Cleveland Doesn’t Rock

the-cleveland-showSunday’s pilot episode of “The Cleveland Show” was living proof that you can’t go home again.

Take that Bon Jovi and Sugarland.

Boring and failing to even possess the logic of an episode of “Family Guy,” “The Cleveland Show” is a complete disaster. Sadly, the only real reason to watch it is for the cameos of the Griffin family and their friends.

Despite being a first episode, with plenty of room to grow, the new characters are not funny and don’t look like they’ll ever be. Cleveland Brown by himself isn’t all that enthralling and Seth McFarlane and company haven’t helped matters by surrounding him with this cast of characters.

Sorry, but a talking bear and a perverted child can’t compare to the hilarity of Glenn Quagmire and Stewie Griffin.

Not even close.

Seeing Rhode Island’s favorite deli owner in a change of scenery had the possibility of garnering laughs, but only if handled properly. Unfortunately for fans of “Family Guy” and “American Dad” that were looking for something else to sink their teeth into, it hasn’t been. Just like the new town and cast of lethargic characters, the reintroduction of Cleveland’s son into his life seems terribly out of place. The fact that he looks like a Muppet with that got his head run over by a truck doesn’t help matters either.

Aside from being illogical and outright absurd at times, the reason why the “Family Guy” formula is a successful one is because the characters have real and endearing qualities. Everyone knows someone who has Peter Griffin-esque qualities and while Stewie is a bit out there as a character, the out of place daughter in Meg, hot wife in Lois and fat son in Chris are stereotypes that all Americans can relate to.

In creating this show, perhaps McFarlane feels that America is ready for an animated sitcom that features a nontraditional, minority family. While McFarlane is on the money and should be praised for trying to be pave the animated sitcom road with fresh new topics, the show tries to steal too much from the “Family Guy” world and doesn’t try hard enough to be its own show.

The animated “Jeffersons” this is not.

For that reason, it’s jumped the shark before it’s gotten in the water.

enablingSeth McFarlane’s good luck has finally ran out.

A huge problem with the show is that it is comprised of ideas that were probably deemed unworthy of “Family Guy” or “American Dad.” One might even wonder if out of boredom McFarlane rummaged through the garbage of rejected ideas from the writers and decided to make a sitcom based on that alone.

Cleveland wouldn’t even sell this bologna in his deli.

It is basically impossible to turn this into a successful weekly sitcom with this cast of characters. A talking bear, a hillbilly and a sleazy baby do not make for good television. And to add injury to insult, Cleveland’s son looks nothing like he did years ago when he was forgotten about when “Family Guy” was being ran on Fox the first time around.

A joke in the episode states that there was a television show written by white people to entertain a black audience and how unfunny that truly is. Sadly. the same can be said about this show.

-Anthony Benedetto

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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