Happy Cinco de Cuatro, the holiday for 'Arrested Development' fans

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Today is May 4, Star Wars Day, the day before Cinco de Mayo, and (in 2016, at least) a Wednesday. But it’s also Cinco de Cuatro, a holiday that exists only within the Arrested Development universe.

We first learn of Cinco de Cuatro in season four, released on Netflix in 2013. In a flashback to 1982, Lucille and George Bluth (played in their younger incarnations by Kristen Wiig and Seth Rogen) invent the holiday because they’re miffed that their housekeeper has taken off Cinco de Mayo. They plot to combat “the Mexican war on May 5” by using up all the “party supplies” the night before.

“Over 30 years, however, it grew, and was soon embraced by the Hispanic community, for financial reasons,” the narrator (Ron Howard) explains.

The present-day Cinco de Cuatro celebration, a carnival on the boardwalk, is where a season’s worth of the Bluth family’s interweaving, nonlinear narratives finally come to a head. It’s also densely packed with visual jokes surrounding bumbling cultural appropriation.

The rich, white Orange County revelers eagerly buy up maracas, inflatable chili peppers, sombreros, glow necklaces, and fake mustaches galore. White mariachis sing “The Cockroach” to the tune of “La Cucaracha,” and there appears to be at least one piñata on hand for every single resident of the state of California.

“You’re sure the Hispanic community is okay with all of this?” Emmett (Andy Richter) asks of Cinco de Cuatro. “I’m sure they think of this as an homage,” Tobias (David Cross) responds.

Of course, Cinco de Cuatro doesn’t mean May 4 (that’d be Cuatro de Mayo). It means “five of four,” which, nope, not a thing. The name of the holiday is a nod to the Bluth family’s complete inability to understand Spanish, a running gag throughout the series.

So, happy Cuatro! In the timeless words of Lucille Austero, let’s throw some more taco shells.

Molly Fitzpatrick is senior editor of Fusion’s Pop & Culture section. Her interests include movies about movies, TV shows about TV shows, and movies about TV shows, but not so much TV shows about movies.