ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT: Bananas and Trailers and Episodes, Too

There's always money in the banana stand! Everybody who's seen Arrested Development, once a small pocket of television excellence in the Fox lineup, canceled (while fans sent thousands of rubber bananas to Fox execs to try to save it) in 2006 and then revived for fifteen new episodes on Netflix, knows the axiom about the banana stand. Right?

After a long wait, fans are eagerly anticipating those fifteen episodes, scheduled to begin begin May 26. There's even a trailer for the new Netflix season floating around the net, which you can watch here in high def on Youtube. Exciting, yes?

In the meantime, the Bluth family banana stand has shown up in Manhattan and it's actually selling frozen bananas all week. Yesterday, the Arrested Development twitter account (@arresteddev) tweeted, "Today on #ADWorldTour, have your banana and eat it too at the banana stand diagonal to Radio City Music Hall 11am-6pm pic.twitter.com/d3nKgjYtSO."

The stand shown in the photo above will be traveling to different locations around Manhattan (Columbus Circle today, the 14th), so if you're in New York City, keep an eye on that twitter feed to see where you, too, can score a Bluth frozen banana. You can also see more pictures and get more info at HuffPo, who covered the banana stand up close and personal.

No, there is no indication that Jason Bateman or any other actor who plays a Bluth will be actually staffing the banana stand. Although I would pay good money to see Will Arnett in a banana suit, dangling over the stand by way of a crane, if anybody wants to arrange that. He could use some pants, however.

Wherever you are, you need to mark your calendar for Sunday, May 26, when all fifteen new episodes will show up at once on Netflix. It's part of a new strategy to blast you with entertainment and let you choose when to watch. And make no mistake -- I will be watching. Probably all fifteen at once.

Hey, Hermano! Netflix Announces ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT for May

It's been awhile since Netflix announced they would air new episodes of Arrested Development, the quirky and generally amazing sitcom that never belonged on Fox in the first place. At first we were told there would be ten new episodes starting in early 2013, but that got pushed back and expanded. So then the news was 14 episodes sometime in the Spring.

And now it's official! Or at least sort of official. TVLine and Entertainment Weekly are both reporting, based on intel from the Television Critics Association winter press tour, that Arrested Development and its 14 episodes will start on Netflix in May. So no exact date in May, but hey, May in general is better than June, July, or parts thereafter.

Word is that the new episodes will act as a kind of catch-up to where and what the Bluths have been doing since we saw them last, as a way of creating a platform for a movie later. An Arrested Development feature film was supposedly in the works before the Netflix deal was announced in November 2011, and that may still be happening. If Michael Cera, who plays Bluth son George Michael, hasn't outgrown the rest of the family.

Not only will regulars Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Cera, David Cross, Portia de Rossi, Tony Hale, Alia Shawcat, Jeffrey Tambor and Jessica Walter all be back for the Netflix episodes, but they will be joined by guests like Liza Minnelli, Conan O'Brien and John Slattery. Will Ron Howard show up, too? Will Maeby Fünke (Shawcat) sing "Call Me Maybe" or has that moment of pop culture relevance passed? Will we see terrible lawyers Barry Zuckerkorn (Henry Winkler) or Bob Loblaw (Scott Baio), Lupe the maid (B. W. Gonzalez), boring girlfriend Ann Veal (Mae Whitman), wayward secretary Kitty (Judy Greer), Carl Weathers (Carl Weathers) or blind-but-not-really Maggie Lizer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus)? And what about STEVE HOLT!? (He was played by Justin Wade Grant, but they could totally replace him and I wouldn't notice. It's the concept of STEVE HOLT! that counts.)

I also have a fondness for the stair car. But maybe that's too much to hope for.

Slattery on "Arrested Development"? Awesome news!

John Slattery and Roger Sterling, the sharp, nasty, outrageous character he plays on "Mad Men," are particular favorites of mine. I've had a fondness for Slattery since he played a union organizer on a show called "Homefront" in the early 90s, and that grew when I saw him on Broadway in "Laughter on the 23rd Floor," a not-that-successful Neil Simon show that starred Nathan Lane as a Sid Caesar-like TV comedian in the 50s. It was Slattery who came out onto the sidewalk after the show and chatted with everybody who was hanging out waiting for an autograph. Nice, funny, talented...

He's done comic appearances on "30 Rock" and "Sex and the City" and even "The Simpsons," so I knew he had the chops. But the news that he will be showing up in a multi-episode arc of "Arrested Development," one of the best TV comedies ever, when it comes back to life on Netflix next year... Well, that's just about the best news ever!

Creator Mitch Hurwitz and the original "Arrested Development" cast, including Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, David Cross, Portia de Rossi, Tony Hale, Alia Shawcat, Jeffrey Tambor and Jessica Walter, as well as narrator and executive producer Ron Howard, will all be back in at least ten episodes for this Netflix exclusive series. All the people who fell in love with "Arrested Development" when it appeared on Fox for three short seasons, who inundated Fox with bananas (real and toy, I think) to try to save the show, are more than eager for those 10+ episodes already. Adding John Slattery and his whip-smart comic stylings to the mix is like adding hot fudge to your bananas. And making the anticipation even fiercer.

The plan has been to release all ten (or more) episodes at once on Netflix, with space for all of the familiar characters from the first time, plus a few new ones. Jason Bateman tweeted photos from the set, so you know it's happening, too.

No word yet on who Slattery will be playing or how he fits into the Bluth family mix (long-lost child of Lucille's or George's? New suitor for Lindsay? Or Lucille? Or -- heaven forfend -- Maeby?) but it's all good. So let's give a big, "Hey, Hermano!" to John Slattery as we count down the days to 2013 and the return of "Arrested Development."

I May Have to Relent on That Netflix Thing

When Netflix split its business model, charging individually for home delivery of DVDs and instant streaming, I bid them goodbye, deciding that I didn't use enough of either option to justify paying for them separately. But then they announced they'd be airing "Arrested Development," one of the best TV shows ever in the history of the universe. And not just the old episodes of "Arrested Development," which I own on DVD, anyway, and don't need Netflix for.

Nope. This is new episodes of "Arrested Development." Ten of 'em. All released at once. On Netflix. Yep, I think I'm going to have to get off my high horse and go back to Netflix.

"Arrested Development" creator Mitch Hurwitz first talked about these ten episodes as character sketches, updating us on the AD universe of nutballs individually. Now it seems the episodes (scheduled to burst forth on Netflix sometime in 2013) will be more like the first three seasons broadcast on Fox, with plotlines and characters that overlap episodes. Hurwitz also seems to be promising to push the boundaries of the medium in ways he hasn't explained yet. I just hope Ron Howard will be back as the narrator, since some of my favorite jokes came from his wry voice-overs.

To whet your appetite in the meantime, Entertainment Weekly has posted a short video of The Bluth Bros, Jason Bateman and Will Arnett, shaving. Yeah, I don't really understand, either. But it's still nice to see them.