RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media 'Sit Down, Shut Up'

'Sit Down, Shut Up' debuts Sunday on Fox

• We pay close attention to “Sit Down, Shut Up,” an occasionally quite funny but largely anodyne animated comedy beginning Sunday on Fox, because it comes from the pen of Mitchell Hurwitz, creator of “Arrested Development” — a show that must be considered among the greatest television comedies of all time or at least among the best shows of the new millennium or at least really awesome.
  
  [However, in] addition to Mr. Hurwitz the two other chief writers on “Sit Down, Shut Up” are alumni of “Two and a Half Men”....
  
  The show is set within the ranks of the supremely lame faculty of a small-town Florida high school, losing funds because of its poor performance on No Child Left Behind. At Knob Haven High every child is left behind, presumably because everyone on staff is bored and horny. The drama teacher is a sex-crazed bisexual; the German teacher is a porn addict (he calls his magazines “filthies” and wonders when he is spotted by students buying them, “Why didn’t I sign up for the Internet when I had the chance?”); the English teacher is a jock womanizer who speaks in intentionally idiotic double-entendres. A sign in the hallway reads: “Don’t Tempt a Teacher. It Could Cost Them Their Job.” The unlikable and not sexy librarian does Kegel exercises and talks about them.
  
  Various male teachers are hot for Miracle Grohe, the one character in whom the show’s entire effort at commentary is compacted. Kristen Chenoweth provides her fantastically ditzy voice as if she were imagining herself doing Sarah Palin impersonating Marilyn Monroe. Miracle is the science teacher as creationist. When she wants to make the point that human beings didn’t descend from monkeys, she takes her clothes off. She is also obsessed with everything New Age, picking what she believes are spiritual flowers for her colleagues during spring break that turn out to be hemlock. When cuts have to be made to the budget, Miracle, a reactionary wing nut in every respect, suggests: “Science class should be the first to go. Everyone knows it’s a bunch of voodoo the Jews came up with so they could charge us for medicine and stuff.”
  
  “Sit Down, Shut Up” is not like “Freaks and Geeks,” examining the ecology of high school life. It is about the monotony and petty rewards of low-end public service work; the students are virtually nonexistent. The show is part of Fox’s Sunday night animation lineup, where “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy” do an entirely more imaginative, irrepressible job of ferreting out the drudgeries and provincialism of middle-class life.

So it's an animated sitcom from, on one hand, the creator of "Arrested Development" and, on the other the writers of "Two and a Half Men." Sounds like a crap shoot at best.

It's worse than a crap shoot. At least you can flush crap down the toilet. The plot I guess is that someone's getting fired, but the lines have no direction or meaning, and for some reason the same useless lines are repeated and referenced throughout the show. At least for the ten minutes I sat through before I turned it off.

It's shows like this that make me regret ever picking up a TV remote control. Everyone that did this show should sit down and shut up forever.

This was a wasted half-hour of my life and I'll never get it back.I can only hope this is the one and only episode to air.I didn't get it,I didn't laugh at it and I certainly won't watch it again.It actually made me miss Fish Police.

You know you're watching a bad show when the most "entertaining" aspect is Keenan Thompson's voice work.

Seriously, I would DVR and watch an entire season of "Two and Half Men" before I'd watch that again.

I only watched two minutes before deciding it very much sucked.


Zoey,what's your problem with "Two and Half Men"? You intimidated by Sheen?

Nah. Actually, I find Sheen a decent comedic actor. In fact his acting (and some of the hot chicks his character brings home) are the only good things in that show which is, otherwise, a shallow rip off of "the Odd Couple," with an annoying kid actor thrown in to avoid getting sued by Neil Simon.