I am Mitch Hurwitz, creator of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT (among other things, including 2 children) - Ask Me Anything!

YOU! You're the reason why strangers come up to me at bars and say "annyong". (Context: I'm an Asian woman with short hair).

But thanks for Arrested Development anyways.

You're welcome! And you know - there is a way around that. You COULD let your hair grow. I'm not suggesting that you change your look, but I think all of us feel like you've had that short hair thing going for a while anyway.

Maeby and George Michael had that "fake" wedding ceremony to entertain Alzheimer's patients - but it was said that it was real and then never mentioned again. Are they still married?

That's interesting. I guess they are! Who knew? I wonder if they've forgotten? Thanks to you, now I've remembered!

Was Ann Veal named after an anvil? She has a lot of mass and can't be knocked over, so I'm wondering if that's how she plants so well.

Yea, there were a lot of things that her name was made out of - Anvil was definitely part of it. The image of a veal padding pen. And there's an old Monty Python skit where John Cleese's character's name is "An Elk" - it was an oblique reference to that too. Her original name was "Fugly." We were going to name her something Fugly - and then it felt a little too jokey and they fortunately didn't allow us to say it.

Mr. Hurwitz, what is the craziest storyline or scene that never made it into the show?

Believe it or not, I don't think there IS one! Because every time I think of something that's too outlandish, I end up trying to find a way to use it. I remember pitching Buster loses his hand as a bad example to motivate the writers to think outside the box...and then a moment later, I thought "Hey, why don't we have Buster lose his hand?"

There are hints that Tobias is actually a black albino. Was that ever going to be a full storyline?

I'm going to second /u/uzumymu's comment - that if I did want to do that, revealing that now would be ruining the joke. So perhaps you can think of another joke I can ruin for you that I can feel less bad about.

I caught hints in the show that Debris is actually a man. From being described at the hospital as a "61 year old male" to Marky Bark having sex with Lindsay to make sure she's not a man, because it had happened before. Although the biggest clue to me that Debris is a man is that Tobias is actually attracted to her. Is there any truth to that theory?

The thing about ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT is I've always liked the idea that nothing is as it seems on the outside. So since it seems to you that she might be a man, then it's very possible she's actually a woman.

Why was Tobias lying in the fireplace in a couple episodes?

There has been more theorizing about that online - I'm amazed that question got through, because I've seen questions about this for YEARS. David Cross has been approached about it for years, and here's the unfortunate answer; it was a joke that didn't work. I walked onto the set, and there was nothing funny happening in the scene, so I said, "Hey, what if David is leaning back into the fireplace relaxing?" and then when I went into the penthouse in another scene, David had decided to do it again. And people constantly write "I don't get it!" (and unfortunately they DO get it - it's a man in a fireplace!)

Hi, Mr. Hurwitz

I want to download/buy the song "Getaway" by Mark Cherry to use it as a ringtone, how can I have it?

We are really working on it, actually! It's tricky because 20th doesn't really have a record label, which a lot of the other studios do, so they don't have a mechanism in place, but all of David's music is so great and I really want to get it out there.

How satisfying is it to see so many of the actors from AD popping up in "Archer?" Was that amount of overlap acknowledged in the running gag about the Bluths not tipping black men, even on a train?

I love ARCHER and don't know the particular thread you're talking about, so no there is no overlap intended... but let's go ahead and say YES. We completely intended that overlap.

Reddit Love Mitch!

Mr Hurwitz, thank you for your great writing and for doing this AMA. I was wondering if you have any advice to aspiring writers, and if you would kindly recommend any tv shows you've enjoyed which AD fans may not know about.

It's a great question! I think that - the first advice I'd give aspiring writers is to try to exceed expectations. I feel like everyone gives the advice that you should write a spec script for as how, and I found a lot of people who just try to write as badly as they think the show is written (for whatever that show is) - people who start the process without respecting what they're writing for. You have to choose something to write that you really want to write, and you have to make mistakes. You have to take the pressure off yourself that you have to be good from the start, and just start the process. Keep pushing yourself, and remember that nobody writes great stuff on the first draft. But you have to do a first draft to get past it.

