Sit Down, Shut Up - New Show for Fall '08
From Emmy Award-winning writer Mitchell Hurwitz ("Arrested Development") and Eric and Kim Tannenbaum ("Two and a Half Men") comes SIT DOWN, SHUT UP, an animated comedy that focuses on the lives of eight staff members at a high school in a small northeastern fishing town (Go Baiters!) who never lose sight of the fact that the children must ALWAYS come second. We watch them grapple with their own egos, needs and personal agendas, their petty insecurities and prejudices, unrequited loves, and ruthless battles for power - and that's just at the staff meeting.
SUE SEZNO (Kenan Thompson, "Saturday Night Live"), a woman who frequently says "no," is the acting principal of the school (the actual principal is recovering from a series of unfortunate accidents that might be seen as escape attempts). Then there's Vice Principal STUART PROZACKIAN (Will Forte, "Saturday Night Live") who has a terrifically positive and upbeat attitude...possibly from the performance-enhancing medication he's been secretly put on by the other teachers.
There is one educator who feels the focus should be on academics, but despite the old adage, at this school, those who can teach, teach gym - and that's where LARRY SLIMP (Jason Bateman, "Juno," "Arrested Development") has been exiled to. Immensely frustrated, Larry nurses a crush on science teacher MIRACLE GROHE (Maria Bamford, "Stuart Little 2"), a woman whose superficial grasp on science is balanced by her superficial grasp on spirituality.
Rounding out the staff is the aging German teacher WILLARD DEUTSCHEBOG (Henry Winkler, "Arrested Development," "Happy Days"), a deeply defeated man whose yearbook quotation reads "If I believed in reincarnation, I'd kill myself tonight." Uptight HELEN KLENCH (Cheri Oteri, "Saturday Night Live"), a librarian whose life's work in research and archiving can now be surpassed by the average Google search from the average cell phone. Proud ANDREW SAPIEN (Nick Kroll, "Best Week Ever," "Cavemen") is the flamboyant drama teacher. And finally there's HAPPY (Tom Kenny, "SpongeBob SquarePants"), the plotting secretive custodian who's assumed to be Hispanic despite the fact that his real name is Muhannad Sabeeh Fa'ach Nuaba.
With a distinctive new look - a combination of animation against a live-action backdrop - SIT DOWN, SHUT UP is a series for the young and old at heart. It lampoons modern society while exposing the dreams, flaws and struggling humanity of our first and most formative authority figures: teachers.
Based on the hit live-action Australian series, SIT DOWN, SHUT UP is written and executive-produced by Mitchell Hurwitz and executive-produced by Eric and Kim Tannenbaum and Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein (THE SIMPSONS, "Futurama").
