“There’s always money in the banana stand.” Fans of the hit television show Arrested Development will recognize the phrase immediately. On the show, the protagonist, Michael Bluth, is doing his best to keep his family and their fortune intact when their business is imperiled by the incarceration of his father and CEO of the Bluth Company, George Bluth, on account of shady dealings.
When the family’s problems appear to be most dire, and everything they’ve worked for seems likely to disappear and leave them destitute, George repeatedly assures his son, “there’s always money in the banana stand.” The “banana stand” refers to a small hut where the Bluths sell frozen bananas on a local boardwalk, essentially a trifle where Michael’s teenaged son, George Michael, can work for the summer. Michael understands this phrase to mean “no matter what happens to the Bluth Company, we will always be able to generate a small bit of income from selling frozen bananas.”
SPOILER ALERT: When the banana stand burns down one day, the hundreds of thousands of dollars in cold, hard cash hidden in the walls go up in flames with it. - See more at: