The Cleveland Show
The Cleveland Show is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane, Richard Appel, and Mike Henry for the Fox Broadcasting Company. A spin-off of Family Guy, and the second television series in the franchise, the series centers on Cleveland Brown, his new wife Donna Tubbs-Brown, and their children Cleveland Brown Jr., Roberta Tubbs, and Rallo Tubbs. Similar to Family Guy, it exhibited much of its humor in the form of cutaway gags that often lampoon American culture, though it used this form significantly less than Family Guy. The animation was produced by Fox Television Animation.
The Cleveland Show
- Mike Henry
- Sanaa Lathan
- Kevin Michael Richardson
- Reagan Gomez-Preston
- Jason Sudeikis
- Seth MacFarlane
"The Cleveland Show" (performed by Mike Henry)
Walter Murphy
United States
English
4
88 (list of episodes)
- Seth MacFarlane
- Richard Appel
- Mike Henry
- Kara Vallow
- Courtney Lilly (season 3)
- Daniel Dratch (season 4)
- Kirk Benson
- Dennis McElroy (season 4)
21–22 minutes
- Persons Unknown Productions
- Happy Jack Productions
- Fuzzy Door Productions
- 20th Century Fox Television
September 27, 2009 –
May 19, 2013
The series was conceived by MacFarlane in 2007 after developing Family Guy and American Dad! for the Fox network. MacFarlane centered the show on Family Guy character Cleveland Brown and created new characters for Cleveland's family members. One preexisting character, Cleveland's son Cleveland Jr. (Junior), was redesigned as an obese, soft-spoken teen, as opposed to his depiction as a younger, hyperactive child with average body weight on Family Guy.
The series premiered on September 27, 2009, and ended on May 19, 2013, with a total of 88 episodes over the course of 4 seasons. The Cleveland Show was nominated for one Annie Award, one Primetime Emmy Award, and two Teen Choice Awards, but received mixed reviews from media critics. Fox cancelled the series after 4 seasons.[1] Nearly a year after the series' cancelation, Cleveland returned to Family Guy, accompanied by the rest of the Brown-Tubbs family, in the season 12 episode "He's Bla-ack!".
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
Seth MacFarlane initially conceived The Cleveland Show in 2007 while working on his other two animated series, Family Guy and American Dad!.[2][3]
Release[edit]
Syndication[edit]
In July 2010, the Turner Broadcasting System picked up syndication rights, for their networks TBS and later, Adult Swim.[23] The series first aired on Adult Swim in the United States on September 29, 2012. On July 14, 2018, Viacom later picked up the rights to the series and the series left Adult Swim and TBS on September 9, 2018. The series began airing on Comedy Central in the United States on October 8, 2018, until April 29, 2022, along with BET and VH1.[24][25]
The series began airing on FXX on September 20, 2021.[26]
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
The Cleveland Show initially received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 44% approval rating for the first season, with an average rating of 5.10/10 and based on 18 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "The Cleveland Show is simply not interesting enough to capture the same comedic lightning of Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy."[40] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, gave the season a score of 57 out of 100 based on 18 critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews."[41]
Ahsan Haque of IGN gave the pilot episode a grade of 8.3 out of 10, praised the opening theme and the humor of the show, and said, "While it seems to be missing some of the over-the-top offensive bite we're used to on Family Guy, and Cleveland's new drinking buddies aren't quite as amusing as the Quagmire, Joe and Peter combination - there's a lot to like here. It might take a while for the show to grow out of its Family Guy shadow, but with a greater focus on wacky family focused stories, we might get to see much personality burst out of the normally sedate Cleveland."[42] Jonathan Storm of The Philadelphia Inquirer found The Cleveland Show to be "a little warmer and sillier" than Family Guy.[43] Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette stated that although The Cleveland Show is "just as rude-crude" as Family Guy, it also had "more warmth" due to Cleveland being a more likable character than Peter Griffin. Owen also praised the character of Tim the Bear, stating that "Tim is by far the most amusing creation."[44]
Tom Shales of The Washington Post spoke very negatively about both the show and MacFarlane himself, describing him as "no better than the dirty old man hanging around playgrounds with naughty pictures or risque jokes as lures".[45] Roberto Bianco of USA Today wrote a similarly negative review, suggesting that the easiest fix for its problem was "cancellation".[46] John McWhorter of The New Republic called it "a patronizing mess" and "basically Family Guy in blackface". He added: "What isn't black in it is so shamelessly ripped off from Family Guy that it's hard to believe it's the product of creators who are usually so studiously 'post-' obvious stunts of the sort."[47] Matt Rouse of TV Guide wrote, "The lamest, most unnecessary spin-off since Private Practice, Cleveland rests on the shoulders of the hopelessly bland title character."[48]
In other media[edit]
The Cleveland Show characters have appeared on other animated sitcoms and vice versa. The Cleveland Show crossovers have all involved two other animated programs. Both the other two animated programs were also created by Seth MacFarlane—Family Guy and American Dad!. There are also many brief cameos of characters from three other Fox animated shows, The Simpsons, Futurama, and King of the Hill.