You guys probably know more than I do about what's out there right now, but I was really inspired by things like FAWLTY TOWERS and the comedy of Andy Kaufman. Anything Albert Brooks did. I just liked things that played with the form, that was the kind of thing that was always interesting to me. And then occasionally I would listen to George Burns from way before my time - there was a lot of really great stuff back then.

reddit love!

How often did you go over the set and writing to make sure all the subtle running gags and references were in there? (The blue handprints on set, the one falling post, etc.)

By the way, Buster mentioning how he didn't know he could miss a hand so much when referring to the hand chair BEFORE he lost his real hand... brilliant sir.

Constantly. This is probably a question about the first 3 seasons, I had a monitor in the writer's room that would show what was going on onstage and a producer on set that I could call back and forth, and I was just constantly running over there, at least twice in each scene that was shot. Once to get it set up, and then once to show up toward the end and pick up the pieces we didn't get. The blue handprints, for instance, were CONSTANTLY painted over by the set crew - and I would have to make new ones, and we would have to re-shoot, so it would take effort to create a consistent world.

Thanks for the words - what i was experimenting with then was the idea of putting things in the show that had no apparent payoff until later, and at that time, it was very difficult to get that kind of stuff in, because i was doing the show for the network and there was a notes process and people would say "you can cut this," and "this slows us down," and things like that, but it was kind of an experiment and I'm glad it worked.

The George Maharis joke was hilarious Props to you guys

Thank you! As you'll see, I just pointed it out as a joke that some people might not get - so you've already proven me wrong, reddit.

What does your chicken dance look like?

Like this...

( HURWITZ DOES CHICKEN DANCE )

If you could be any Bluth, which would you be? And which would you definitely not want to be?

I think I would not want to be Mark - I always wanted there to be a 5th Bluth sibling that didn't give his permission to be in the show. And it was an ambition that I had from the very start. And I realized during the pilot that I'd blown it, because all the family pictures should have 5 people in them with one blurred. This was the joke that I ended up doing with Andy Richter. The joke was going to be that his name was Mark - in one version of the joke, the reason that he didn't want to be on the show was because he had a giant red wine birthmark all over his face - and suddenly it didn't seem as noble that he didn't want to be in the show. But it was very clear that I missed that opportunity early on.

Who would I want to be? I guess I'd want to be Tobias, because he's the most oblivious and the happiest. And he's the dreamer. And he doesn't know how unrealistic his dreams are, so he's happy.

[deleted]

There are a few things going on there, and I never think it's appropriate for an author to comment on the symbolism in his work. But one of the things I liked, truly on a superficial level, is that it's a truly funny bird. It's a mean chicken the size of a man, and it's an ungainly creature that can't seem to gain flight. So there's a lot in there.

Is there any joke that nobody seemed to get that you found hilarious?

Here's the thing: I don't know what nobody seems to get. I mean, sometimes I think that nobody has noticed something, and then I'll hear that someone does. My older brother was over yesterday, and he was pointing out all these really subtle things that I didn't think anybody would notice. And some of the stuff may be well-known now - my favorite joke is who the real George Maharis is - because that's a punchline we didn't finish. Basically the joke is, he doesn't want to be George Michael, because George Michael had sex in a public men's room, and he doesn't want to be Boy George, because Boy George had sex in a public men's room, so he settles on the name George Maharis... but a little research will show that name has a similar fate. That being said, I think the groupthink on reddit has caught all the jokes that we've layered in - except for the ones we haven't finished yet, which are setting up for a future story.

Hey! Thanks for doing this AMA! I was wondering how much creative freedom did Netflix give you guys? Were they pretty generous?

EDIT: Added question mark at the end because it was bothering me that I missed it!

100%. Netflix was amazing. I've become very close to the people over there, and they are all really funny, so if they did have suggestions, they were generally pretty funny, great ones - particularly Ted Sarandos, who runs content for them. And they loved the ambition of the show, and encouraged it.

If you look at the transition from radio to television, the first 15-20 years were basically just radio shows on TV. I didn't want to just do a series on Netflix, I wanted to see what the form would allow. And they dug that idea.

Do your children know to always leave a note?

I've had other object lessons that I've worked hard to teach them. Fortunately, I have a friend who strangles small animals and I've been able to use him successfully to remind them to wear their retainers, etc.

Who decided that "a piece of shoe" was the best prop/choice for George Sr's Yamaka?

That may be the most creatively funny thing I've ever seen

Well, here's what I will say generally about that - Tambor is such a consummate actor, that one of the things I wanted to do in that first season was give him no warddrobe to change, to give him no props to hold (other than a cup of coffee) - he doesn't get to go anywhere, and even the furniture is nailed down. I liked the idea of him being in prison, because he could use no comedic tools besides what he has - it was like a Master's acting class. We later came up with Oscar (which gave him a LOT to play with) but this season, i wanted to even want to limit that by making them dress alike, have the same haircut - Tambor is like a racehorse, I wanted to see what he could do.

So when it came time to make a yarmulke, all we had left ourselves to make it out of was his shoe.

Will we ever meet the last of the richter quintuplets? Chareth: The Flirt?

Right now, Chareth is in a Turkish prison, and we haven't even been able to get the actor out to shoot his stuff... wait, well now that you mention it, YES, I'm ashamed we didn't get him into this series. All I can say is, Andy Richter does have to be back in Burbank by 2 PM every day. So it makes it tough to get all Richter Quintuplets on the set.

Big fan, of course. I have a couple of questions.

• Were the Facebook notification sounds in season 4 intentional? If they were, that is an incredibly evil, yet masterful joke.
• Would you consider a 5th season in the same format as the 4th, or would you follow the fans calls to have all actors together, however difficult that would be?
• Movie or Season? If you could choose one to end Arrested Development, regardless of time and money limitations, what would you pick?

that is a David Schwartz question (the show's composer - he did an AMA too) and I will have to ask him. I didn't hear it in the mix we had, but on Netflix, it IS clear for some reason. All the music feels a little bit louder. You assume that 10-20% of the sound gets knocked down, so we make the music a little hotter because it gets cut on broadcast. But I have the feeling he did it on purpose.

For the 5th season, it would DEFINITELY be about the family all together. That was always the design. The idea was originally to have them even together LESS for Season 4 - it really was going to be basically 9 stories (like the Salinger collection) that had nothing to do with one another, and just showed everybody's life, so that everybody's life could get to a point of peril, and then the family could truly have no choice but to get back together for the next iteration.

Let me put it back to you- which would YOU prefer? Movie or Season?

What is your favorite magic trick illusion that Gob attempts?

I think I like the one where he has the Queen of Hearts written on his chest, because I had to work so hard to hide the punchline (which was that it ended up on Michael's shirt). And because it was wrong.

Mr. Hurwitz, How have internet communities(Reddit, Twitter, etc) changed the way TV is enjoyed or discussed? Has it impacted your end of things(writing, creating, pitching)?

I think it's going to have a big impact. I think it's going to allow the more creative ideas and the more innovative people and the more ambitious people to have a place to experiment without the burden of having to hit a 20 million person audience on the first night. And one of the burdens that network television implicitly has - they're not allowed to just respect the cleverest in their audience, they have to please everyone. And I think the Netflix model makes it a little more like publishing - there are different books for different people, and still within that world there are top 10 books that are blockbusters, and then there's fiction that's not for everybody. In an interview recently, someone asked me "Hey, what did you think of that New York Times review?" A guy at the NY Times watched 5 shows at 3 in the morning and then said "I don't like this" on day 1 - it was a bad way to start. And I don't blame him - try watching something in the middle of the night and see how you like it, especially if it means skipping brunch with your daughter on Memorial Day weekend. And in response, I said - "It sounds like he really didn't like it. But you know who did like it?" And the interviewer said "Who?" And I said "People who really liked it!" (which is true - it's NOT for him, it's for them!)

Who is a guest star you wanted but couldn't get?

I spent a little while trying to get Howard Stern for something... I did want to get Jerry Bruckheimer, and he was too busy.

I did want to get Maria Bamford even before we started. I knew that we needed to get her, and I was willing to move the whole shoot to accommodate that.

Where can I buy a Cornballer?

I actually saw something online the other day that looked like a Cornballer - ours was made out of a deep-fryer and parts of an aquarium.

I am wondering if there was any inspiration in real life that led to the idea of Tobias being a Never Nude?

