Tobias is seemingly gay
Shoulder rub
Family is the most important thing
G.O.B. screws up a magic trick
Lucille winks
Bluth's Original Frozen Banana Stand
Female character named with an adverb
Awkwardness between George Michael and Maeby
Freedom drag queen with fruit hat
They're not tricks, they're illusions!
G.O.B. reveals how a trick illusion is done
Tobias's happy chortle
The Bluth family has a bad attorney
George Sr. likes prison
Banner
Sweartakes
G.O.B. with a hard /g/
Family doesn't like G.O.B.
Lindsay tries to cry
Reference to Peanuts
Always leave a note
Teach a lesson
Ice cream sandwich
No touching!
The Bluths have trouble with hammers
Nevernude
A Bluth does something dishonest
Lucille is racist
From whence it came
Cornballer
Steve Holt!
Dress zip-up
Her?
Stair car
You're gonna get some hop-ons
I've made a huge mistake
Michael misinterprets Marta
J. Walter Weatherman
Hey, brother
Daddy horny, Michael
G.O.B. sees his parents having sex
Light treason
Lucille's rape horn
A Bluth yells at another Bluth from a car
A website address appears on screen
Lindsay's SLUT shirt
Barry's a little gay
George Sr. tries to escape
Well, that was a freebie
George Sr. has a religious experience
Hot Cops
Carl Weathers is frugal
Cloudmir Vodka
Reference to Ron Howard's career
Packing possessions in a sheet
Bluth brothers fight
Reference to building houses in Iraq
Annyong
Blendin van
A Bluth "has a type"
Chicken dance
Reference to fictional celebrity or TV show
G.O.B. cries like a little girl
Kitty flashes
G.O.B. or Lindsay tries to make a double entendre
Maritime law
Gob is Steve Holt's father
Literal doctor
Plain is Ann
Mommy, What Will I Look Like?
G.O.B. has bees
Tobias is black
A Bluth gets clubbed with a nightstick
Allusion to Uncle Father Oscar
Buster's hand gets eaten by a seal
Blue Man Group
Tobias needs to go to the hospital
G.O.B. has trouble with phones
The Seaward
Gob confuses hard and soft /c/s
Gene Parmesan
The mere fact that you call it that...
Shemále shirt
C'mon!
Balboa Bay Window
Candy beans
Marry me!
Club sauce
I'm a monster!
House reference
Star Wars Kid video
It Ain't Easy Being White
Michael's a robot
Rita is special
Forget-Me-Now
The O.C.
Gob and Ann are dating
Mr. F
There it is.
Bob Loblaw
Gangie franchise
Hot ham water
Health insurance troubles
Something search
Hot mess
The Bluths don't know how to tip black people
A Bluth wonders who's responsible
Stimulus package
Reference to a wall
Prayer hands
Ostrich
Beverly Hills
Take to the sea!
China Garden confusion
ANUSTART
Getaway
Face blindness
A Bluth has a delay in responding
Rebel Alley public service announcement
Herbert Love busts a rhyme
Sound of Silence plays
A Bluth eats Parmesan cheese with mustard
Bluths in scuba gear
A Bluth forgets, but never forgives
Pick a lane
G.O.B.'s kind of gay too
GOOP
Tobias plays a Bluth
A Few Good Men
S01E01: Pilot
S01E02: Top Banana
S01E03: Bringing Up Buster
S01E04: Key Decisions
S01E05: Charity Drive
S01E06: Visiting Ours
S01E07: In God We Trust
S01E08: My Mother, the Car
S01E09: Storming the Castle
S01E10: Pier Pressure
S01E11: Public Relations
S01E12: Marta Complex
S01E13: Beef Consommé
S01E14: Shock and Aww
S01E15: Staff Infection
S01E16: Missing Kitty
S01E17: Altar Egos
S01E18: Justice is Blind
S01E19: Best Man for the G.O.B.
S01E20: Whistler's Mother
S01E21: Not Without My Daughter
S01E22: Let 'Em Eat Cake
S02E01: The One Where Michael Leaves
S02E02: The One Where They Build a House
S02E03: ¡Amigos!
