The Bluth Company, founded by George Bluth Sr., is a fictional company in the television series Arrested Development.
The Bluth Company is a real estate development firm. The chief executive officer was George Sr. At his retirement party, he announced that his wife, Lucille Bluth, would be the new CEO of the company, surprising his son Michael Bluth, who had expected to take his father's place as head of the company. Just after this announcement, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission boarded the boat upon which the party was being held and arrested George for defrauding customers and spending the company's money on "personal expenses." (His family, with the exception of Michael, was also using the company's money for personal expenses). Lucille places her favored son Byron "Buster" Bluth in charge of managing the company, but he soon shows himself to be completely incompetent, and Lucille asks Michael to act as CEO. Most of the action in the series comes from Michael's futile attempts to try and get the company back on track, while the family continues to take money from it, and hide their activities.
At the end of the first season, it is revealed that the company is suspected of illegally building homes in Iraq for Saddam Hussein. A mysterious box of evidence emerges, labeled "H. Maddas" ("Saddam H." backwards). George Sr. is to be charged with "light treason".
The Bluth company has also owned and run a frozen banana stand started by George Sr. in 1963 on the Newport Beach boardwalk on Balboa Island. The stand was a popular meeting place for the buying and selling of marijuana in the 1970s. As the stand itself was built to resemble a large yellow banana, it was commonly known as "the big yellow joint", and became the topic of a hit song by the same name (which was a parody of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant"). George Sr. had initially lined the walls of the banana stand with money. As the Bluth Company was struggling, George Sr. repeatedly assured to Michael, "there's always money in the banana stand." Weary of his father's constant involvement in the business, Michael burned the stand down in a moment of protest, not realising that his statement was meant to be taken literally. Throughout the series, the banana stand gets destroyed and rebuilt several times.
