SIT DOWN, SHUT UP: That Title Is Just Begging For It

Remember a couple of years ago when Aaron Sorkin, multiple Emmy winner, created Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and staffed it with Emmy winner Bradley Whitford and Emmy nominee Matthew Perry? And everyone got all excited about it, and then it wasn’t nearly as good as previous Sorkin efforts like Sports Night and The West Wing? And people were so offended by this they handed out pitchforks and torches (or, as Chi McBride would suggest, plastic forks and glowsticks) and called for a UN Commission on Studio 60 atrocities and demanded their money back for TV that they got for free? When, in retrospect, the show swung between a little annoying and sometimes okay (with the occasional terrific Christmas episode) and wasn’t actually an affront to humanity, and in the end it was probably just something a little lesser that Sorkin needed to get out of his system before going on to better projects?

Fast forward to 2012, when we’ll think back to multiple Emmy winner Mitchell Hurwitz (creator of the brilliant Arrested Development) adapting a popular Australian comedy into a new animated show about a hapless high school called Sit Down, Shut Up, partnering with multiple Emmy winner Josh Weinstein, who wrote episodes of The Simpsons like “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” and “Lisa versus Malibu Stacey”. We’ll remember them staffing it with genius Emmy nominees with AD connections like Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Henry Winkler. We’ll recall their adding the Emmy-nominated wonder that is Kristin Chenoweth. And we’ll remember coming to the conclusion that maybe Hurwitz and company just needed to get this out of their systems before they could move on to better projects. In the future, when this happens, we won’t look back on the show and say, “Eh, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t as bad as we thought it was at the time.” No, we’ll look back and remember that Sit Down, Shut Up was so bad it made us wish Fox had kept Do Not Disturb on the air instead. When we saw–and were appalled by–the pilot, we wanted to give it another week before passing judgment, just out of loyalty to the many talented people involved. But it’s…it’s really bad, full of grotesque and dirty jokes that just aren’t funny and are set to flat, unattractive animation. We love so many of the people involved with Sit Down, Shut Up so much that we’re going to resist the urge to tell them to sit down and shut up, but…we’ll catch them in their next outings, thanks.

DO NOT DISTURB: Yeah, That’s Not Gonna Be A Problem

As the new fall television schedule came into focus, there was a good deal of hand-wringing over whether the traditional sitcom is dying or just plain dead. Of the 20 new shows debuting on network TV this fall, only four are traditional half-hour comedies. Make that three–one of the characteristics of the traditional half-hour comedy is being funny, and Do Not Disturb just isn’t funny. The Baconeers have enjoyed both Carpoolers and Reno 911!, so we’d like to see Jerry O’Connell and Niecy Nash in something good. On the other hand, our abiding love for Jason Bateman means we’d rather see him in front of the camera than behind it, so the deathwatch hanging over this show might have an upside after all. Maybe all three of them can find a better vehicle, because constant references to sex are not by definition funny–you have to actually turn them into jokes. We probably won’t be knocking on this door again.

ARRESTED Cast Reunite for Hurwitz Comedy

Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz has lured several of the show’s former cast members to his new animated comedy Sit Down, Shut Up. AD alumni Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Henry Winkler will all provide voices for the Fox pilot.

Sit Down, Shut Up centers on a group of high school staffers who find themselves inconvenienced by their students and irritated by each other as they consistently place their own personal agendas and problems ahead of the educational needs of their students. Sounds like the perfect setting for Hurwitz’s scathing wit.