With the rise of streaming services, many sitcoms are finding new audiences and viewers. As seasons have become shorter and television has become more cinematic, fewer and fewer sitcoms are being produced, but older and less popular sitcoms are reaching a wider audience.
In “Arrested Development,” Michael Bluth, played by Jason Bateman, tries to save his family’s failing real estate company after his father is arrested on charges of defrauding investors. It depicts his relatives constantly interfering with him. The show received critical acclaim during its initial run on Fox, but was ultimately canceled after three seasons due to low ratings. “Arrested Development” never fully gained an audience on television, as many of the gags in the show rewarded longtime viewers. It was filmed more like a reality television show (minus Talking Heads) rather than the traditional multi-camera sitcom format. However, thanks to Netflix, he will be airing for two more seasons.
Similarly, “Community” started out as a run-of-the-mill sitcom about a community college research group, but quickly became a parody of just about every sitcom troupe, action movie, and show. The season 2 episode “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking” pokes fun at his mockumentary sitcom style, which was popular at the time. While much of the racial humor has very little staying power (one of the episodes was even removed from Netflix), this show is still more intelligent than a lot of shows currently on the air. For example, throughout several seasons, the phrase “Beetlejuice” is uttered three times by him, resulting in the character appearing in the background for the third time. Throughout Season 3, the character Abed helps a pregnant couple give birth, but this is only briefly acknowledged in the show’s canon.
“Community” also had a troubled production history, with the writers allowing both the season 3 and season 4 finales to serve as series finales. After the show was eventually canceled on network television, it was moved to the now-defunct streaming service Yahoo!. 6th season of “Screen”. The movie was promised to be released in the season 6 finale, but fans didn’t really expect it to happen. In 2021, showrunner Dan Harmon finally announced that production on the film had begun. What has changed in 10 years? In early 2020, the show moved to Netflix.
What these shows have in common is that they’ve found a second life in internet memes. The phrase “Dead Dove: Don’t Eat” has become shorthand for someone to tag a piece of work that contains content that might offend people. But the matriarch of the “Arrested Development” family, Lucille Bluth (played by the late Jessica Walter), is the subject of most of the memes featuring her. My friends and I say this. “That’s one banana, Michael. How much does it cost, $10?” They constantly attack each other, and the reaction photo of Lucille saying “That’s good” has become a classic reaction meme. .
Meanwhile, “Community” spawned several memes, including Ken Jeong calling out gay and the dean saying, “I hope this doesn’t wake up anything in me.” But the most famous meme comes from the episode “Remedial Chaos Theory”, where Donald Glover enters a room and finds the entire room on fire.
Both of these shows are finding new audiences who weren’t able to watch it on cable or weren’t old enough to watch it the first time, but now can. These viewers have the advantage of being able to recognize where their favorite memes come from, which has led to the revival of these shows. Hopefully, more shows get the love they so desperately deserve.
