Arrested Development - "Meat the Veals"

Season 2, Episode 16

Original Airdate: April 3, 2005

Writers: Richard Rosenstock, Barbie Adler

Director: Joe Russo

Executive Producers: Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Mitchell Hurwitz, David Nevins

Cast: Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Will Arnett, Tony Hale

Telling a single funny joke is infinitely more difficult than telling a single unfunny one, and filling 22 minutes with funny jokes is nearly impossible, no matter what a laughing studio audience would have you believe. “Meat the Veals” is as close to a perfect comedic episode of television I’ve ever seen. Every single joke is funny, and every time I watch the episode I am as entertained as I was the first time. And yes, I write this fully acknowledging that the title is horrible. For me, it’s the pinnacle of “Arrested Development,” a show with many creative peaks.

Plus, there’s Mrs. Featherbottom.

Plus, we’re introduced to Franklin the puppet.

Though now it seems like everyone knows and loves the show (and likes to boast that they watched it when it was originally on air. As if.), the series was an underground movement from the start…the type of program that four hipsters in Brooklyn watched but were afraid to tell others about because it would mean admitting they had a television. Even I, the guy who watched all three episodes of “The Return of Jezebel James,” didn’t start watching until the beginning of the second season. And, truthfully, it’s easy to see why its many eccentricities turned off new viewers. Instead of self-contained, simple A-and-B stories, any given episode had about ten continuing storylines going on. Instead of giving viewers easy jumping-on points for prospective viewers, it filled its half-hours with dozens of in-jokes new viewers would not understand. This craziness is what makes the show great, of course – and are a huge reason why it has flourished on DVD and Netflix (where viewers can watch from episode one and not miss a beat). But for the show’s original audience, the inside-baseball gags were just another reason we loved it. It was like we were part of an elite club that most of the world was not privy to.

Of course being part of a small, elite club watching a broadcast sitcom doesn’t guarantee it’ll have a long and successful run, but that’s beside the point.

The main story of “Meat the Veals” (let me reiterate how much better the episode is than its name suggests) involves George Michael (Michael Cera), to his father Michael’s (Jason Bateman) chagrin, wanting to get pre-engaged to his girlfriend Anne (Mae Whitman). Meanwhile, Oscar (Jeffrey Tambor) wants to throw an anniversary party for his missing twin brother (Tambor again) and Lucille (Jessica Walter). Meanwhile, Tobias (David Cross) has been thrown out of the house by Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) and, in order to see his daughter Maeby (Alia Shawkat), dons the persona of a British housekeeper named Mrs. Featherbottom. Meanwhile, Maeby tries to keep her dual life as a studio exec hidden from her family. Meanwhile, GOB (Will Arnett) wants to re-introduce the family to Franklin, a racist black puppet that mocks George Michael’s “cracker ass,” among other non-bleeped things. Like I said, it’s a little complex for a half-hour sitcom. But then again, half the fun is watching the multiple storylines crash into one another in ways much cooler than “Crash.”

Like I wrote, every single joke lands. Also, this happens, which is my favorite bit of physical television comedy in the past decade. I can’t watch the episode without rewinding Mrs. Featherbottom’s fall multiple times. It’s difficult to pick a favorite bit of dialogue…maybe this one?

Lindsay (re: Mrs. Featherbottom): “You do realize that’s Tobias, right?”Lucille: “If he’s going to get into my closet, he’s going to work for it.”

Or this one?

Mrs. Featherbottom: “Who’s up for a banger in the mouth?”

I’d mention more, but then I’d just start listing, which is only fun if it involves Roger Ebert quotes.

What struck me during this viewing is how varied the actors’ different styles of comedy are. In series like “Fraiser,” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” every actor seems to be hitting the same comedic notes in any given episode. Often when a different comedic style is introduced on sitcoms, a’la Urkel on “Family Matters” or Fonzie in “Happy Days,” they tend to take over the show and shift the comedy to their strengths. I don’t write that as a criticism of those shows, just an observation in order to underline how special it is that “Arrested Development” can marry all those brands of humor into one cohesive whole. Cera’s quiet, awkward humor couldn’t be further removed from Cross’ broad slapstick, and yet when they are in the same room together, it feels right.

