The Cleveland Show is an American animated series that premiered on September 27, 2009 as a part of the "Animation Domination" lineup on Fox. The series was created by Seth MacFarlane, Mike Henry, and Richard Appel as a spin-off from Family Guy, which was also created by MacFarlane.

Background

In the beginning of the series, Cleveland Brown and his son, Cleveland Jr., move from Quahog, Rhode Island to the fictional town of Stoolbend, Virginia.

In the closing scene of the season seven Family Guy episode "Baby Not on Board", Cleveland breaks the fourth wall by mentioning to Quagmire that he is getting a spin-off.

The theme song originally contained a line referring to Cleveland's "happy black-guy face," but this was replaced with "happy mustached face" to make the song more racially sensitive.

Characters

Family

Cleveland's newly introduced family includes his new wife in her late thirties, Donna Tubbs (Sanaa Lathan); Donna's teenage daughter, Roberta Tubbs (originally Nia Long, but now portrayed by Reagan Gomez-Preston) and Donna's five year-old son, Rallo Tubbs (Mike Henry). Cleveland Jr., who also appears in the show, is now fourteen and is more obese than in his previous appearances on Family Guy, and is now voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson.

Neighbors

Cleveland's neighbors also include a family of anthropomorphic bears (the husband, Tim, voiced by MacFarlane, and the wife, Arianna, voiced by Arianna Huffington), a "hipster" wannabe named Holt (voiced by Jason Sudeikis), and a redneck family (the husband Lester Krinklesac voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson).

Guests

There will also be an episode in 2010 which features rapper Kanye West playing a character named Kenny West. The producers stated working with West was a very good experience and a reason they chose him was that they knew he was a fan of Family Guy.

Voice cast

The Cleveland Show has four main voice actors, and two additional voice actors, some of which play several roles. Mike Henry voices two of the show's main characters, Cleveland and Rallo. The voice of Cleveland was developed originally for Family Guy by Henry after being influenced by one of his basketball partners in Virginia, who had a very distinct regional accent. For the voice of Rallo, Henry has stated that he had originally created the voice over twenty years ago, when he had made a series of prank calls. In addition, Henry provides the voice of various recurring and one-time characters.

Sanaa Lathan voices Donna, the wife of Cleveland. In developing the character, Lathan said that the producers "wanted her to be educated, but to have some edge." Prior to voicing Donna, Lathan had only one other voice credit in a relatively low budget film entitled The Golden Blaze. In addition to the show, she also primarily worked as an actress in such films as Alien vs. Predator, Love & Basketball and The Family That Preys.

Reagan Gomez primarily plays Roberta, the stepdaughter of Cleveland. Gomez has stated that she uses her own voice to portray Roberta, and that she herself gets mistaken to be a fifteen year old over the phone "all the time." Before Gomez was cast as Roberta, Nia Long had originally provided the character's voice during the first production season, before leaving to fulfill prior acting commitments.

Kevin Michael Richardson, a recurring guest voice on Family Guy, portrays Cleveland Jr., as well as Cleveland's next door neighbor Lester Krinklesac. In portraying Cleveland Jr., Richardson drew inspiration from a character named Patrick, that he had played on the NBC drama series ER, who was mentally impaired and wore a football helmet. For Lester, Richardson stated in an interview that being African American, he had "run into a few rednecks in [his] time," and decided to simply perform a stereotypical redneck impression for the voice of Lester.

In addition to the main cast, the series also features Seth MacFarlane as Tim the Bear, which MacFarlane admits is a "Steve Martin impression [...] a Wild and Crazy Guy impression." Jamie Kennedy also provides the voice of Roberta's boyfriend Federline Jones.

Other voices include that of Jason Sudeikis as Holt Rickter, Arianna Huffington as Arianna the Bear, Will Forte as Principal Wally, Rachael MacFarlane as Cookie Brown and Craig Robinson as Freight Train Brown.

Main cast members
Mike Henry	Sanaa Lathan	Reagan Gomez-Preston	Kevin Michael Richardson	Seth MacFarlane	Jamie Kennedy
Cleveland, Rallo	Donna	Roberta	Cleveland Jr., Lester Krinklesac	Tim the Bear	Federline Jones

Debut

Cleveland officially left Family Guy, but MacFarlane has hinted that he may come back for occasional visits if necessary, as in the end of the episode Spies Reminiscent of Us, and has also hinted Family Guy characters will visit Cleveland in Virginia. The show, which was scheduled to debut in the beginning of 2009, premiered on September 27, 2009.

Due to the cancellation of Mike Judge's King of the Hill, the American adaptation of Sit Down, Shut Up being moved to Saturday nights, and the renewal of American Dad!, The Simpsons is now the only cartoon on Fox's "Animation Domination" line-up that was not created by Seth MacFarlane.

While both Family Guy and American Dad! air in the UK on BBC Three, The Cleveland Show will instead air on E4 in January 2010.

Episodes

The show, which was picked up to air a first season consisting of 22 episodes, was picked up by Fox for a second season, consisting of 13 episodes, bringing the total number to 35 episodes. The announcement was made on May 3, 2009 before the first season even premiered. Due to strong ratings FOX picked up the back 9 episodes of season 2 which would make a 22 episode season and bring the total episode count of the show to 44.

References

External links