Mitch Hurwitz, creator of Arrested Development, is back on Fox with a new animated program called "Sit Down, Shut Up."

From the official press release:



With such a prestigious list of voice actors, including AD alumni Bateman, Arnett, and Winkler, I am really hoping that this show is a winner. The animation style for the characters reminds me of Mission Hill and Clone High, with a dash of Hey Arnold! thrown in as well.

Is anyone else excited about this show? I watched all of Freak Show just to listen to Will Arnett's sonorous voice, so I am personally pysched to see these guys back together again.

Wait, Hurwitz is behined this show? You've got to be kidding me, the trailers I've seen look awful. That could be just Fox making a crappy promo though. I'll tune in though knowing that now.

The reviews have been pretty terrible. I'm not getting my hopes up about this show.

Yeah, Hurwitz apparently created this show even before AD, but he had it on the backburner for awhile. I guess when AD was cancelled, he decided to resurrect what was originally a live-action Australian sitcom and turn it into an animated program.

While I agree that the trailers are weak, I remember hating the ones for AD (they always featured the slapstick comedy that I truly don't care for instead of the witty wordplay that I adore). Maybe it's just that Mitch Hurwitz's programs are difficult to condense into short ads? I don't know.

Even if the show sucks, I will still watch it. The voice talent is just too fantastic to pass up (Abe Lincoln from Clone High and the Bluth brothers!), and some of the jokes are pretty good. I really like the one with Will Arnett's character saying "Catchphrases are for losers" and then quickly mumbling "TM MMIX Ennis Hofftard." Ha!

By the way, there are some great features on the Wiki site for the show. If anyone here is an AD fan (as I would assume you are, Mr. BananaGrabber), the fifth video entitled "Talking Arrested" is worthwhile viewing. Man, I miss AD!

Here's a link to the official Fox wiki site:
Sit Down, Shut Up official site

Anyway, I think it has potential. If it does bomb, I will definitely pick it up on DVD when Fox decides to cancel it after airing only one episode. I'm sure the commentary would be hilarious!

I'm uneasy about this one-- the first promo clips they released didn't look good to me, and every single review I've seen has been awful.

Of course, AD was plagued by lousy promo clips from FOX that made it look like a unfunny show, and the critics aren't always right, either. (A lot of them panned the underrated Lucky Louie and they've given an undeserved bollocking to Parks & Recreation, which is starting out stronger than the US Office did in its early run of episodes.) But some of these critics are huge AD fans like Tim Goodman, who would no doubt love to be able to rave about another Hurwitz home run.

It's possible that things get better after a bumpy start-- this is his first stab at an animated show, and it might take a few episodes to find its rhythm. It's hard for me not to wish that they had just made an animated version of AD (like the original Star Trek did after it got cancelled) since it would be easy to get all the original cast to record their voices, and they'd be unconstrained to tell any kind of story they wanted.

I really hope that SDSU is better than I think it will be. It's been a long time since we had something new from Mitch, but I guess the good news is that he has so many projects in the works that we could have another show from him on the air before too long, whether this one works out or not...

In any case, I'll be watching tonight, and hoping to enjoy it, despite my doubts...

The premiere episode was just so bad I don't even think I can come up with the words to describe how bad it was. So, I'll give it my best shot. That was a steaming pile of dogshit on your brand new Persian rug that you just stepped into with your bare feet in the middle of the night.

It's crude, but this show doesn't deserve an eloquent denunciation.

See, I didn't think it was so bad. Some jokes really did make me laugh out loud -- I like Will Forte's character. It was just a little too hyperkinetic, though.

I don't mind hyperkinetic; I just didn't think anything was funny. I didn't laugh once. Mind you, I'm not a fan of the American Dad and Family Guy style of humor, but I do occasionally catch an episode and at least get amused once in a while during Family Guy.

I can't believe this show is a replacement for King of the Hill. That's not one of my favorites, either, but King of the Hill is Emmy award winning material in comparison.

Honestly, the only animated show from Fox that I love and adore is The Simpsons. I also liked Futurama. The rest of the animated series I could live without.

I definitely want the last half hour of my life back from watching this show.

I agree, Plastics. I went in hoping to at least get one laugh out of the show, but there were a number of times my husband and I were laughing pretty hard. My husband's favorite joke was the one about science being created by the Jews or whatever (he's Jewish, so he loves jokes about Judaism). I think my favorite joke was the 1993 flashback...the newspaper headline was hysterical! I also love the little jokes Mitch has hidden on signs or posters. Those always crack me up.

