Ann Veal is George-Michael’s on-again-off-again girlfriend. While she is basically a way for George-Michael to take his mind off of his cousin Maeby, he does show genuine interest in her–even if it’s only to get a kiss.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/1313/arrested-development-im-pumped
One of the funniest things about the family’s relationship with Ann is that no one ever remembers her. The family’s interactions with Ann is where one of the best running jokes starts: “her?” It starts with Michael and migrates to many of the other family members.
Michael commonly accidentally calls Ann many different nicknames: “Bland,” “Egg,” “Annabel,” “Yam,” “Plant,” “Plain,” and “Ann Hog.” In each case, these misspeakings are unintentional by Michael but they also seem to go unnoticed by him. The “nicknames” aren’t as random as they seem when listed. Each one makes sense in its context. Every time, Michael is repeating a word from earlier in the conversation. He calls her “Plant” in the episode when he accidentally leaves her in Mexico. Both of which you can watch here:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/1121/arrested-development-searching-for-a-friend
Shortly after this clip:
Michael calls Ann “Egg.” The hilarity of these nicknames is never-ceasing if you actually think about what is happening. And they aren’t limited to Michael. Maeby derives pleasure from calling her “Bland” quite often in the show.
In this clip, The Buth family made the paper after a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new model home went awry; it is a testament to how little attention the family pays to Ann:
While this final clip isn’t actually video from the show, it gives a good sense (if the previous ones didn’t) of how well Michael knows Ann–please ignore the annoying text graphics.
Later in this episode… you guessed it. Michael refers to Ann as “Annehog.”
Michael: Ann’s here?
George-Michael: Yeah, I invited her. You said you wanted to spend some time with her. You said I was being an Ann Hog.
Michael: Annehog’s coming?
Arrested Development 
July 29th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Ann’s probably the best character-as-punchline in the show. What i find hilarious is that she’s really not unattractive at all, but for some reason Michael (and everyone else in the Bluth family) doesn’t see her as good enough for his star wars emulating son. But i must admit when i saw her in Scott Pilgrim (she’s Regina’s ‘bi-furious’ ex), i had to hold myself back from shouting “her?” in the theater.
July 30th, 2011 at 10:26 pm
Sadly, I must say that I haven’t watched many episodes of Arrested Development (but I will). The concept for Ann’s character is interesting. It creates a running joke that regular viewers would recognize, but one-time onlookers might not. That makes the relationship between the show and the viewer stronger. Funny funny.
August 1st, 2011 at 6:51 pm
I love how they always call Ann the wrong name. They basically just have her labeled throughout the entire show as “that girl that nobody gives a shit about.” No matter how many times she is introduced, people just forget her. You kind of feel bad for her, but then realize that everytime they call her the wrong name its just another hilarious continuation of a great running gag
August 3rd, 2011 at 2:03 am
I actually started watching Arrested Development after seeing Scott Pilgrim, so I was really amused when I saw that they were together in this.
The plotlines with Ann were usually my favorites. Whether she was getting left behind in Mexico and not really saying anything about it other than that she was sitting there the whole time or entering a Christian beauty pageant, she was always very quietly funny.
Sadly, I have to admit that I never noticed the way that they use sort of introduce the nicknames earlier in the episode. Such subtlety is one of the things that I really love about the writing in Arrested Development.