kiss onscreen with Michael Cera. “It’s changed me for the rest of my life,” she joked.
- According to Will Arnett, nobody made other cast members “break” (i.e. crack up in the middle of a take) more than Tony Hale.
- The character of Oscar Bluth was born one day “on the fly” when Jeffrey Tambor walked into the writer’s room wearing a wig. “The next day, Oscar was born,” he said.
- David Cross had to fight for the mustache worn by his character, Tobias Funke, because Fox executive Gail Berman had a standing rule for men in comedies: no hats, no mustaches, no fluffy shirts.
- The pilot scripts came with a cover letter which warned cast members that there would be no fancy trailers and no tolerance for diva-like behavior.
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