The only thing I was upset about is that the Legustambos chracter is really annoying, and Ennis Hofftard is a bit too much of a blowhard. Other than that, I was fairly amused. I absolutely adore Will Forte's character, and I hope Henry Winkler's character comes back again even if he was fired. My husband also enjoyed Miracle Grohe's baby, Merch, and his reactions. Those were great!

Now watch that it's canceled after tonight. D'oh!

Maybe it's because I'm not feeling very good, but I thought there was just waaay too much talking. I know that's probably an odd observation, but that's the one thing I got out of watching this show... Too much talking.

Hmm. I hate to be negative. But I really didn't like it. There were a few moments here and there, but I was really working hard to like anything in it at all.

I know that it's difficult to follow something as perfect as AD, but even comparing it to most of the other animated shows on primetime network TV, it felt like it was trying way too hard and mostly not succeeding.

Part of it is the animation. I didn't like the way the characters would often smile after making a funny remark, as if to telegraph that it was supposed to be funny. At one point, I even closed my eyes to see if the dialogue was any funnier minus the animation, and it kind of was. (Will Arnett and Henry Winkler in particular, were funnier without seeing the animation, as they were two of the cast members who were sometimes daring to be a little bit subtle in places.)

Bateman seemed to be missing all of the things that he does so well, reading the dialogue much more broadly than he would in a live-action show-- it almost sounded like the way that someone would kind of take the edge of their performance to do a voice for a children's show or something, which this obviously isn't. He had one great Bateman delivery after they lost the game (something like "I don't know why I thought they would count that") but otherwise, I wouldn't have even recognized it was him if I didn't already know. Will Forte and Cheri Oteri are normally fantastic, but none of their stuff in this episode worked for me.

God, I hate typing this. I'm gonna keep watching, and hoping that maybe it's just an awkward start. AD got better and better as it went along, but it started with a great pilot. If this was the new Seth MacFarlane show, I'd be saying "wow, this is really weak"-- but for it to be Mitch Hurwitz's follow-up to AD is kind of heartbreaking.

(If there's anyone out there sitting on a copy of his unaired pilot for The Thick Of It, please leak it NOW. I need some cheering up.)

I agree, this was pretty bad. It struck me as much more an Adult Swim kind of show -- aimed at a very narrow demographic of 18-25 year-old men.

I did enjoy Keenan as the principal, though.

Usually I like those kinds of shows - Aqua Teen, Venture Bros, etc. But I made it ten minutes through this and that was it. I thought it was utterly freaking awful. As sad as it is, I now have to watch Family Guy to cleanse myself.

I agree with that assessment. It does seem like it would fit in well with Adult Swim. At first, I was not a fan of the animation style either, but after awhile, it was not as jarring as when you first saw it. Though I do agree that it can look cheap, I can see Mitch's reasoning for grounding the show in the real world. For example, he apparently doesn't like anthropomorphized things in cartoons, so he wouldn't allow animals to talk or whatever. That makes sense to me.

I also really like that this is all about the teachers. There have never really been many shows that are about teachers without a whole lot of interaction with students, solving their problems, being a shoulder to cry on, etc. There was supposed to be one on FX that won a contest (Subs?), but that never seemed to come to fruition. This at least is focused solely on the teachers, which makes it a bit more fun and interesting to me.

Anyway, here is the one positive review I have found for the show. The reviewer definitely gives me hope since he basically says that the pilot was okay, but it gets better in the next few episodes.

Boston Herald review

First off, this has to be the worst title in the world for a tv show. Just terrible.

Second, I'm not sure what to say about it, except that it wasn't that great, but there were one or two things that I did find funny. I'll admit I laughed when I saw Will Forte's character grow breasts (he's the "Ass Principal", right?), but repeating "I need a catchprase" was so annoying. And I did like Bateman's character saying, "We need to win! This is the pilot!" at the football game.

I'm a rabid, rabid AD fan, so it kills me to say this: but I absolutely hated Will Arnet's character. Completely obnoxious and not in the good way.

The sad thing is that I'll probably watch it again, only because I'm too lazy to change the channel in between The Simpsons and Family Guy, but I hope Fox moves King of the Hill back to this time slot soon.

I thought it was pretty awesome. It doesn't quite have the subtlety of Arrested Development, but what do you expect? It's animated! I think it shows a lot of promise. It's not stale like the Simpsons, it's not schizophrenic like Family Guy, or irritating like Drawn Together...I liked it.