No, there wasn't. The Never Nude thing - I will trace the etiology of that idea, and it's this. We had this joke that just put us out, that was Tobias keeps crying in the shower. And then I had pitched - I was thinking about production, and the way they shoot those things, they always put people in flesh colored bathing suits, and I said, what if we show part of the flesh colored bathing suits for 3-4 weeks - and then in the 4th week we reveal that he showers in a flesh-colored bathing suit because he doesn't like showering naked. And then Richie Rosenstock (who's an absolutely brilliant, hilarious guy - and is responsible for so many of the giant laughs in the show) said without hesitation: "Oh, he's a Never Nude."

And everybody in the room froze. And looked at him, and said, "is that a real thing?" and he shrugged, and it was just so funny. It wasn't a funny idea until Richie called him a Never Nude, which took the joke from being just a sight gag, to a psychological affliction that really elevated it in such a brilliant way. And then I remember looking up to see online if there was such a thing as a Never Nude - and guess what you can't search for besides finding pornography? "Never Nude" - back then you'd get 25,000 pages with the word "Nude" in it. Even if you used the Boolean quotation marks, you would still get things like "Hot 18 year old who'd NEVER been NUDE in front of a boy!" So we'll never know if it was a thing before ARRESTED. Although I suppose I could just ask Richie.

Great show, love season 4! Question: What's your writing process?

It depends on the assignment, and it depends on the challenge in front of me. I personally have no testable, repeatable writing process. It's very strange. Sometimes I type, sometimes I write longhand, sometimes I think, sometimes I dictate, sometimes I just call things out on the set. I'll write scripts in the room, I'll perhaps sit at the keyboard and the script is up on the computer, and i've printed out the outlines and working through it, and soliciting help and questions as we go along - so it becomes a very democratic process. I used to do a pass again (to clarify it and trim it) - on this last show, I had to do a lot of that on the set, which was really a hardship for the actors but made it also really fun and fresh, because we'd find the stuff right there.

But if I'm writing a pilot, it's a whole different process. It's very solitary. So my process is inconsistent. And I try to keep it flexible. I think all of being creative is about being flexible, and not getting into any fixed ideas. I'd watch (as I came up) how the writer's room worked - it would be 6 people pitching on a variation of "We're not open all night" and one person saying "What if a car drives through the front of the building" - it's really trying to stay flexible and not get trapped into one way of thinking. That's why Buster losing his arm is such an interesting example - I was pitching it as a bad example, not letting myself think that way for a series, and then re-examining that premise and that idea.

Mitch!

First off – THANK YOU SO MUCH. I love all 68 equally (I don't care much for G.O.B.).

Now come the questions. I tried to compile a timeline of events that happened between February 10, 2006 and May 5, 2012. There are some rough edges — I'm sure there will always be — but for the most part everything fits together. My question is regarding your methodology — how in the hell did you keep all of these storylines straight during the writing process?

My second question is a little easier. On February 11, 2006 What were your thoughts of continuing the Bluth story? Did you think you had a shot in hell at ever telling more?

It was one of the bigger challenges, and this woman Joey Slamon who was a co-producer on the show turned out to be really gifted at keeping track of that stuff while I was straining to do the same. But mostly, it was all worked out in advance as best as possible and then the holes were patched in post and there was some re-shooting. And I think it would have been much easier if we had shot in sequence, but you're right, it did require a lot of thinking (for example) "Wait a minute. If Tobias has already been to the clinic, and Gob doesn't pick up deBrie until after the clinic, then there's no way Lindsay would be wearing the red wig at the dinner yet." It was constantly stopping and thinking REALLY hard.

But the bigger answer is that it's not really anything other than hard work, and stopping and trying to be really present at every moment of the production.

On February 11, I DID. There's an audacity that comes with any creative enterprise. I mean, I don't think I would have written my first spec script if I had known how unlikely it was to get a writing job. And I don't think I would have tried creating ARRESTED if I really thought "look at the data of what's already been developed. they won't make this." but I should have - that was the evidence that existed. I don't think I would have included all the stuff about Saddam Hussein in Season 1 if I'd done the math on the likelihood of getting through an entire season to reveal the punchline. And I think that everyone has to jump off that cliff and make that assumption in their own work - because the truth is, even if it doesn't happen, you have a more interesting life if you're to sit down and write a novel than doing the math on the likelihood of it getting published.

where can i buy 'two children'?

Edit: thanks for the gold stranger!

Haha!