S02E04: Good Grief
S02E05: Sad Sack
S02E06: Afternoon Delight
S02E07: Switch Hitter
S02E08: Queen for a Day
S02E09: Burning Love
S02E10: Ready, Aim, Marry Me
S02E11: Out on a Limb
S02E12: Hand to God
S02E13: Motherboy XXX
S02E14: The Immaculate Election
S02E15: Sword of Destiny
S02E16: Meat the Veals
S02E17: Spring Breakout
S02E18: Righteous Brothers
S03E01: The Cabin Show
S03E02: For British Eyes Only
S03E03: Forget-Me-Now
S03E04: Notapusy
S03E05: Mr. F
S03E06: The Ocean Walker
S03E07: Prison Break-In
S03E08: Making a Stand
S03E09: S.O.B.s
S03E10: Fakin' It
S03E11: Family Ties
S03E12: Exit Strategy
S03E13: Development Arrested
S04E01: Flight of the Phoenix
S04E02: Borderline Personalities
S04E03: Indian Takers
S04E04: The B. Team
S04E05: A New Start
S04E06: Double Crossers
S04E07: Colony Collapse
S04E08: Red Hairing
S04E09: Smashed
S04E10: Queen B.
S04E11: A New Attitude
S04E12: Señoritis
S04E13: It Gets Better
S04E14: Off the Hook
S04E15: Blockheads
S05E01: Family Leave
S05E02: Self-Deporation
S05E03: Everyone Gets Atrophy
S05E04: Old Start, An
S05E05: Sinking Feelings
S05E06: Emotional Baggage
S05E07: Rom-Traum
S05E08: Premature Independence
S05E09: Unexpected Company
S05E10: Taste Makers
S05E11: Chain Migration
S05E12: Check Mates
S05E13: The Untethered Sole
S05E14: Saving for Arraignment Day
S05E15: Courting Disasters
S05E16: The Fallout
And now, the story of a team of superfans who researched every single recurring joke in Arrested Development and the one website that had no choice but to visualize them together.
It's…
Recurring Developments is an interactive visualization of the running jokes in Arrested Development, the uniquely hilarious and self-referential television comedy created by Mitchell Hurwitz and available on Netflix. It was created by Beutler Ink and programmed by Red Edge.
Recurring Developments first launched with the arrival of Season 4 on Netflix in May 2013. It was conceived by longtime fan Chris Doty, designed by the digital marketing company Beutler Ink, and coded by digital advocacy firm Red Edge. In May 2018, Recurring Developments received its first major update to coincide with the launch of Season 5.
On the desktop version: More than 100 of the show's memorable recurring jokes occupy the left-hand column of the website. The show's 70+ episodes are found on the right. Clicking on a joke reveals all episodes where it occurs. Clicking on an episode reveals all of the jokes contained within it. All jokes have some kind of description and they are scene-specific where possible. Some episodes contain additional information about one-time callbacks and other fun things, including notable cameos. On the mobile version: all the same information, but different navigation. Episodes and jokes are presented as lists, and clicking on one will reveal the other.
New jokes for Season 5, more than 300 new joke instances across all five seasons, a mobile version that works better on touch-based devices, a refresh of the site design, and timestamps for almost every single joke in the whole series to date.
Original research was led by Chris Doty, with Beutler Ink team members filling in as needed. For the Season 5 update, we tapped into a network of Arrested Development superfans to help us find jokes we'd missed, correct ones we'd botched, and identify timestamps for the rest. Please join us in thanking our Recurring Developments Research Fellows. There are dozens of them!
From airing on Fox, to release on DVD, to its new permanent home on Netflix, Arrested Development's episode order has never quite agreed with itself. Our episode order is the one that makes the most sense to us. Hey, maybe someday we'll be canon!
Speaking of canon, consider us a little perplexed by Mitchell Hurwitz recutting season 4 and Netflix positioning it as the only one that matters, burying the "Original Cut" in a menu labeled "Trailers & More". This complicates things, but we're working on an update to let you decide which is the right way to watch.
No touching! But actually, this thing is huge and still in a state of… ah, development, and we're sure improvements can be made. Think we've missed a joke, butchered a description, or muffed a timestamp? Send us an email at teamocil@beutlerink.com and we'll look into it.
Actually, we're working on a poster that will be released after the second set of episodes drops later in 2018. It won't be a freebie, but it will be worth checking out. Sign up to get an email update when this becomes available.
This work is released under a Creative Commons license (CC-BY-SA), copyright Beutler Ink. Data visualization JavaScript heavily based on datamovin JavaScript Library by Carlo Zapponi (@littleark).