Honestly, the most I can say for this show is that it made me miss Arrested Development and Pushing Daisies (I'm a big Cheno fan). There were a few chuckle moments, but nothing laugh out loud. I might try to watch again, seeing as I'm going into education, but I'm not getting too invested.

I thought it would have worked as live-action (esp. with that fantastic cast!). But as animation? Feh. Not so much.

They lost me with the fat, sassy, no-nonesense acting principal who was of course a black woman. Then I just clicked on the Boston Herald review and I see that said fat, sassy, no-nonesense acting principal is being voiced by Keenan Thomas. Of course. I wanted to like it because I love AD, but I'm not watching that kind of thing anymore. It's 2009. Do better.

I'm a black woman in the South who is not thin, so I tend to really hate this stereotype too. But I do have to say that I actually thought Keenan Thompson was one of the funniest characters on the show. Maybe that's not saying much, but since I can never ever say that about him on Saturday Night Live and since I thought Keenan and Kel was total Nickelodeon crap, I sort of want this to succeed, if only so he can get some real attention. More attention than Arnett, Bateman, and Oteri, if possible.

Plus, to be fair, almsot every other character is a stereotype too. The "Crazy Christian", the angry, frigid librarian, the gay drama teacher. . . this certainly isn't groundbreaking by any means.

While this wasn't "laugh out loud" funny to me, I thought it was okay. I remember when AD first came out, I watched the pilot episode ('cuz I floooove me some Jason Bateman!) and thought it was terrible. I didn't get the humor and wasn't very impressed. Yet, I continued to watch because, again, I love me some JB. I realized that after a couple of episodes, I was laughing out loud and thinking "This show is AWESOME!". So, I think I'll give it a couple of weeks to get the groove and to get to know the characters before I decide I'm done with it.

I didn't like it, but I also didn't hate it. There are too many characters, the meta jokes are annoying, the plot was too fast-paced and complicated for this kind of show, and the great cast is wasted. Also, the animation is dull and ugly. But I laughed at some of the jokes. Will Arnett, Will Forte, and Keenan Thompson had pretty good delivery, even though the show would be a million times better live-action.

If not for the cast and creator, this would be yet another unnoticed cartoon on Adult Swim or Comedy Central. It's not good to stand on its own. I'll keep watching, in the hopes it will get better, but I'm not optimistic.

Did not like it either. Wasn't a big fan of the cartoon/real life animation also, I'm not a Forte fan... can't stand him on SNL. I'll stick it out for a couple more episodes just 'cause it's a Hurwitz project.

The only chuckle I got out was at the end of the show when I saw that this show is produced by Tantamount Studios.

I didn't like it either. Sorry Mitch Hurwitz, I guess I can't love everything you do.

So much word. I thought Arnett and Winkler, though I didn't love the characters, put in a good performance. Bateman just didn't sound like Bateman. Until that line, I had only deduced that character was Bateman by process of elimination.

I really wanted to like this, but, le sigh. I'll give it another shot or two and hope it works. And Miracle Grohe? So did not understand that character...she was a born again Christian but also a granola crunching hippie? Since when did those two mix?

I don't know--I actually loved the show. Don't know why, but I did. I didn't even recognize Jason Bateman's voice until I watched the show a second time, but I recognized everyone else's (even the disguised ones!)

As for the fat, sassy Black woman principal, I loved it--simply because the whole damn cast is full of stereotypes. Of course the drama teacher's gay (or bisexual)! And the steroid subplot? Hi-larious! I'll be watching until FUX cancels it (which probably won't be long--remember Free Ride, anyone?)

Fox Apologizes for Cancelling Arrested Development

A two-minute promo from FOX essentially saying that SDSU is the second coming of AD-- Bateman even going so far as to say that if you loved AD, "it's back on the air" only this time it's drawn.

Oh man. Way to set the bar so high that even a really terrific show might have had a rough time living up to expectations.

I wandered over to PIfeedback to find out the ratings.

Middleman, I actually loved this promo, and it made me very excited about the show itself. Like I said before, if this is on the air, I will definitely watch it, but I don't think it is going to last too long per an article about the ratings.

Poor ratings, of course

That poor of a rating with such a great opener (even though, IMHO, The Simpsons is not at all what it used to be and is the show in name only) spells certain doom. My guess is that they air the remaining episodes on a dead night (maybe Friday or Saturday?). Oh, if only there were an Olympics opening ceremony coming up; that would be perfect.

If you're out there, Mitch, I liked it! Bring on the DVDs with exclusive, never-before-seen episodes!

