It’s a mystery to me why good shows get cancelled on television and bad ones seem to go on achingly forever. Friends and ER have been on the air longer than I care to remember, but Arrested Development, Deadwood and Firefly get cancelled at their peaks. Firefly didn’t even make it through an entire season. In Deadwood’s case, HBO couldn’t afford another season of the $60 million show. I get it. But, Fox’s Arrested Development and Firefly were the network’s best shows then and for a long, long time. But viewers who “think and watch” are so much fewer than those who’d rather watch (without thinking) the watered down drivel of Friends and ER. What’s the world coming to? Well, we have our memories, no?

Arrested Development is one of those shows with ridiculous storylines and outrageous characters that always leave you thinking “What the fuck is wrong with these people?” while laughing till you pee a little in your undies. Granted there are numerous television comedies about dysfunctional families with crazy characters and even crazier storylines, but none have what Arrested Development has: delivery, delivery, delivery! And no live audience to boot.

The mark of great comedy, I’ve always thought, is laughter without assistance. Meaning, you don’t need the live sheep (a.k.a., live audience) to tell the viewers that a joke’s been made. The comedy relies on the actors to “deliver” the lines so they’re most effective and unpredictable without being inconsistent. Meaning, you can almost always count on the humor, you just don’t know how and exactly when. Shows like Married with Children and Everybody Loves Raymond have predictable inconsistent humor diluted for the masses. Props and familiar story “templates” are always used so you see a joke coming from miles away, which doesn’t guarantee laughter, just that a joke’s a’comin’.

In Arrested Development, the delivery of the lines are dead on and so much is said with looks, repeated lines and incomplete sentences, a “laugh track” would be overkill and annoying. A lot of the humor is delayed and/or built on previous jokes.

It’s hard to describe the humor in Arrested Development, it’s more than sarcasm, dry, sardonic, etc. You know those types of jokes that you hear, tilt yor head to one side a bit, raise one brow in almost confusion but totally get (ten-fold) about half a second later. They’re what I call half-brow jokes ’cause they don’t take as much “intellect” those high-brow jokes or no intellect like those low-brow jokes. You got to be quick, not a prude or a snob to appreciate the somewhat dry, sardonic, risque and sometimes silly off the cuff humor.

Basically, what makes a dysfunctional family comedy watchable is that you can relate to the way the members relate to each other. But what makes a dysfunctional family comedy funny is that you get why they relate to each other the way they do and the way they do is convincing through the comedy. Roseanne, for example was I think, the best “dysfunctional” family comedy on television (before Arrested Development). It was raw, funny, sarcastic and pushed the proverbial envelope as far as it could be pushed given the network it was on and the time it aired. Roseanne and Dan were out of shape poor working class parents. The kids went through the same shit other kids go through, but the way the shit was handled was not typical. No hoky parenting or cheesy haeartfelt moments. Sarcasm, anger and hard truths made palatable by the sarcasm.

But, these days there’s got to be more on the plate than cooky parents and bratty troublesome kids ala Malcolm in the Middle, Everybody Loves Raymond and Everybody Hates Chris.

Things are always done in the extreme these days. Most shows lack subtlety. What makes Arrested Development many cuts above the rest is that their outrageous antics are balanced perfectly with the subtle humor. Unlike the shows mentioned above, the basis of the humor isn’t the antics, it’s the comedy, the jokes, the set-up, the delivery all working together without being obvious.

The Bluths are like many families, they have a love hate relationship with each other made worse by conflicting personality quirks. But unlike many TV families, though you get to know them pretty well, it’s always a surprise what they’ll do next. And I like surprises in my comedy like sugar in my cake. Cake is nothing without the sugar. And too much or too little sugar ruins cake like too many antics, one liners, etc., ruins good comedy.

**Arrested Development was taken off the air in 2005 in the middle of the third season