I've been watching both The OC and Arrested Development and there so many similarities between the two shows its uncanny.

This is like my 3rd time watching The OC and I've lost count of how many times I've watched AD, but I don't think I've paired them together before. Both began airing on Fox in 2003 and while I'm not going to make the effort to figure out the timing of how the seasons/episodes lined up there are so many similarities that I'm convinced they were playing off of each other.

The obvious ones:

• They're both set in Newport Beach
• The actual "The OC" joke in Arrested Development (Don't call it that)

Then, here's the observations I've written down as I've been going through The OC:

• The family owns a real estate development company.
• There's a model home that Ryan moves in to. He lives in it very briefly before it burns down.
• When Caleb has to step down as CEO of The Newport Group, he names his wife to take over for him, who knows nothing about the business, instead of his daughter who has worked there forever and was expecting to take over.
• After Jimmy Cooper loses all his money, he ends up living on a boat. At one point when he's hooking up with Julie he asks her "Are we making a huge mistake?"
• Volchok shows up in Marissa's room and says "just got back from my little trip down Mexico way."
• Caleb hires a PI to spy on his wife. Could it have been Gene Parmesan? He's the best so we would never know.
• Kirsten has a drinking problem and has to go to rehab.
• In season 3, the high school the kids go to gets a Dean of Discipline. This is basically no different than a Discipline Daddy.
• Adopted family incest. Ryan is adopted by the Cohens and gets involved with both Marissa and Lindsay. Because Marissa's mom married Kirsten's dad, I think that makes Marissa his step aunt? And Lindsay is Kirsten's half sister so she's his half-aunt?
• Julie hooks up with Luke, her daughter's ex boyfriend. AD didn't go quite this far - Lindsay only flirted with Steve Holt.

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This is what I've got so far. I'm sure there's more and if you have anything to add I would love to hear them!

Submitted March 26, 2021 at 09:52PM by tommystjohnny https://ift.tt/39irCLj