The Cleveland Show: Season 1

Product Description

Everyone’s favorite neighbor is back in this hilarious Family Guy spin-off! When Cleveland Brown moves back to his hometown to start a new life with his old high school sweetheart, their fledgling family faces everything from crazy redneck neighbors to an outrageously overcrowded honeymoon in this uproarious animated romp!

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As newly divorced single dad Cleveland Brown drives away from Quahog and Family Guy to start his new life, Stewie Griffin asks incredulously, "He's getting his own show?" We're as surprised as Stewie. We're still awaiting his spinoff. But until then, if you like Family Guy, then Cleveland rocks. In what may be some kind of meta tomfoolery on cocreator Seth MacFarlane's part, Cleveland inhabits a parallel, albeit somewhat diminished, comic universe. Cleveland (voiced by Mike Henry), while not as imbecilic as Peter Griffin, is as deficient a husband and her. His new wife Donna (Sanaa Lathan), while not as hot as Lois, is the family anchor ("I was born with my dial set to 8," she states, "Life cranked it up to 10"). His infant stepson, "really cool rascal" Rallo (Henry again), is not as megalomaniacal as Stewie, but he's just as age-inappropriately precocious. Cleveland's neighbor Tim, a talking bear, is no Brian (or even alien Roger from American Dad), but Cleveland's rotund son Cleveland Jr. (Kevin Michael Richardson) is every bit as hess as Chris. And then there's the Broken Chair, a bar that's a stand-in for the Drunken Clam. The Cleveland Show doesn't go in as much for Family Guy's signature free-associative cutaway gags, but it certainly delivers its share of hit-and-miss gratuitous digressions, random pop-culture references, and celebrity pots ("I'm all worked up like Ian McKellan at a high-school basketball game"). With characters still finding their voice and footing, Cleveland lives and dies by the jokes. Each episode has enough good ones to warrant repeat viewings. One of the more consistent episodes is "Buried Pleasure," which somehow manages to tie in a recled sex doll with An Officer and a Gentleman. Another random pleasure of the series is the eclectic and oddball roster of guest voices. "The Curious Case of Cleveland Jr. Working at the Stool," another season benchmark, features outré director David Lynch as the Broken Stool owner with absolutely no business sense. And while there is something in most episodes to offend someone, "A Brown Thanksgiving" had the distinction of earning the Parents Television Council's "Worst Show of the Week" designation. The generous bonus features include deleted scenes, commentaries with cast and crewmembers for all episodes, and a "Meet Cleveland" featurette. A parental caution: If offered as a special feature, choose an episode's original televised version lest young ones hear an uncensored F-bomb. --Donald Liebenson