This leads me to the question of whether this is the best comedic ensemble in television history. Surely the casts of shows like “I Love Lucy,” “Seinfeld” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” were, in their own ways, perfect…but this cast is also perfect. And bigger. And while those sitcoms ostensibly had the title star at their center, here there is no true lead. Yes, Michael is our way into the show, but in many ways he’s just as demented as the rest of his family (it’s just not as obvious) – and just because you play the straight man in a comedy sketch does not mean you are central to it. So yeah, as to the question posed above, I’ll call this troupe the once-in-a-lifetime, lightning-in-a-bottle, other-cliché-chesnut, best cast in the history of television.

And I’m so happy that “Arrested Development” has crossed over garnered the popularity it always deserved. I remember being in college when I discovered it, and putting on DVDs of the first season for my friends while we were eating Papa Johns and whipped ice cream. In a way, helping others discover the program and the greatness contained therein was part of the fun – like handing a great novel to someone and whispering “you’ll thank me later.”

“Meat the Veals” is available on DVD, Netflix, Amazon Prime, iTunes and Hulu. And now, seven years after the show was cancelled midseason by Fox, it has been revived by Netflix. The fourth season will be available in May.

The Lucy Show – “Lucy and Viv Put in a Shower”

Season 1, Episode 18

Original Airdate: January 28, 1963

Writers: Bob Carroll Jr., Madelyn Martin, Bob Weiskoph, Bob Schiller

Director: Jack Donohue

Producer: Elliot Lewis

Cast: Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, Jimmy Garrett, Ralph Hart

“The Lucy Show” had the unfortunate job of being Lucille Ball’s follow-up to her wildly popular, groundbreaking, classic, best-sitcom-of-all-time “I Love Lucy.” Although the show was usually good, sometimes very good, it never reached the creative heights of its predecessor, and as a result its writers and producers retooled the show numerous times over the course of its run, to the point where I’d wager that the final season is almost unrecognizable when compared to the first.

Though Lucy (Lucille Ball) and Viv (Vivian Vance) were ostensibly different characters than “Lucy” and “Ethel,” their relationship was unchanged, as was how they interacted with one another. Lucy is widowed and Viv is divorced, and the show’s writing team (including several from “I Love Lucy”) decided to give the friends constant money troubles as they try to care for their children. The inherent problem with this is that audiences have expectations of Lucy causing expensive mayhem and anarchy (buying a thousand ranch dressing bottles, destroying a Laundromat, getting three hundred eggs crushed while doing the tango), and because of the character’s limited budget things could never get really out of control. During the first season in particular, you could tell the writers were grasping to be different from “I Love Lucy” before finally just giving in and giving audiences the set-pieces they wanted, household budgets be damned. Many of these were directly pulled from “I Love Lucy,” with the bulk of “Lucy and Viv are Volunteer Firemen” taken from “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” with the women practicing getting ready for a fire alarm and then totally panicking when an actual alarm comes. The first season finale, “Lucy Buys a Boat,” payed homage to (ripped off) Ball’s salad dance in “The Long Long Trailer” by having a boat cut loose in the middle of a storm.

And yet.

“Lucy and Viv Put In a Shower” still stands as a wonderful half-hour of television. Shockingly, the storyline centers on Lucy and Viv deciding to…wait for it…install a shower. While they first try to rope in their gentlemen-in-waiting, Lucy soon tries to finish the job herself, and somehow gets stuck in the flooding shower with Viv, to the point where the water is seven feet deep.

This set-piece is equal to anything Ball did in her career, from “Vitametavegamin” to the grape stomping to setting her nose on fire. Hell, it’s probably equal to any major set-piece from any comedy series. It’s the perfect example of sustaining tension and laughter consistently over the course of ten minutes of screen time. The women are always trapped, and the water is always rising.

But I get ahead of myself. So the girls decide to have a shower installed in their boys’ closet so that they can get some time in the bathroom, and from there the writers slowly-but-surely begin to lay groundwork for the set-piece. The door to the standing shower was installed backwards, so it would hold the water in instead of opening under pressure. Lucy had to be the one to install the faucets, and of course has no idea what a washer is. The plug in the bottom of the shower has yet to be removed. Viv breaks off the water main so the water won’t stop coming. Yes, it seems as if the writers are bending over backward to make the implausible seem plausible, but in this case it works because the payoff is so perfect.

