The Cleveland Show is, surprise, all about Cleveland

     Last night's episode of FOX's The Cleveland Show is called "There Goes El Neighborhood." Junior's (Kevin Michael Richardson) aunt by marriage, Choni (Rosie Perez, Lipstick Jungle, Pineapple Express), builds a McMansion across the street from Cleveland (Mike Henry). This steals Cleveland's thunder, and ruins his Superbowl party. Confronting Choni, she accuses Cleveland of being racist. Cleveland does his best to prove that that isn't the case, and restore his role as the popular man on his street.

     Props to The Cleveland Show for sticking with continuity. When Junior marries Cecilia (Elia Saldana), and especially after the whole thing is revealed to be a green card arrangement, one does not expect the new Latina characters to stick. Yet, like in other Seth MacFarlance projects, sometimes the characters in The Cleveland Show are allowed to grow and have arcs that extend beyond one episode. Thus, it appears that Cecilia and Choni are poised to stick around, at least for a little while. This alone sets it apart from some of the other sitcoms and animated shows on the air, and boosts the overall quality of the series.

     "There Goes El Neighborhood" continues the trend from the previous episode of poking fun at Latino stereotypes. Cleveland is shown to think that they all look alike and eat lots of tacos. Considering that The Cleveland Show is created by white men, and the titular African American character is also voiced by a Caucasian, viewers may not expect the series to go after race quite so aggressively. In fact, black culture is not a primary element to the show, perhaps owing to the fact that most of Cleveland's friends are white. But adding this new ethnic flavor actually works rather well. And while Cleveland can be as insensitive as Peter on Family Guy, at least he cares what others think, and works to change his behavior. That's at the heart of this episode, though the story thankfully avoids being preachy or too sappy.

     Even better is when Cleveland and Choni come to the conclusion that they aren't racist, but rather, they just don't care for each other. Sometimes, in modern society, conflict can be attributed to larger issues, when it's a simple clash of personalities. It's nice to see the story in "There Goes El Neighborhood" dealt with in such a way, which keeps things light and semi-realistic.

     There is one small complaint about this episode. In an early joke, Cleveland builds a sky box in his living room for the Superbowl party. In the scene showing the party, the sky box is gone. It's not disappointing that the construction, as solid and permanent as it looks, doesn't last beyond this episode, as that is to be expected. But since Cleveland says that he builds it for this specific party, couldn't it have been kept at least through that event? Perhaps that's asking too much of a silly cartoon, but it shouldn't be.

     In the B plot of "There Goes El Neighborhood," Junior sets Cecilia up on a Valentine's Day date, then waffles on whether he wants her to go through with it or not, alternately strong arming and threatening the poor guy who's interested in her. It's cool that the potential date is not a jerk, even though he looks like a jock. And yes, he is more appropriate, going by physical appearance at least, for Cecilia than Junior, but that's not really the point of the story. The question is, does Junior really love Cecilia, and will he make a real romantic play for her? Junior has been shown to be too shy to be overly sexual, and Cecilia, as an older girl, wants more physical aspects of a relationship than Junior is ready to give. His jealousy is understandable, but the two just aren't compatible right now, and hopefully Junior can understand that, whether he eventually decides to seriously pursue his wife or not.

     The Cleveland Show airs Sunday nights on FOX. Since the Animation Domination schedule has more shows than time slots right now, keep an eye on listings for the broadcast time, as it has been known to move around.

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American Dad! gets into "Hot Water"

     On the season premiere of FOX's American Dad, "Hot Water," Stan (Seth MacFarlane) gets super stressed out because of his very tight schedule. Principal Lewis (Kevin Michael Richardson) suggest that Stan get a hot tub, and while Stan is reluctant at first, he sees one he really likes. Unfortunately, he chooses an evil hot tub (voiced by Cee Lo Green), and begins partying all the time. Francine (Wendy Schaal) goes along with it for awhile, but ends up leaving Stan over the warm water. But the hot tub will not stop until Lewis, Francine, and Peter are dead.

