Sit Down, Shut Up

Characters

Ennis Hofftard (voiced by Will Arnett) is a cyclist who teaches English and chases women. His catchphrase is "Catchphrases are for losers!" He is inept at thinking his plans through, usually causing even more trouble, and he seldom thinks about anything unless it has something to do with a woman or the promise of avoiding work. Ennis has a sexual interest in Miracle, as shown by his interest in seeing her breasts. He is shown to be very talented when it comes to getting women, even being a dating teacher before becoming an English teacher. He has also exhibited on several occasions the internal thought processes of a house cat which he refers to as his "comfort kitty" (a foul-tongued live-action cat) because he is cowardly. He was influenced by a feeling of failure to live up to his military dad but he later learns that his father was also a cowardly figure who has a comfort kitty of his own.

Larry Littlejunk (voiced by Jason Bateman) is the gym teacher, and the only staff member who can teach; he can be seen as the protagonist for these reasons. He refers to himself as "Larry L." because he is embarrassed by his last name, and his catchphrase is "Why can't someone else teach P.E.?" He is apparently the only qualified teacher, but he lost the science/computer teacher position to Miracle Grohe because of her "nude" presentation (which, for censorship reasons, was never shown). He is hopelessly in love with Miracle, but at the same time can't stand how airheaded she is, so he insults her instead of telling her how he feels. He has been shown dating other women, but still goes into dazed states when around Miracle. In an early promo for the series, the character was named Larry Slimp.

Miracle Grohe (voiced by Kristin Chenoweth) is a spiritual hippie barefoot science teacher who often brings her infant son Merch (who has been shown to be smarter than his mother) to school as she believes that babies should always be with their mothers. Her catchphrase is "Babies are gifts from God! Drummers are creeps!" Though she is a science teacher, she believes in things a science teacher wouldn't (Mother Earth, mysticism, fortunes, etc.). She is also very gullible, for example taking the statement "you're too pretty to be in school" as a compliment. It is implied throughout the show that she also likes Larry, but gets angered whenever he doubts her spirituality. Her mother, seen in a flashback, had her as a teenager. She also runs an underground Pillow Fight Club (a parody of Fight Club) that appears to be worldwide. Comedian Maria Bamford was originally cast as Miracle Grohe but was later replaced by Chenoweth. The executives still allowed Bamford to do some "side voices" on the show.

Production

Creation and writing

Mitchell Hurwitz, creator of Arrested Development, came up with the Sit Down, Shut Up idea after watching the original Australian version created by Brendan Reed and Tim McLoughlan. He noted its similarities to the British version of The Office. He wrote a script in 2000, but "kept it in the drawer for a long time". Originally, he had planned the series to be live-action like its Australian counterpart. He pitched the show to multiple US networks, but most of them thought the characters were "too broad and way too self-centered and oblivious". He changed the mode to animation to "avoid some work". Originally titled Class Dismissed, the series was picked up by Fox in May 2008. Sit Down, Shut Up was produced by Tantamount Studios and Granada International Media in association with Sony Pictures Television and 20th Century Fox Television.

Hurwitz wrote the first script and decided to take a more "supervisory role". Josh Weinstein, a former writer for The Simpsons, was the showrunner, and Bill Oakley, another Simpsons writer, was originally on board, but ended his involvement with the show due to a contract dispute between the staff and Sony. Sony refused to offer a contract which operated under the complete terms of the Writers Guild of America. Eventually a compromise was reached, and production resumed in June 2008. Writers for the show include Josh Weinstein, Rich Rinaldi, Aisha Muharrar, Alex Herschlag, Laura Gutin, Dan Fybel, Aaron Ehasz, Michael Colton, and John Aboud.

Animation

The show uses Eagle Rock High School as backgrounds for the animated characters. Hurwitz said that he "wanted to set the show in the real world, and the writing staff is made up of people that come from live action and from animation, so it expresses that mix well". He called it "just an aesthetic thing"; he saw Mo Willems' book Knuffle Bunny in a bookstore, and then contacted Willems. Willems designed the characters and they "started to do this technique". The images used for the school were taken at a school next door to the Rough Draft Studios, the series' animation studio. Hurwitz chose Rough Draft Studios as the series' animation studio because Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein had a "great experience" with the studio when working on Futurama.

In March 2009, creator Hurwitz and the cast were present at WonderCon to promote the show. Hurwitz told the audience that they had just received "the first pieces of the show back" from the animation studio in South Korea, and showed the first clip of the show for the audience.

