FOX Close to Bringing Sit Down Shut Up To Life

[Brian Damage]

It's another foreign format adaptation for Fox as the network has ordered a table read of "Sit Down, Shut Up," an animated comedy from Emmy winner Mitch Hurwitz based on the live-action Australian series of the same name.

If the table read goes well, the project will be ordered straight to series, bypassing the monthslong, expensive process of producing a presentation.

"Sit Down" focuses on the lives of seven staff members at a high school in a small northeastern fishing town who are preoccupied with their own needs and agendas, which means the students always come second.


It marks the first pilot order for Tantamount, the Sony-based company launched last year by Hurwitz and Eric and Kim Tannenbaum. Sony is co-producing the pilot with Granada USA, which owns the rights to the format.

"Sit Down" follows the same development route Fox recently took with "The Pitts."

An animated version of the 2003 short-lived live-action Fox comedy was given the green light in October to cast and do a table read in lieu of a pilot presentation.

The project was cast and had its table read Monday.

Casting is now under way on "Sit Down," whose source material also was a short-lived live-action comedy. Brendan Reed and Tim McLoughlan created the sitcom, which ran on Australia's Channel Ten in 2001.