Fox television’s once formidable Sunday cartoon line-up has been showing the wear of its age for some time now. “The Simpsons,” by pretty much all accounts, hasn’t been good for a decade or more. “Family Guy” has been rehashing the same jokes and stretching its premise dangerously thin for years. The derivative “American Dad” is just a poor substitute for “Family Guy” with a more honest attempt at cohesive story telling. “King of the Hill” is done after next season. This once powerful dynasty of animated entertainment is ready to collapse.
In an attempt to salvage this once mighty block of shows, tonight, Fox will premiere the brand new animated series “Sit Down, Shut Up.” Simply put, the show is fresh, exciting and exhibits an intelligent and quirky sense of humor. This show just may be able to save Fox’s abysmal outlook for future Sunday nights.
“Sit Down, Shut Up” details the lives of nine teachers and administrators working at the high school in Knob Haven, a small Florida fishing town. For the most part, the staff members are weird, aggressive, narcissistic, incompetent and downright malevolent. The one exception, though he’s also not perfect, is the P.E. teacher Larry Littlejunk (Jason Bateman, “Arrested Development”). Striving to be the voice of reason and moderation, Littlejunk serves as the semi-hero amongst a den of villains, thieves and morons while pursuing his love interest, the completely inept science teacher Miracle Grohe (Kristin Chenoweth from the Broadway hit “Wicked”).
The rest of the faculty is comprised of outlandish personalities, voiced by some very familiar and competent names. Ennis Hofftard (Will Arnett, “Arrested Development”) is the arrogant womanizing English teacher. Willard Deutschebog (Henry Winkler, “Arrested Development,” otherwise known as The Fonz to the older crowd) is the bizarre parasitic like-German teacher. Stuart Poszakian (Will Forte “Saturday Night Live”) is the completely moronic and useless assistant Principal. Helen Klench (Sheri Oteri, “SNL” alum) is the scrappy and sexually desperate librarian. Principal Sue Sezno (Kenan Thompson, “SNL”) is mean spirited and manipulative. Rounding out the staff are the bi-sexual and completely ridiculous drama teacher Andrew LeGustambos (Nick Kroll, one of the cavemen from “Cavemen”) and the disgruntled custodian Muhannad Sabeeh “Happy” Fa-ach Nuabar (Tom Kenny, “SpongeBob SquarePants”).
Written by “Arrested Development” creator Mitchell Hurwitz, and Eric and Kim Tannenbaum from “Two and a Half Men,” the show exhibits the same sort of oddball awkward and sometimes edgy humor inherent of “Arrested Development.” Each of the characters has a very clearly defined and hilarious personality, and like the Bluths, you can simultaneously hate them, laugh at them and yet hope that things turn out okay in the end.
The show also scores points for being self-referential, with characters referring to their own catch phrases and flashbacks like “Family Guy” while still being able to support integrated and interesting storylines.
The animated style is fresh as well, with the interesting art design of the animated characters being placed over real life photography.
Basically, if you’re a fan of animated comedies, or especially if you were a fan of “Arrested Development,” “Sit Down, Shut Up,” is definitely worth checking out. Even if you’re not usually a fan of animated series, if you’ve been craving some fairly intelligent and original content from your TV, then it may be worth your time to watch the pilot tonight. The show may prove too unique for its own good, like “Arrested Development,” but if given the chance, could breathe new life into a decaying franchise, Fox Sunday nights.
**”Sit Down, Shut Up” premieres tonight at 7:30-8:00 PM on Fox.
