Sit Down, Shut Up

It's no surprise that FOX broadcasting has somewhat lowered the bar for the standards of television. Face it; this channel has somewhat thrived upon "trash TV" and has built a reputation on it. However, when it comes to Primetime animation, FOX currently holds several juggernauts including Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy, Mike Judge's King of the Hill and of course, the classic, The Simpsons. So when a new animated series called Sit Down, Shut Up premieres between two of these audience bringers, expectations are somewhat higher.

Sit Down, Shut Up follows a staff of teachers at a dysfunctional school in an attempt to hold things together during hard economic times. Such teachers include Ennis Hofftard who is an essential meat head teaching English, Larry LittleJunk as the lovable P.E. coach who just can't quite woo the girl of his dreams without insulting her, and Stuart Proszakian, a somewhat drugged out Assistant Principal (or in this case the Ass. Principal) who is constantly happy and constantly unaware of the present situation. This week's episode: the school must find a way to raise money or they must fire one of their staff members.

Since the series was created of Mitch Hurwitz (who also created Arrested Development), a series of subplots concerning the misfit teachers take place. Can the German teacher effectively hide his pornography? Will the plan to subject students to steroids work? Can the Librarian find the missing bottle of '93 champagne work hundreds? Also adhering to Arrested Development's structure, all the subplots wind down to a chaotic, no holds bar conclusion. Unfortunately, that's all Sit Down, Shut Up takes from Arrested Development.

One of the major problems is the format. So much plotting and details are shot at rapid pace, that multiple viewings are required. (Though whether it's worth the effort is questionable). However, without an omniscient voice over (such as the one provided by Ron Howard in Arrested Development) to keep the program coherent and accessible, the show becomes very confusing very quickly. This leads to an altogether other problem: whether the show is actually aware that it's an animated series, or whether it's not.

Several hints were thrown revealing that some characters know more than they're supposed to. For example, Larry Littlejunk makes an obscure reference and when no flashback comes up (somewhat insulting the format of Family Guy), Larry asks "Mitch" if they're going to show it. Likewise, Assistant Principal Proszakian has the catchphrase, "I need a catchphrase" to add to the lampooning. However, if the characters are somewhat omniscient, why do they also seem unaware at times, such as when Larry Littlejunk tries to woo Miracle Grohe when he knows he will fail. The reason the Voice Over was so important was because while the narrator could be omniscient, the characters were free to wallow around in their dysfunction, unaware anyone was watching them. However, without one, confusion follows.

One of the saving graces of the series is the voice cast. While I could go on about Kennen Thompson's role as the acting principal and Will Forte's exquisite role as Stuart Proszakian, real credit goes to Will Arnet. Arnet's role is so perfectly defined as the meat head jock, that he essentially steals the show. There's a scene where he's essentially showing a threesome in a porno to a group of students while confusing it with a cheese magazine. He quickly debunks it with "That's not cheese, that's a three way." A few moment's do work besides Arnet's performance. For example there is a great winking bit where everyone winks to each other and the Assistant principal winks in an attempt to fit in. Of course, he never realizes the joke's on him since they are plotting about him, so he continues to wink.

The animation is somewhat lackluster. While it is interesting to see real life backgrounds spliced together with animation, the end result is more a study of effective animation rather than entertainment.

The real problem is that Sit Down Shut Up doesn't reach as high (or perhaps in FOX's standard) or as low enough to warrant it as a classic. After first impressions, it comes off as sort of bland and forgettable. It's not unwatchable, but there's no reason for a second viewing to buy the DVD's. Perhaps Sit Down Shut Up will step up its game after a mediocre pilot and make a home run for its scheduled run, or be rescheduled to a less popular time block. That being said, the end result shows more missed opportunities than classic examples.

An animated comedy about incompetent teachers at a flailing school that really has very little to do about teaching at all. It's made by the Arrested Development guy and stars such big names as Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Kristen Chenowith, Keenan Thompson, Will Forte, Cheri Oteri, Henry Winkler and Nick Kroll. The expectations were high to live up to and that brought a lot of disappointment and I can see both sides of it. The show got a little bit too meta too early in its run. In the 4th episode and last before leaving the remaining 9 episodes of the season (and most likely the series) in limbo, there were no less than three or four self-referential gags going on: characters kept trying to consciously match themselves to 80's archetypes, characters alluded to how they had few adventures before episode one, and Miracle was self-conscious about being nothing more than a plot device fueling the rivalry between Ennis and Larry.

On the other hand, I really like most of the characters (the sexually confused Andrew is definitely an exception) and there is a sense that the writing is witty and sharp and will be even better once a coherent tone is found. Most of the running gags the show has works: I think there is a good amount of running gags they have: The assistant principal is really really incompetent and was a prison clown before he was a principal, Happy's ethnic mumblings superimposed with proper-soundng British, Willard always having a different way to get to school, the fact that no one cares the least bit about actually teaching and we know very little of the students, etc..

First of all the title is just great, it feels like that is the way it is in school for real. It's a good concept, since there aren't very many shows about the teachers at school. I found this show to be pretty good, well at least the first episode was good. The jokes were funny and the storyline worked. I enjoyed watching and surprisingly the animation was rather good, which is hard to find good animation lately. It was a little weird that pretty much the whole Saturday Night Live cast is starring, but they play their parts well.I hope that this series lasts more than a few episodes and doesn't just go downhill like King of the Hill did after a while.

My friend told me to look up this show, told me about the cast and that's all I needed. Even if I didn't recognize the talent in the voices, I knew I had a new favorite cartoon on my list. I have mixed feelings about FOX and this show though; I don't expect the same people who watch Fox News to understand anything in this show (or anything about life for that matter) I think this show would find a better home on The Comedy Network, but unfortunately they don't pay with large sums of blood soaked money. A quick note to all the haters commenting on IMDb; just because you can't follow the jokes due to your lack of, well processing speed or, um, intellect, doesn't make this show bad.

From a visual point of view, they do a great job implementing real photographed backdrops with added details. The animation is nothing spectacular but works well with the overall look of the show. The dialogue does move fairly fast as mentioned above which requires you to give it the attention it deserves. That's the thing isn't it, what else would you expect from a show named "Sit Down, Shut Up".

I have only seen two episodes of this show, but am looking furiously for more. I had not heard of the Sit Down Shut Up before I did a little research into Mitch Hurwitz, as I am a huge fan of Arrested Development, and was terribly upset when it was canceled by those lifeless drones at the box network (Futurama joke). As you can see I am also an avid Futurama fan, which has been renewed for another season after being showed by fox at irregular and varying times and ultimately canceled as well.

Sit Down Shut Up really appealed to me because of it's intelligent humour, much like Arrested Development which made the show so great. After two episodes I already think I know the characters well, and cant wait to see how they develop throughout the season, which unfortunately has been stopped four episodes in apparently, and the other episodes will be aired later at a terrible time. I can't help but think of Futurama, but this show has had much less of a chance to prove itself. First Arrested Development and Futurama, and now this. I am pretty sure the Fox network hates me. I really hope Sit Down Shut Up is able to survive for at least another season, so Fox has more to play as reruns like Futurama and Arrested Development in Australia. They've made the mistake twice before but hopefully this Third time we will be lucky :)