'Cleveland Show,'
acquired lack of taste
Family Guy' spinoff doesn't improve on the original
By Tom Conroy
Oct 8, 2009
The animated comedies created by Seth MacFarlane—“Family Guy,” “American Dad” and now “The Cleveland Show”—aren’t an acquired taste. People either like them or they don’t, and they usually make up their mind fast.
Viewers who like “Family Guy” will probably like “The Cleveland Show,” but they’ll like it a little less. And they’ll probably like it a little more than “American Dad.”
“The Cleveland Show,” airing on Fox at 8:30 on Sundays in a 90-minute MacFarlane block, is both a spinoff and an unapologetic ripoff of “Family Guy.”
Cleveland Brown (voiced by Mike Henry, who is also a co-creator of the new series and is, incidentally, white) is a soft-spoken black man who was a friend of Peter Griffin, the main character in “Family Guy.”
Like Peter, Cleveland has a too-attractive wife, a teenage boy, a teenage girl and a smart-mouthed young boy. In place of Peter’s talking dog, he has a talking bear for a neighbor.
His situation has changed radically, and the pilot episode, which aired on Sept. 27, mocks the process by which sitcoms spin off characters. After getting divorced, Cleveland decides to move from Rhode Island to California with his suddenly teenage son, Cleveland Jr. (Kevin Michael Richardson), to pursue his heretofore unmentioned interest in baseball scouting.
“What the hell!” screams Peter’s infant son, Stewie (MacFarlane). “He’s getting his own show?”
Along the way, Cleveland and son stop in Cleveland’s hometown, Stoolbend, Va., where he winds up wooing and marrying his high school crush, Donna Tubbs (Sanaa Lathan), who has the aforementioned two other kids.
“Well, ain’t we the black Brady Bunch!” says 5-year-old Rallo (also voiced by Henry).
“Except I’m not a gay architect,” says Cleveland, “and my wife’s not sleeping with my son.”
“Not yet!” says the bear neighbor (MacFarlane), and everyone laughs.
Although the main characters on “Cleveland” aren’t as irredeemably stupid or hopeless as most of those on “Family Guy,” much of the humor is still tasteless. As on “Family Guy,” some jokes are plot-driven, others shoehorned in.
A character will make an irrelevant pop-culture reference, then there will be a cutaway to a scene featuring the person or phenomenon mentioned.
Gratuitously cruel references to Courtney Love, Kathleen Turner and Chloe Sevigny leave the show open more to charges of misogyny than of racism. (This fall in general, comedy writers seem to be straining to find new words for female private parts.)
The line between mocking racial prejudice and exemplifying it is approached but not crossed, although the location of that line is a matter of opinion (as Don Imus, to take only one pop-culture example, learned painfully).
As Cleveland despairs over his future in Rhode Island, Peter Griffin says, “My God, I’ve never seen a black guy cry before. I thought you guys just got more pissed off.”
When a comedy is risking being accused of pushing the boundaries of taste, the best defense is that the jokes are funny.
“The Cleveland Show” has far more misses than hits. But since the gags just keep coming, almost everyone should smile—if not laugh out loud—at several per show.
Sometimes the joke works because the target is so unexpected. “Let’s go down to Woolworth’s,” Donna’s ex-husband says to her. “I’ll buy you a grilled cheese and a parakeet.”
|
|
|