My name is Chickens_dont_clap and I approve this AMA!

Why did you cut off right when we were about to see George Michael's chicken dance in Season 4?

I don't know - it just seemed funnier! It's almost like negative space in art. Or a rest in music. Sometimes it's funnier to have the moment occur, and sometimes it's funnier to not have the moment occur, and in that moment it felt like it would be funnier to NOT see it.

Also (*and this could just be personal preference), I saw his Chicken Dance, and chickens don't do that.

Hey, Mitch, it's really great that you're doing this, I'm an old fan of the show and you really blue me away with the new season, and I have a couple of questions:

1. What is your favorite line ever from the show?

2. Do you think that producing the new season as a prequel to the movie took away from its potential?

3. Who is your favorite non-Bluth character?

4. What can you tell us about the movie?

5. Where'd the lighter fluid come from?

What is your favorite line ever from the show?

That's REALLY hard because there are really clever lines, there are lines that are delivered really well - sometimes the less clever stuff that's delivered by these genius actors well becomes my favorite line. Right now, one of my favorite lines is when George Sr introduces Buster in episode 6 and he's in the Winnebago and George says "As you see, my son's in the Army, Buster say hello" and Buster says "hmm."

Do you think that producing the new season as a prequel to the movie took away from its potential?

I'm going to try to interpret that question because it could mean a couple things. One version of that question is "Do I think it will hurt the chances that the movie will get made" - and I would say that I'm more interested in telling the ongoing saga of this family than working out a particular strategy for how to do it. I kind of feel like the form will emerge in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated - like Netflix a few years ago - so it's possible that a film studio says "There's a lot of AD out there. Do we want to invest in more" or it's possible that a film studio says "Wow, we had no idea there was this kind of a following." And I think the latter scenario is possible. Just because I didn't think there was that kind of a following! But if your question is "Does the story we've told detract from a movie", I would say it definitely doesn't, or wasn't intended to - it was intended to set up (among other things) a murder-mystery and a family that really now has to come together to save one of their own at a moment when their tensions are the highest.

Who is your favorite non-Bluth character?

My favorite non-Bluth characters are the 3 guys in the 1920's Mexican film where we saw the origin of the Chicken Dance. Their names are Gustavo, Enrique, and Paco (*whose name is also actually Gustavo). And they were played by Jason, Will and Tony.

What can you tell us about the movie?

Another ambiguous question! Well what we're calling the movie is just the ongoing story - so at the moment, there is nothing really up with it, except that I am gathering up ammunition to try to get the next chapter made.

Where'd the lighter fluid come from?

Gob and most magicians start their day by strapping a number of implements and bladders to their body. They write playing cards on their arms, they tape magnets to their legs, they run hoses down their sleeves, and they attach small flints to their fingers. This is one of the hilarious things about magicians. Spoiler alert: there's no such thing as magic. So the lighter fluid comes from a small bladder that is squeezed by his left arm. Don't tell.

Mr. Hurwitz, can I please work at the banana stand?

There is one on Balboa Island, I think they're hiring. And you can say that I've thoroughly vetted you and think you would be an ideal candidate, if that helps.

Last summer i decided to watch this cool tv series that everyone was talking about. I must admit you are genius. Thank you for making me laugh. I just wanted to ask you what was the motive for creating Arrested Development?

There are many answers to that question! But if the question is, what the inspiration was - Ron Howard came to me with the idea of doing a documentary-style show, or maybe David Nevins came to me with an idea - and then when I got into the creative part of it, a lot of it is based on families I've known, my own family at times, and a lot of it was based on what was going on in the world at that time. But ultimately (and like everything in the show, it was a process of layering) - I think William Faulkner claims that he saw the book THE SOUND AND THE FURY as a lightning bolt that illuminated a landscape and showed him the whole story - this was nothing like that. I think most writers just keep layering and building, and I started with the idea of a set of twins, and one was conservative, and one was liberal. And that gave birth to the idea of the children of those twins, where one was fearless and one was fearful. And then a MILLION other things happened. And those ideas are just so deep down in the pile that they're almost unrecognizable.

I just wanted to tell you that I really loved Lindsay's episodes, in fact I love all the Bluth women episodes--but mostly Lindsay's. I think Portia's episodes are vastly underrated. I thought it was brilliant how at the end of her arc, she embraces being a Bluth to the point of resembling Lucille.