So Lucy (wearing a shirt with a huge “LC” sewed onto it, something that had to inspire Laverne’s wardrobe years later) and Viv begin to get literally waterlogged. Another amazing thing about this sequence is that it, by its very nature, cannot be as perfectly rehearsed as the candy factory or the fashion show. That water is going to spray where it wants and you can’t help but have a few mishaps when trying to swim in what is essentially a very small seven-foot-deep pool of water. Rumors persist that Ball almost drowned during the filming and it made it on screen, but we only see Ball go under once where she didn’t mean to. She immediately resurfaces and says, “I didn’t know it was that deep,” and that’s that. It’s amazing to see Vivian Vance, not Viv, react to water spraying in her face and up her nose by screaming, “Oh, wait a minute!”

It’s also interesting to note that the writers, oddly, give Viv the best jokes and gags (pun intended) here instead of Lucy, instead deciding to let Ball just go for it with the physicality. First we get this one:

Viv: Lucy, did you pay this month’s water bill?Lucy: Sure, I did.Viv: That was a dumb thing to do!

Later, when Lucy tells Viv to try to kick through the glass so they can escape, Viv refused, stating:

“It’s not that I’m afraid of cutting myself, but the blood might draw sharks.”

The rest of the episode is cute fluff, with the girls’ interactions with their suitors before the mess sweet if forgettable. And the idea of teenage girls spending far too much time in the bathroom is something that has been recycled thousands of times since, which makes the gags at the beginning lose their power. But that scene in the shower…wow. The biggest compliment I can give it is that it felt like the very best deleted scene from “I Love Lucy” ever. It’s not that “The Lucy Show” was ever bad; it’s simply that it seemed more like a watered-down (pun intended) imitation of “I Love Lucy” than its own entity.

“Lucy and Viv Put In a Shower” is available on the first season DVD of “The Lucy Show” and on YouTube.

Friends – “The One With the Embryos”

Season 4, Episode 12

Original Airdate: January 15. 1998

Writers: Jill Condon & Amy Toomin

Director: Kevin S. Bright

Executive Producers: Kevin S. Bright, Marta Kauffman, David Crane

Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow

Over the decades, the “Game Show” episode has become a touchtone for most long-running comedies. It provides viewers with a chance to see their favorite characters behave surprisingly under immense pressure without there being any real stakes, and often the results are memorable fan favorites. There’s “The Odd Couple” episode entitled “Password,” “The Game Show” on “Maude,” “The Brain Game” on “Popular,” and “Grab That Dough” on “The Golden Girls,” to name a few. But the best version of this chestnut is by far “The One With the Embryos” from “Friends’” fourth season.

After Chandler (Matthew Perry) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) guess every item in Rachel’s (Jennifer Aniston) shopping bag, Rachel and Monica (Courtney Cox) challenge them to a game of “Who Knows Who Better?” This example of the “Game Show” formula transcends the others for several reasons. First, it keeps the game intimate by having it be, essentially, a variation on “Jeopardy” done by the characters in their home instead of injecting the gloss of an actual game show set. Second, the episode concerns trivia about the characters instead of random facts the viewer has no attachment to. Finally, the storyline blossoms into having legitimate, real stakes (Monica and Rachel must swap apartments with the guys) instead of vague cash prizes that you know they won’t win.

More than that, this episode came at the right moment in the series. The viewers knew the gang enough that the writers, Jill Condon and Amy Toomin, could throw in some sly in-jokes (hey, what is Chandler Bing’s job?) while creating bits of trivia that serve as more than punchlines – they feel like natural extensions of our characters that we just didn’t know about yet.

"Noooo...!"

As with other “Game Show” episodes, watching the characters suffer through immense pressure under the guise of a game is fantastic for the viewer and allowed the actors to do some fascinating things with their characters. Look at the way the group repeatedly becomes exasperated with Ross’ (David Schwimmer) impression of a Game Show host, or Aniston’s awesome reading of the simple line “Ooh, that’s interesting.” However, nothing beats Monica’s completely (purposely) over-the-top shriek of “Nooooo…!” when she loses the game.