Yikes.

I can't believe how much I hated that! Wow. And I ADORED A.D.

Was that supposed to be funny or was it just supposed to be a trainwreck? I can't tell what their main goal was, as I lost interest about 4 minutes into the show. Having Keenan voice a main character isn't going to help, as he bugs me on SNL already. If they needed to find something new to fill an open spot on FOX's schedule, they should have just resurrected Futurama for good.

I'm in total agreement with this and it's also exactly what I thought after I hulu'ed the pilot of this show and followed it with the latest Koth epi.

I'll give it another chance, but it will have to improve a whole lot between this pilot and the next episode before I decide to not waste my time on it.

I lasted five minutes before I was out of there. The introduction of the characters, complete with a catchphrase, is what did me in. They are trying WAY too hard.

And to think, Futurama was canceled years ago so shitty shows like this could have a chance. *Sigh*

I actually kind of liked it. I mean it's nowhere near even the level of the worst Arrested Development episode, but I think expectations were (justly) set a little too high. I actually think the show would work better as some sort of weird-ass kids show, like a slightly edgier Saturday morning cartoon fare, rather than an Adult Swim show because the jokes that worked for me were the sillier, goofier stuff that weren't really "adult" at all.

This show has potential I think...there were some clever little jokes buried in there that made me think of AD a little bit. I am going to give it a chance just because I need to fill the void between 830 and 9 with something with no sustinence whatsoever and this will do for now. Also pilots are kind of tricky sometimes because you have to come up with a half hour that introduces your concept and characters and provide a story.

Also I this is the first time I have laughed at Keenan Thompson since his Bill Cosby impression.

I actually feel the need to second the notion that has been mentioned a few times already-- FOX should bring back Futurama for the post-Simpsons time slot.

The quality of the straight-to-DVD movies has been strong, and that show never really got to be the second half of a "Matt Groening Hour" where it belonged, and would be sure to hold on to the lion's share of its lead-in.

One of the things that I always resented about AD's cancellation was that they were replacing it with shows that were obviously going to be even LESS successful than AD was-- short-lived crap like Stacked that actually got lower ratings PLUS bad reviews and no future on DVD, where AD still rakes in big bucks. (Or on Hulu, where it remains one of the top shows.)

Likewise, if SDSU doesn't improve in quality, FOX should do the right thing and give this time slot to a show like Futurama (or KOTH) that would actually be a solid performer and draw in viewers....

I don't think that SDSU will ever have a chance, given its pedigree. Come on, most of us were/are diehard Arrested Development fans and hearing that most of the cast will be back in any form'll cause us to watch for at least five minutes. That being said, trying to capture AD's lightning in a bottle is like trying to re-create the Three Stooges for a 00's audience. You can't re-create seasoned vaudeville comedians, and you can't re-create a TV show that was so far above (and ahead) of the competition that any mention of "It'll be JUST like Arrested Development!" will cause fans to leave in droves.

As for bringing back Futurama...I'm of two minds on that. With a show like Family Guy, bringing it back didn't make a difference to me because of it's nature (plot, flashback, Conway Twitty, resolution of plot, maybe another song), but Futurama? It's so good that I kind of don't want it to come back, as silly as that sounds. I'd rather remember it as it was (great!) than to have it come back and bitch and wail about how it should've stayed (almost) cancelled. (Direct-to-DVD movies not withstanding.)

I totally agree with everything you said. I am not a Keenan fan although I have nothing against him. But he had some of the best deliveries in this show. I liked his impassioned speech about how she would never have fired anyone only to fire the German teacher when they opened the box. It was predictable but he made her sound so sad to have to do that to such a pathetic specimen. I also loved "Well, I can't fire anyone who loves Salmon Rushdie"

I don't like how meta it is without earning the right to be so. AD could mock its own format because they had created that world and it was so real to the viewer. "I am not going to test well" and such just felt too clever. And not very funny.

But yeah. this was mostly pure crap. Maybe it will get better. Like everyone else I love Mitch Hurtwitz. But the whole thing felt like he has a contract with Fox and he isn't trying very hard waiting for it to be over. Like he thinks "If I make anything good it will get canceled so why not just make crap?" Or... maybe I am reading too much into it. Some of the jokes were such a parody of AD too. Like the hoping for/asking for the flashback.

I loved JB's line reading of "I don't know why i thought they would count that" of course. but it just made me sad.

I watched the pilot last night. I think I laughed maybe twice. This show almost makes me embarrassed to admit I'm an Arrested Development fan. Almost.

