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You know, we liked Kirk Cameron as much as anyone back in the day. We weren't, like, huge Kirk Cameron fans or anything, but we thought he was cute and huggable in that teen-idol kind of way. And we admit we assumed we'd seen the last of him -- forever. We never -- never -- expected that Kirk Cameron would come back in such a huge way. Kirk Cameron! After all these years! Suddenly, he's starring -- nay, anchoring -- the funniest sitcom on television. And wait! There's Kirk Cameron with a hilarious bit part in Dodgeball, nearly stealing the movie! Kirk Cameron! Who knew?
Okay, we admit the above paragraph sounds a bit ridiculous. But it sounds no more ridiculous if you substitute the name "Jason Bateman" for "Kirk Cameron." And if you do that, the paragraph has the added strange quality of being absolutely true.
Jason Bateman! Who knew?
Jason Bateman started his career as a second fiddle, and then as a second choice. He was Ricky Schroder's mischievous sidekick, Derek, on Silver Spoons in 1987. (Yes, yes, Little House on the Prairie fanatics -- we know he appeared on that show first. But he was five. Now back in your hole.)
Then he hit the big time, starring as Not Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf Too -- Foxless. Between that and the Justine Bateman/Michael J. Fox connection (and if you don't know what the Jason Bateman/Justine Bateman/Michael J. Fox connection is, you are so reading the wrong website. Now back in your hole), young Jason was branded from the start as a kind of KMart Michael J. Fox. Jason Bateman -- if you like Michael J. Fox, you'll love Mikel Jay Focks!
Then he had his Teen Beat years and his time as the sassy brother on The Hogans. Then poof, whoosh, gone.
No surprise there. Kid stars disappear overnight all the time, and no one blinks, and nary a milk carton is wasted on trying to locate them. Bateman fell into that swirling Hollywood vortex that swallows semi-successful teen stars and converts their matter into shitty sitcom pilots that never air. Bateman's résumé on IMDb is like a log list from some alternate TV universe -- the universe in which shows like Simon and Chicago Sons and George & Leo and Some of My Best Friends are all generation-defining hits, and not one-shot duds now only remembered as misfires on the résumé of Jason Bateman.
And so, the story ends there, except it doesn't.
Because suddenly Bateman -- a man who, seriously, a few years ago, might have at best hoped for a hit like, say, Two And A Half Men; a man, in other words, not unlike fellow teen star-turned-flop-sitcom staple Jon Cryer -- is the star of Arrested Development, the best comedy on TV. Yes, you heard us -- The. Best. (Oh, hello, Curb Your Enthusiasm fans. Yes, we hear your moaning. Your show's overrated and Larry David is coasting. Now back in your hole.)
And Bateman -- Bateman, bless him -- may well be the best thing on the show. Well, okay, maybe not the best -- we've got to give love to Will Arnett as the hilarious magician GOB, and the estimable Jeffrey Tambor, and the rejuvenated David Cross, and Portia De Rossi for just being so Portia De Licious -- but certainly the best in the most thankless role. Everyone else gets to be all goofy and loco, while Bateman anchors the show. With his dry, dry wit and insanely well-tuned sense of timing, Bateman -- who turns a glance into a punchline -- makes the whole show possible.
Well, okay, he got lucky. Right? Someone plucked him from the vortex and he managed to land on a winner.
And yet. There he is again, now in Dodgeball, as the hilariously X-treme color commentator Pepper Brooks, rattling off excellently empty sports cliches such as "If the team forfeits, it will really hurt their chances of winning."
There's Bateman in Starsky and Hutch, being initiated into the onscreen comedy brotherhood headed by Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Will Ferrell. There's Bateman, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that there's something that's true that you never thought would be true, and that something is this:
Jason Bateman is funny.
Yes, we're still dealing with it, too.
This, of course, throws everything into turmoil. What's next? Brilliant comic turns from Missy Gold? A rock-your-world sitcom fueled by the wry wit of Jonathan Taylor Thomas?
Hollywood, we don't pretend to understand you. We don't claim to grasp your ways. But here was this guy -- right in your midst and already famous -- and it took you this long to figure out just what the hell to do with him? We're not asking you to pluck some farmboy from obscurity. We're just asking you to make more shows like Arrested Development. And find more underutilized actors like Jason Bateman, and let them shine the way he's shining now.
Kirk Cameron is awaiting your call.
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