Also interesting is how the studio audience feeds off of the energy of the game as if it is a real Game Show. There is applause at the end of every round, and the laughter becomes more gleeful as the game evolves. It’s one of those rare episodes where the audience’s laughter almost morphs into a character – the same way the audience did during “I Love Lucy’s” infamous egg tango.

If all that wasn’t enough, what makes the episode transcendent is the B-story, involving the embryos of the title. Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) has agreed to be a surrogate for her brother and sister-in-law (Giovanni Ribisi and Debra Jo Rupp), and here we follow the implantation of the eggs and the eventual reveal that Phoebe is, indeed, pregnant. What gives the arc some dramatic weight is that this is the only chance they’ll have at trying surrogacy, because all their savings is tied into those eggs (“They are literally putting all their eggs into my basket,” Phoebe opines). Phoebe was always a close cousin of Katherine Hepburn’s character in “Bringing Up Baby,” and here Kudrow gives us some of the best work of her career. There’s a beautiful scene where she’s speaking to the embryos that are about to be implanted. Her speech is some of the best writing in the history of the show, perfectly balancing the sentimental with the laughs:

“Hello tiny embryos. I’m Phoebe Buffay. Hi. I’m hoping to be your uterus for the next nine months. You should know that we’re doing this for Frank and Alice – who you know. You’ve been there. You know, they want you so much, so when you get in there really grab on. Okay? And I promise that I’ll keep you safe and warm until you’re ready to have them take you home. Oh! Also, next time you see me, if I’m screaming, don’t worry, that’s what is supposed to happen.”

There isn’t a joke in the monologue that feels forced, and nothing feels like a punchline. Kudrow’s delivery gives the awesome writing another level of humor and heart. At this point most viewers have seen the series and know there will be that heartbreaking scene in the one-hundredth episode where Phoebe is holding the triplets after giving birth and must give them away, which gives this entire episode a beautiful, bittersweet quality.

The episode also features one of the very best lines in the history of the series. After Phoebe takes a pregnancy test and it’s positive, her brother proudly screams at the top of his lungs: “My sister's gonna have my baby!”

There isn’t a wasted moment in “The One With the Embryos,” and the writers ensure that the aftermath of the game is just as enjoyable as the build-up. At once heartfelt and genuinely funny, this episode underlined what set “Friends” apart from the hundreds of sitcoms that have tried to rip off its formula and characters in the years since its broadcast. Instead of being happy with just taking classic sitcom scenarios and doing a good version of them, the “Friends” writers twisted and toyed with the clichés until they were new and innovative again. It’s also a show that never shied away from taking storytelling risks that could have alienated the core fanbase (pairing Monica and Chandler, turning Ross and Rachel into a triangle with Joey), but because the writers stayed true to their characters (quirks, issues, faults and everything in between) they not only made it work, but made it work wonderfully.

“The One With the Embryos” is available on iTunes, on DVD, on Amazon Instant Video and is probably showing on some channel on your television right now.

I Love Lucy : "Hollywood at Last"

Season 4, Episode 16

Original Airdate: February 7, 1955

Writer: Bob Carroll Jr., Madelyn Pugh, Jess Oppenheimer

Director: William Asher

Producer: Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Jess Oppenheimer

Cast: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley

It’s a general consensus that, among all the classic sitcoms ever produced, “I Love Lucy” is the greatest ever created (sorry, “Seinfeld”). And though there are other amazing episodes and set-pieces created throughout the show’s run, “Hollywood at Last” is (for my money) the funniest, most thoroughly enjoyable…dare I say best?…from beginning to end. So, by using that logic, does this mean that we are looking at the greatest, funniest half hour of television ever produced? Lucille Ball called this her favorite episode, and I’m not going to argue.

The credits barely fade before we get a huge title filling the screen that declares we have arrived at “Hollywood at Last!” Yes, with the exclamation point and everything. Apparently it wasn’t only the characters who were excited. The Hollywood episodes reenergized the series in every possible way, and for its remaining seasons (and its continuation show “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) the Ricardos and the Mertzes always seemed to be going…somewhere. First Italy, then Florida, then the move to the country, then Havana (in a flashback episode, but still), then Vegas, then Sun Valley, then Mexico, then Alaska, then a cabin in the woods somewhere, then Japan. Phew. And why wouldn’t they? We’d come to consider the Ricardos and the Mertzes our own family, so we were living vicariously through them.

