Bringing Up Buster

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Arrested Development episode
"Bringing Up Buster"
Episode No 1AJD02
Airdate November 16, 2003
Writer(s) Mitchell Hurwitz and Richard Rosenstock
Director Joe Russo
On the next: “Tobias gets a review of his Shakespeare play, and Buster is back where he belongs.”
Guest star(s) Leonor Varela as Marta Estrella
Justin Grant Wade as Steve Holt
Richard Simmons as Himself

Arrested Development Season 1
November 2003 - June 2004

  1. Pilot
  2. Top Banana
  3. Bringing Up Buster
  4. Key Decisions
  5. Visiting Ours
  6. Charity Drive
  7. My Mother, The Car
  8. In God We Trust
  9. Storming the Castle
  10. Pier Pressure
  11. Public Relations
  12. Marta Complex
  13. Beef Consommé
  14. Shock and Aww
  15. Staff Infection
  16. Missing Kitty
  17. Altar Egos
  18. Justice Is Blind
  19. Best Man for the GOB
  20. Whistler's Mother
  21. Not Without My Daughter
  22. Let 'Em Eat Cake
All Arrested Development episodes

"Bringing Up Buster" is the third episode of the Arrested Development series.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Michael is making Cornballs for breakfast - a Bluth family tradition since George Sr. tried to market a device called The Cornballer in the mid-1970s - in preparation for him and his son George Michael's Sunday bike ride. However, George Michael isn't sure he wants to continue the tradition anymore. G.O.B. comes in and announces he's had another fight with his current girlfriend, Marta, and asks if he can stay with Michael for a while. Michael declines, which Lindsay tells G.O.B. is because Michael feels bad because his son feels suffocated by him. When Tobias finds out that his daughter Maeby is auditioning for the school play, he assumes it is to get closer to him. In fact, Maeby hopes to be cast as the romantic lead alongside a boy named Steve Holt, so that they could share a kiss. George Michael is also auditioning for the play in the hopes of starring alongside his cousin Maeby to share that same kiss with her. Maeby and Steve Holt get the lead roles, and George Michael, cast as the stand-in, is ready to quit... until he learns that since Steve Holt has football practice, George Michael will be kissing Maeby during rehearsals.

Since Buster's post-graduate studies are on permanent hiatus due to reduced family funds, Lucille is beginning to resent her son's constant presence. Lucille chides Michael for not spending more time with Buster, and drops Buster off to spend the rest of the day with him. Michael tries to adjust to less time with George Michael by spending more time with Buster, who begins to join in the family's venting about their mother, Lucille. Maeby is horrified when Tobias arrives at rehearsal announcing that he is the play's new director. Tobias is horrified by what he sees as a lack of chemistry between George Michael (the stand-in for the play's star, Steve Holt) and Maeby. And George Michael is horrified because Tobias won't let the scene continue long enough for him to kiss Maeby. Feeling frustrated by her father's constant interference, Maeby quits. And while searching for a way to get more chemistry, Tobias sees George Michael talking to Steve Holt, and comes to the conclusion that George Michael is gay. Tobias gives George Michael Steve's role, and casts Steve in Maeby's former role of Beatrice. Frustrated by Tobias's direction and worried by the thought of kissing Steve Holt, George Michael quits the play. Which Tobias salvages by casting Maeby as the lead male opposite Steve Holt as the lead female.

Over at Bluth Co., Lucille catches word from Lindsay that Buster has been complaining about her and barges into the office to take Buster back home. She then advises Michael to hold tight to his son like she does with Buster, but when Michael returns home, he finds a contrite George Michael ready to cornball with his father.

[edit] Cultural references

  • The play that is being performed is Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (since Tobias refers to Beatrice and Benedict, characters in that play, and a poster reads "Much Ado About Nothing Auditions").
  • Richard Simmons, a flamboyant American fitness guru, appears, somewhat ironically, in the infomercial for The Cornballer.

[edit] Character Cameos

  • This is the first appearance of Steve Holt, who would play only a minor part this season, but became a more important character in later seasons.
  • This is one of the only two appearances of Leonor Varela as Marta.

[edit] Foreshadowing

  • George, Sr. says Buster spent eleven months in the womb, indicating that Lucille may have conceived Buster two months after they stopped having sex. We later learn that Buster's real father is George Sr.'s brother, Oscar. George Sr.'s mentioning that the doctor said there were "claw marks" on the inside of her womb may parallel Lucille's manipulation of doctors seen in My Mother, The Car.

[edit] Episode notes

  • The title is a play on the Katharine Hepburn/Cary Grant movie Bringing Up Baby.
  • The first three episodes in general earned the show a Red Light from the Parents Television Council (PTC), who took objections to the incest theme between George Michael and Maeby, the innuendos used such as "cornholing", "flamer", or Tobias's homosexual comments, and the common usage of "censoring" expletives with a bleep. Additionally, while the PTC acknowledges that "'bleeps' are scripted into the program", it referred to Buster's speech in this episode as being "censored by the network". Actually, Buster's actual words were anything but vulgar, as actor Tony Hale does not curse (You can read his lips to see he is reciting the alphabet).[citation needed]

[edit] External links