Casting

The cast includes former Arrested Development stars Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Henry Winkler as Larry Littlejunk, Ennis Hofftard and Willard Deutschebog, respectively. Arnett noted that Ennis is one of the "dumber" characters he has played. Kristin Chenoweth is the voice of science teacher Miracle Grohe, a barefoot spiritual hippie. Comedian Maria Bamford was originally cast as Miracle, but was later replaced by Chenoweth. The executives still allowed Bamford to do some "side voices" on the show. Will Forte voices Stuart Proszakian, the assistant principal. In late April 2008, Variety reported that Regina King would have an unspecified role. She was replaced by Kenan Thompson, who took over the role as acting principal Sue Sezno. Thompson thinks he was the last cast member picked, and said that "they had another lady doing the voice" before he was hired. Cheri Oteri was picked as the voice of Helen Klench, a "totally unresourceful" librarian, and Nick Kroll was picked as the voice of Andrew LeGustambos, the drama teacher whose surname translates "he likes both", referring to his bisexuality. According to Kroll, Andrew is, alongside Helen, a loser amongst losers. Kroll voices him to talk like a "modern day Snagglepuss". Tom Kenny voices Muhammad Sabeeh "Happy" Fa-ach Nuabar, the secretive custodian that speaks only in Arabic, which is overdubbed by an English translation. In later episodes, however, he speaks fractured English and no longer has a translator. Singer Alanis Morissette guest starred as herself in the episode "Helen and Sue's High School Reunion".

Reception

Critical response

Sit Down, Shut Up has received mixed reviews and currently has a 24% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 42/100 rating on Metacritic. One of the positive reviews has come from the Chicago Sun-Times, who said that the cast ensemble was tough to beat and had much potential, but they also said "This embarrassment of riches isn't necessarily an embarrassment, but it's not the slam dunk it should be, either." Variety says "Despite a pedigree that includes Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz and many of that program’s stars, Sit Down seldom rises above sniggering double entendre. Seemingly preoccupied with impressing teenage boys, the show, based on the Australian series created by Brendan Reed and Tim McLoughlin, should possess scant appeal outside that demo". One of the most negative reviews came from Glenn Garvin of The Miami Herald who said "Hurwitz is only the first of many talents wasted to the point of criminality in this animated adaptation of a flopped Australian sitcom." and "Staleness, however, ranks as a virtue in Sit Down, Shut Up, for the show's token stabs at topicality are truly appalling."

Genevieve Koski of The A.V. Club gave the pilot episode a positive review and graded it a B. She said she was "staying optimistic that the characters are going to get fleshed out in upcoming episodes, because this is obviously going to be a character-based ensemble comedy. The plot of the pilot [...] was basically just a vehicle to introduce the various eccentricities of the staff as they all tried to show Principal Sezno they weren't expendable. It was also a platform for the Arrested Development-like meta humor that's apparently going to pervade the show". Jonah Krakow of IGN was more positive about the episode, noting the "familiar aspects" of "deft wordplay, biting sarcasm and inappropriate humor" from Arrested Development. He concluded, saying: "As long as the talented cast can continue to play to their strengths and the scripts can humorously tackle dicey subject matter, this should continue to be a very entertaining show." Kona Gallaghar of TV Squad watched the episode twice and was more impressed the second time. She said that "the show definitely grows on you". However, after watching the second episode, she stated: "The main problem I have right now with Sit Down, Shut Up, is that even that simple plot-point is too deep for it. Maybe I'm expecting too much from an animated series, but is it wrong to want the characters to feel at least as real as their backgrounds?".

Cancellation

After two episodes had aired, the series' original 8:30 timeslot was moved to 7:00 due to low ratings. After the fourth episode aired, the fifth and final episode of what was to be the initial run of Sit Down, Shut Up, was pulled from the Sunday Animation Domination lineup due to what was speculated as continued low ratings. The remaining 9 episodes began airing on September 12, 2009, on Saturday nights at midnight (following the cancellation of Mad TV) on a loop until April 2010, when repeats of Brothers took over the time slot.

Syndication

Comedy Central began airing Sit Down, Shut Up at 10:00 p.m. starting on May 4, 2010. For the next four weeks, new episodes aired in that time on Tuesdays with repeats several times throughout the night. However, in June of that same year, the show was moved to the late-night timeslots and aired only once. On July 28, 2010, Comedy Central stopped airing Sit Down, Shut Up after airing the episode "Hurricane Willard." Of the thirteen episodes that reran on Comedy Central, the pilot episode and "High School Confidential" were the only episodes that never aired. Adult Swim picked up the series in November 2014, and it ran its entirety before being removed from its schedule on February 15, 2015. Sit Down, Shut Up has aired on Canada's Much channel (formerly MuchMusic) beginning in April 2014, after previously being shown on Comedy (formerly known as The Comedy Network) in 2013, until the network removed the show from their lineup two months later.

Sit Down, Shut Up! was formerly available on the streaming service Tubi.