     It is not unusual for Seth MacFarlane to parody something. It's a trope he uses quite often in his various animated series. "Hot Water" is no different, tackling Little Shop of Horrors. The shop Stan buys the hot tub from is "Little Shop of Hot Tubs." The hot tub mimicks Stan's voice to lure Francine to her doom. It also eats Lewis, and ends up killing Stan. The music is a completely different style, but the parallels are so close that, when a customer walks into the hot tub store, I expect him to say "I couldn't help noticing that strange and unusual hot tub in the window." That never happened, but it easily could have been a deleted scene, so much does the episode relate to the musical.

     Interestingly, two main characters die in this episode of American Dad! Both Francine and Stan bite the dust before the end credits roll. "Hot Water" is not the first time that this happens in an episode, but it is a bit unusual because, by next week, they will be fine again. That is not to say that American Dad! does not allow character growth. It married Hayley (Rachael MacFarlane) off and that stuck. But occasionally, in event episodes such as this one, the continuity of the series is abandoned.

     It's a pretty trippy episode. Besides a 1970's era hot tub, which somehow has more advanced electronics, a fact that does not go unnoticed by the characters, but there is plenty of singing and hallucinations. Most of the main cast gets to participate in at least one song. There is no B story, so there is plenty of time to squeeze in several numbers. Over all, it's a pretty cool experiment.

     Cee Lo provides not only the singing voice for the hot tub, but also appears live, unanimated, in several narration shots during "Hot Water." He is not the only one famous to make an appearance, though. One of the party girls that Stan hangs out with is voiced by Gabourey Sidibe, who starred in Precious and is now on Showtime's The Big C.

     American Dad! airs Sundays at 9:30 p.m. ET on FOX.

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The Cleveland Show presents "Hot Cocoa Bang Bang"

     On the second season finale of FOX's The Cleveland Show, Cleveland Brown (Mike Henry) and family travel to San Diego Comic Con to premiere Cleveland's comic book he has labored on for years, Waderman. The story is inspired by an incident in high school where Donna (Sanaa Lathan) fell in a fountain, and while Cleveland was removing his shoes and socks, someone else rescued her. At the event, Donna is disturbed to learn that an old Blaxploitation movie she made entitled Hot Cocoa Bang Bang, also the name of this episode, in which she bares her breasts, is screening. Speaking to director Robert Rodriguez (of Sin City and Grindhouse fame, voicing himself), she tries to get the film to go away, but he refuses, so Waderman and Cocoa take Rodriguez on.

     This episode is quite a bit of fun, poking the humor in a number of different genres, including comic books, sci-fi, Blaxploitation films, and others. Besides the obvious bits about Cocoa, Cleveland Junior (Kevin Michael Richardson) realizes that Comic Con is now used by broadcast networks to promote any number of shows that have no business being at the event, and so plays off of the event itself. Junior raises an army of geeks to try to take back their convention, leading them in a bloody war for control of Comic Con. Ironically, while the geeks wear costumes from Star Trek, Star Wars, Avatar, Batman, and others, it is the network execs that display actual sci-fi abilities, such as a killer alien stalk that shoots out of one man's mouth. So perhaps Comic Con is the right place for executives, after all?

     While confronting each stereotype, The Cleveland Show uses their elements to battle them. For instance, while Donna is trying to stop Cocoa from seeing the light of day, she falls back into the Cocoa character. This lets the audience in on the joke, proving no one at The Cleveland Show is actually against the conventions they go after, but rather, are fans of them. It's an ironic sort of humor, and one Seth MacFarlane, co-creator of The Cleveland Show, as well as creator of Family Guy and American Dad, does well.

     Any series that visits Comic Con would be remiss without sticking in some fun cameos, and The Cleveland Show does not miss the opportunity. A number of actors lend their voices to play versions of themselves in brief sequences, including Danny Trejo (Machete), Emily Deschanel (Bones), Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica), and Eliza Dushku (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse). In perhaps a coup of coups, The Simpsons's Comic Book Guy (Hank Azaria), a nerdy character from another cartoon that also airs on FOX, pops up in what he himself dubs the "Worst. Cameo. Ever."

