Manhattan got yet another landmark yesterday, as a Bluth's Original Frozen Banana stand (definitely not stolen from a Korean immigrant) popped up in the city to serve New Yorkers with the treat made famous in Arrested Development. In anticipation of the upcoming 4th series of the programme, which is being aired on Netflix, the pop-up stand gave fans a chance to try out the snack made famous on the show, after health and safety ruled out a cornballer stand.

Netflix's marketing ploy will last for most of the week, popping up at different parts of New York for one day only, with the first one opening yesterday across the street from Radio City Music Hall, with others opening at Columbus Circle and in Time Square. Yesterday's stand was placed just down the road from Fox's New Corp. headquarters, the network that cancelled the beloved show in 2006, and managed to gather hour-long queues that snaked down the streets of New York.

Jeffery Tambour
Jeffery Tambour (George Bluth Snr.) At The London Banana Stand

The frozen banana stands were first place in London last week, with queues lasting up to six hours at time. Of course, unlike the British, Americans are not prone to queuing up for long periods of time and the New York ones never quite reached that number. The stand will remain in New York until Thursday this week (May 16) before being shipped to Los Angeles for another promotional push. A rep for Netflix mentioned, “It’s been crazy. People are really into it.”

Arrested Development originally aired on FOX from 2003 to 2006 and has since gained a dedicated cult following. Since then, numerous attempts to bring back the show have been made, with Netflix finally acquiring the rights to the show and commissioning a new series last year. All three  previous series of the show are available on Netflix.

Justin Lee
Annyong!