The Day We Met GOB

The last day of our trip in Berlin, we took a Cold War tour. I was bored and freezing (even though I was literally wearing every sweater I packed and three pairs of socks). The tour ended at the Stasi Museum, the old headquarters of the East German spy operation. It looked interesting and I wanted to thaw, so we went in.

The headquarters mostly appear exactly as they did when they were in use-- cool, but also a little unremarkable because it's just a 70s office building. Exhibits are set up in each office to tell about the people who worked there. It was marginally interesting... until it suddenly became extremely interesting.

Leaning against the wall next to the entrance to an exhibit was GOB BLUTH.

Let me explain something. We've seen Arrested Development more than any other show ever. We quote the show (usually GOB) to each other on a daily basis. So this wasn't really about Will Arnett, Famous Person, but about GOB BLUTH, our most-quoted/favorite character of all time. There is probably no celebrity on earth we would be mutually more excited to see.

We both recognized him immediately (no question whatsoever) and stood in the next exhibit silently freaking out. Todd wanted to go back and say hello. It must be annoying to have people recognize you all the time, so I was inclined to just let him enjoy the museum undisturbed. And that's what we did. We left him alone... while we followed him around, taking covert pictures.

In our defense, the museum is really linear and we really had no choice but to follow him. So we silently walked around the whole museum with GOB BLUTH, inwardly freaking out and paying very little attention to the exhibits.

When we left, he and two friends were waiting for a cab at the entrance. I was still debating whether we should bug him. We exited the museum and walked around the carport, and I was still debating out loud. Todd was finally like, WE'RE DOING THIS, and walked right back with me in tow.

Todd was admirably cool. He said something like "Hey man, we debated it but we just had to: I'm a huge fan, my wife's a huge fan. Love your work. Would you mind if we got a picture?" GOB Will said "thank you, of course!" and shook Todd's hand, jumped in for a photo, and asked where we were from. He probably would have chatted with us for a bit, but Todd wanted to get us in and OUT because I was mumbling incomprehensibly and looked so embarrassed I wished the earth would swallow me up.

All the points to Todd. All the points.