     Although Seth MacFarlane struggles for originality with three simultaneous series on the air (on the same night on the same network, no less), each of his shows does have a unique perspective. To find out what The Cleveland Show's is, tune in next fall when the series begins a third season on FOX.

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Article first published as TV Review: The Cleveland Show - "Hot Cocoa Bang Bang" on Blogcritics.

The Cleveland Show celebrates Halloween... a week late

    FOX made a bad move this year by airing The Cleveland Show's (along with the rest of the network's Animation Domination lineup) Halloween special, "It's the Great Pancake, Cleveland Brown", a week after Halloween.  Sure, if they had aired it a week early, that would have been ok.  People anticipate, and get in the mood for, holidays before they occur.  But I've never heard of a network running holiday specials so long after the day has passed before.  I realize that FOX has commitments to baseball, but if they were going to go ahead and make Halloween episodes of everyone's favorite animated series, they should have been put on the air before Halloween, even if it wasn't on their normal night.

     That being said, last night's The Cleveland Show was not a bad episode.  Funny, yes, at times bizarre, but not bad.  A couple of memorable gags were shown.  Upon returning home and finding his house toilet papered, a carved jack o'latern volunteers to Cleveland (voiced by series co-creator Mike Henry) what happened.  Roberta (Reagan Gomez-Preston) claimed not to know what she was (barely) dressed up as, and replied off handedly that she might be a ghost.  Later, in the same costume, she made ghost-like sounds for no apparent reason.  Kendra (Aseem Batra), clad far too skimpily, chased Lester (Kevin Michael Richardson) down the street, as Lester frantically tried to remember their safe word.  Cleveland attended David Carradine's funeral, laughed at seemingly dirty words, then cried when he found out that auto-erotic asphixiation could be fatal.  Sure, some those things were silly, and the latter was a bit wrong, but all elicited chuckles.

     The main plot focused on Cleveland Jr. (also Richardson), Cleveland's childish, dorky son from his first marriage.  Junior wanted to go trick-or-treating dressed up as a pancake, but Cleveland told him that fourteen was too old for such things, and ordered him to stay home and pass out candy.  Junior went out in a rare act of defiance, and was bullied for it.  After that, he agreed to listen to his father as Cleveland transformed him into someone cool, but was still picked on.  Finally, partially at the urging of Junior's step-mother, Donna (Sanaa Lathan), Cleveland realized that he had to let his son be who he was.  But he did not have to allow bullying.  Cleveland and his friends dressed up as other breakfast foods and accompanied Junior on a revenge mission to egg the bullies.  In a last toungue-in-cheek remark, Cleveland admitted he couldn't protect his son from what might happen to him at school the next day.

     The B plot involved Rallo (also Henry) loosing a tooth, he thinks from eating too muich candy, and hiding it under his pillow.  The youngster is shocked and terrified to discover that the tooth is replaced by a quarter, not knowing about the tooth fairy, or realizing that he hadn't managed to slip the gap in his smile past his mother's notice.

     And that pretty much sums up The Cleveland Show.  Cleveland is a loving father, who is a bit too self-obsessed, and thinks he's right far more often than he is.  He often doesn't consider consequences.  Yet, somehow there is a sweet family drama here.  More so than on Family Guy, Cleveland has to be a parent, ironic, considering the title.  It's found it's own niche.  The neighborhood is a little less refined than the show it spun off from, and there aren't as many off-topic side scenes, and Cleveland has proven itself more than a carbon copy.

     The Cleveland Show will never replace Family Guy, nor rise to it's popularity.  But it's worth a watch.  The Cleveland Show airs Sunday nights at 8:30pm.

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American Dad celebrates 100th episode in season premiere

     Seth MacFarlane teased us.  When last night's season premiere of American Dad began on FOX, Roger (voiced by MacFarlane) stepped in front of a curtain and told the viewers that since it was the 100th episode, 100 beloved characters would die in the episode.  Now, for a twenty-plus-minute animated show, that seemed unrealistic, so I didn't really buy into the whole premise.  Especially when I made it through the first half with no deaths.  But the fact that there was not one single recognizable character that died (96 of the 100 perished in a three-second-long fiery traffic accident) was a bit disappointing.