Regardless of a movie or another season (i really want another season por favor hermano eh?) Is this how we will be seeing Lindsay when whenever it is we see her again?

And can you reveal a bit to us about what you're planning to do with Michael and George Michael?

And is your final plan for the Bluth family to all end up in jail together?

It will definitely continue where we left off - and also, thank you for that because I think that episode is unlike the others in that it really shows a side of Lindsay we haven't seen before, and it really takes the idea of her superficiality from being a joke to something she really struggles with, and in many ways I feel like it's the most honest telling of the life of this family. But yes, we will definitely pick her up - she's left running as a Republican for office, so she is going to play out some ancient high school agendas.

For Michael and George Michael - I think one of the things that is fun to do and also sometimes generates great material (and sometimes doesn't) is to "paint yourself into a corner" when you're writing or performing or doing anything creative. And it reminds me of cutting off Buster's hand. It's like, what do you do now? And the answer is - a LOT MORE than you'd do without it. So I wanted to get to an honest point in their relationship that was very uncomfortable, so that there wouldn't be a pat solution, even for me.

The final plan - NO! Why, is your plan? is that what you'd like? But that's a very funny idea.

Who came up with the name Crindy?

Two years ago someone did an AMA claiming they were a writer's assistant on Arrested Development and that they had come up with the name Crindy. It wasn't verified but it seemed on the level but some people were skeptical. Some of the things they talked about ended up in the new season of AD. Was it legit or just a troll?

here's the link: I Was A Writer's Assistant on "Arrested Development" AMA

My recollection is that I came up with Crindy and that i did it on the set. The problem with writing in a room is attribution becomes very challenging to trace. You know, ideas build on one another, the idea of Gob not knowing his bride's name is integral to even getting to the idea of Crindy, and several people often think that they've thought of the same joke. So most professionals try to resist crediting something to one writer or another unless it's really just a clear, precise, moment in the writer's room. But there's kind of an acceptance of the idea that we're all in this together.

I'd just like to say that I am a new AD fan, having slept on the show for years. When you released the new episodes, I had a marathon viewing session starting with Season 1. Man, what an amazing show you created! I was worried about the final season because I didn't "get" the first 3 episodes, but wow, you created a multi-layered mega complex season that gave the fans a wonderful farewell! Thank you! Wait, I have a question actually... Maybe I missed it but how did Lucille Two fall down the staircase? Was it her vertigo or did someone really push her?

That's one of the abiding mysteries that Film Studios (or Netflix) will have to find valuable enough to discover to fund more of the show. And what's YOUR theory? I'm truly curious.

Seriously, Mitch. How the fuck did you write the 4th season? Are you a god damn time traveler? A magician (illusionist) perhaps? I think we all deserve to know the truth.

I am a time traveler. That has nothing to do with how the 4th season was written. It's just why I'm able to get some great deals on sunglasses and things like that. I try not to use it for any GIANT personal gain. I did use some of my shape-shifting ability when it came time to do some of the green screen stuff in the show - but thank you!

(and truly, not to be cute about it, I do like to tell people because finished work is intimidating when you're starting your own work - it's just hard work. I think Albert Schweitzer said that "chance favors the well-prepared" - there will be times where i think "Why don't I have a great idea?" - because it's HARD WORK. You have to keep working at it and keep building on it, and occasionally something will come easily. But usually, it requires effort. But thank you).

I loved your short lived show, Sit Down, Shut Up. Shame it was cancelled so early. Were there any plans for what to do in season 2 had it not been cancelled?

No, but not really, because at that point I had sort of stepped away from it, and there was another writing team in place - and it was a time at Fox where they were tentative about working with me, because they had sort of gotten it in their heads that i wrote arcane stuff that wasn't for the masses, and they had to sit on me to make sure I wouldn't do it again. That was kind of the case with RUNNING WILD as well. So it was very challenging - it had gotten more challenging to get my sense of humor through the system than when I did ARRESTED. Which I always understood - but the thing I didn't understand, is that everything Jim Vallely ever wrote was so hilarious that I would think "I wonder if my stuff is good or bad, but Jim's stuff is brilliant, please God let it get on TV" and it had gotten very difficult to do so.