I kind of half-heartedly watched tonight's episode. It didn't do anything for me. I don't think I'm going to try watching another episode. I just didn't enjoy it. I think I laughed once. That was better than the pilot, where I didn't laugh at all. For the life of me, I can't remember where I laughed.

To be honest, I never really cared for Arrested Development. My brother loved it, and I just could never get interested in the series.

I keep trying to make up excuses to like this show, but it's getting very hard. I thought there were some improvements (in that there was really only one story going on, instead of lots and lots of random plots), but the last act was pretty flat. I'm probably going to force myself to watch again, because I was an AD devotee, but...I wish I didn't have to force myself. It's just not that great.

I dislike this show quite a bit. I never got into AD, but I saw a few epis and thought it was great. This, however, should not be replacing King of the Hill.

I thought the second episode was *slightly* better than the first. But I can see this being an 6-episode series that I watch all the episodes out of respect to the AD component and never think of it again.

I am HOPING that the good that comes out of this is that Jason Bateman and Will Arnett use this time to get their timing pitch perfect again so if that AD movie really does get made they can jump into their roles with all the neuroses that I am counting on.

Compared to last week's episode, this one started off much better. I thought one or two of the jokes were vaguely funny (I got a chuckle out of everyone using the drama teacher as a hand dryer)—and then I lost interest after the first act. I listened to the rest of it from the kitchen, but I just didn't care, and when cutting a pineapple is more interesting than watching a tv show, well...I think it speaks volumes.

Seriously, I'm all for Fox bringing back King of the Hill in its original time slot.

That's a pretty damning statement when King of the Hill runs circles around whateverthehellthenameothisshowis.

I had to scroll to the top of the page to refresh my memory of the name. Meh. It's not worth the effort to edit it in.

Sigh. I want so badly to like this show. AD was absolute genius. And like a couple other people said, expectation WERE set pretty high...but there was a reason for that. We've seen what this team can do. And this isn't even coming close to comparing, IMO. There were honestly parts I was cringing at this past week....and not a good, 'Oh-God-what-is-Gob-doing-now' sort of cringe. Just a, 'this-is-painful-you-guys-are-better-than-this' sort of thing.

I didn't really like it either - the only thing I can say about it is it's neither here nor there.

Speaking of neither here nor there, Fox is already seeming to give up on it:

Fox reschedules "Sit Down, Shut Up"

I like the show--maybe it's because it (somehow) reminds me of Mission Hill, why, I don't know.

I find it better than most of the shows that FUX puts on during this time of the year (okay, they've only had one strikeout for me...Unhitched. The others, Free Ride, The Winner, and now SDSU have worked for me).

That doesn't mean that I'll be surprised when it's cancelled, though. There's only so many times lightening can be caught in a bottle, and it was caught with AD. It's not going to be caught with this show, simply because people have had such high expetations for it. Admit it, we all have, and there's no way that this show's going to live up to the greatness that was Arrested Development.

Two eps in, and there have been at most a couple laugh-worthy moments. Once past the initial ep's character intros, I just really haven't found much reason to care. Ah well, looks like they're putting KotH back in that slot for the rest of the season, and in a few weeks, that half hour can be our kid's bathtime or something.

It's too bad SDSU lost its time slot, but it was definitely inevitable. When KOTH reruns are able to get better ratings than a brand-new episode of Mitch's show, you know which one will win out.

I just hope that they at least air the rest of the four episodes that they have already made. After reflecting on Sunday's episode, I thought it was better than the pilot, but still somewhat weak. For me, the worst parts have to be the bisexual guy (Nick Kroll could do so much better) and the librarian (ditto Cheri Oteri). I just find myself cringing at everything they say, and if I recorded the episode, I would probably skip through those parts.

However, I really enjoy Bateman's character, Larry Littlejunk. He really does remind me of Michael. And I absolutely adore Will Forte's character, especially his making out with Miracle and his prison clown song (and I HATE clowns, so it's really hard to make me laugh at them and not hide in terror).

Also, Will Arnett's character was toned down a bit, which I liked a lot better, and his obsession with the raffle ball was pretty funny. Really, this show reminds me of the third season of AD: full of shock-value gags that sometimes work great (Analrapist), and sometimes fail miserably (Tobias being in a wheelchair and constantly falling down in Prison Break-in). For me, Mitch's strength has always been his love of wordplay, and that was in full effect in the second episode. The Fair Fair, Miracle's vs. Miracles, etc. were very cute and got me giggling.

I'll keep watching.