Rough Draft Enrolled in Sit Down, Shut Up!

Indie animation house Rough Draft Studios will be producing animation for the upcoming animated FOX series Sit Down, Shut Up! The network has ordered 13 half-hour episodes of the irreverent comedy from Arrested Development creator, Mitch Hurwitz and Sony Pictures Television. Hurwitz is writing the toon adaptation and is also exec producing along with Bill Oakley, Josh Weinstein and Eric and Kim Tannenbaum. The show is slated to debut sometime in 2009.

Based on a live-action Australian sit-com of the same name, Sit Down, Shut Up! focuses on the lives of eight self-centered staff members at a high school in a small northeastern fishing town. The voice cast will include Arrested Development alumni Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Henry Winkler. Current Saturday Night Live cast members Kenan Thompson and Will Forte will lend voice to the school’s principal and vice principal, respectively, and other voices will be provided by comedians Cheri Oteri, Tom Kenny, Nick Kroll and Maria Bamford.

Rough Draft has revealed that the show will feature a distinctive blend of 2D animation and live-action backgrounds. Production will be based in the toon shop’s Glendale, Calif. facility. The studio previously collaborated with Oakley and Weinstein on the animated series Futurama, and is currently in production on 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment’s series of direct-to-DVD Futurama features. The first installment, Bender’s Big Score, was released in November of 2007 and earned Rough Draft an Annie Award for Best Home Entertainment Production. The second feature, The Beast With A Billion Backs, was released in June of this year, and will be followed by Bender’s Game on Nov. 4.

Founded in a garage in Van Nuys, Calif. in 1991, Rough Draft Studios specializes in traditional, character-driven animation blending hand-drawn 2D and computer animation. The Glendale studio houses a staff of directors and artists in its 30,000 sq. ft. production facility, where the company has produced more than 140 half-hours of primetime animation, earning it multiple Emmy, Annie, Hugo, Reuben and Annecy Awards in the process. For more information go to www.roughdraftstudios.com.