     That being said, it was a good, solid episode in the American Dad story.  Daughter Hayley (Rachael MacFarlane, Seth's sister) decided to run away with her ex-boyfriend, Jeff (Jeff Fischer), and get married.  Hayley's father, Stan (MacFarlane), and mother, Francine (Wendy Schaal) are furious.  Stan offers, on television, a $50,000 reward to anyone that can stop the marriage, the $50K being what he had saved up for Hayley's wedding.  In homage to at least one old movie, as many of MacFarlane's episodes of all of his television shows are, Jeff and Hayley concoct a plan wherein Jeff offers to dump her in return for the money, and then the couple escape much richer to begin their future together.  Next week will be a sort of part two, as Roger goes to Thailand to track down the couple.

     This is a bit of a make-or-break moment for American Dad.  While MacFarlane's first show, Family Guy, occasionally advances a serial plot, most animated shows do not.  So far Dad hasn't brought about any big, lasting changes.  Hayley, a member of the central family, getting married would certainly do that.  It would also end a season-long competition between Jeff and koala bear Reginald (Erik Durbin) for Hayley's affections.  Dad has been consistently funnier than Family Guy the last couple of years, and so I am hoping that the show allows a bit of growth and change.  It would really push the series up a couple of notches, and may earn it some deserved recognition.

      The second possible serial moment would involve Principal Lewis (Kevin Michael Richardson), who, in pursuit of the reward money, spectacularly quit his job and stole a police car.  Surely, Lewis cannot return to the school and his old occupation.  Even in a cartoon, that would push the believability boundry way too far.  I hope that Dad chooses a new principal the next time we see the school.  Principal Lewis has appeared in fifteen episodes, so he's sort of important, though this episode was probably the most focus he's gotten to date.
 
     To find out if American Dad will allow the changes to stick, tune in Sunday nights at 9:30pm on FOX.

For frequent mini-reviews and occasional tv news, follow Jerome on Twitter.

The Cleveland Show ends first year

     Seth MacFarlane's latest contribution to Fox's Animation Domination, The Cleveland Show, paid ample homage to it's origin, Family Guy, during last night's first season finale, "You're The Best Man, Cleveland Brown".  Yet, despite appearances by Peter and Quagmire (both voiced by MacFarlane), and someone calling Rallo (co-creator Mike Henry) "the black Stewie", the show definitely stands on it's own.  Sure, it's always nice when the shows crossover, when did on last week's Family Guy, but Cleveland is also it's own thing, and not just the black version of anything.

     Last night tied up one of Cleveland's (also Mike Henry) loose ends from his previous series: his wife, Loretta.  She died a few months ago, as addressed in another episode, and it was time to read her will.  It's nice that the show bothers with continuity such as this.  In it, she left everything she took from Cleveland in their divorce to their son, Cleveland Jr. (Kevin Michael Richardson), with one caveat: nothing was allowed to go back to Cleveland.  Which is too bad, because the generous boy shares the wealth with everyone else.  Cleveland, the poor, miserable, every-guy, who bad luck seems to follow, handled it better than he has plenty of other things.  Besides, he was distracted by the second plot.

     Cleveland's mother and father decided to come back to town and get re-married.  The best joke in all of that was when his mother called Cleveland his father's only son, and we got a montage of all the half-brothers that Cleveland has out in the world.  That could make for a successful spin-off all it's own, and when the writing starts to get stale, a never-ending pool of new characters to pull from.  But for now, the plucky Cleveland, not unlike Charlie Brown, as referenced in the title, took his lot in life and made the best of it.

     And that is why the show works.  Cleveland knows who he is, and he is an original character.  Joined by a slew of side characters who are rapidly growing on me from week to week, I can see why a second season was ordered before the first even aired.