The episode opens with the Ricardos and Mertzes being shown the suite Ricky was given by the studio while he shoots “Don Juan.” Everyone exits stage except for Lucy (Lucille Ball) and Ricky (Desi Arnaz), and the writers find time for a really brief, sweet scene before the chaos begins. Essentially, Lucy tells Ricky how proud she is of him and how much she believes in him. The moment can’t be more than thirty or forty seconds, and it’s sad to think that little beats like this have been lost in the hectic nature of the modern sitcom. Now every scene, every moment has to be set-up/punchline/set-up/punchline. How much character development gets lost in the incessant need for a joke? There are so many funny beats in this episode, but the characters are still allowed to be people. They can look out their hotel window and point out sights without having to turn the phrase into a pun. Giving the audience the room to breathe between gags allows us to really engage in the big moments instead of losing them in the mix, and I must admit I miss that when I turn on network or cable today.

Of course, Lucy is almost immediately on the hunt for movie stars, and though Eve Arden has a brief (brilliant) cameo, the main attraction in the episode is William Holden, and they couldn’t have chosen a better first celebrity. He’s a magnificent straight man for comedy, so much so that I wish he would have done more comedies during his career. His subtle smile is the perfect reaction to Lucy’s shenanigans, and he’s at the center of not one, but two fantastic set-pieces.

The first is in the Brown Derby (which I would be able to see from my apartment if it hadn’t been torn down). Lucy is on the hunt and reacts in about the way we expect she would react, but then Holden decides to turn the tables on her. There’s a perfect comedy moment where Lucy turns to oogle Holden when Holden is already oogling her, and their noses barely touch in a near-collision. How many times did they practice that, and what happened if Lucy went an inch too far!? Holden turning the tables is a wonderful twist on our expectations for the scene, and any sequence showing Ball’s trademark eyes going wide in horror is worth a watch. The interaction between the two becomes something of a dance, one that ends with Lucy tripping a waiter and nailing Holden with an entire tray of pies. Hollywood at last, indeed.

There’s a nice scene between the madness that has passed and what is still to come where Ricky gets stuck in a very unbecoming suit or armor and seems very grateful to be able to clown around for once instead of just staring at Lucy in horror and/or telling her she can’t be in the show.

Ricky brings Holden home and Lucy does everything to stay away from him except barricade herself in the bedroom (“I’m fickle!” she exclaims while hiding herself in a corner), and finally decides her only way to get through the meeting is to use putty to elongate her nose, wear librarian glasses and put her hair up. Since this is her first day in Los Angeles, one has to wonder where she got the glasses and putty, but never mind.

Usually when a comedian has to make a quick change for a laugh he/she rushes offstage for thirty seconds then comes back on in drag/bad makeup/etc. Almost all sitcoms incorporate this, including “I Love Lucy.” “Hollywood at Last” does something very ballsy by having Ball actually adjusting her make-up during the filming, in front of the audience. After accidentally nudging her nose this way and that, she attempts to “fix” it on the couch next to Ricky and Holden. Holden is doing some product placement for “The Country Girl,” but all eyes are on Ball as she playfully tries to hide what she is doing right there on camera, which makes the payoff of her turning around with a nose that is at least six inches long all the funnier. You always get a bigger kick out of seeing magicians performing the trick in plain sight.

The first few episodes of “I Love Lucy’s” fourth season weren’t the best, but the moment Ricky heard the results of his screen test (episode 9), the show began firing on all cylinders. It actually turned the preparation for leaving into a beautiful four-episode arc with many memorable moments, especially one where Lucy monologues about a car accident. And then we get another three excellent episodes of them traveling across country (one of which, “First Stop,” will soon be appearing in this blog). After the comedic heights of “Hollywood at Last,” one had to wonder how the show could follow it up. But the next string of 18 episodes (which bled into season five) represented some of the best in the series’ storied run, with only one stinker (“Bullfight Dance”) in the bunch. Lucy had yet to steal John Wayne’s footprints, or hang off Cornel Wilde’s balcony, or get that infamous tan. I chose “Hollywood at Last” as an individual great episode, but you’ll find it impossible to watch just one.

“Hollywood at Last” is available on the fourth season DVD of “I Love Lucy” and on iTunes.