The Cleveland Show - Season 1

I'm still trying to figure out why this was made. Does it actually appeal to black people? I can't imagine it really does. I haven't seen any numbers on the show's demographic, but I would bet it's about the same as the other Seth MacFarlane-produced shows on Fox. The real problem with the show is that the actual character of Cleveland simply doesn't work well as a protagonist. He's a fun supporting character all the way. So they basically have to completely change his personality to make him having his own show work, in ways that make him overall quite a bit less likable, in addition to transforming his son who hasn't appeared in years from a hyperactive little kid into an incredibly doughy, passive, and irritating young teenager. Not only does taking Cleveland out of Quahog change his character for the worse, it also weakens Family Guy a bit by taking a working part of the formula out of the equation. Wacky hijinks are just less fun with three people than four, and guys like Mort Goldman are inadequate replacements.

And with all these discourtesies, The Cleveland Show doesn't have the decency to be particularly funny. There's usually a couple jokes per episode that will elicit a giggle, but when they're flinging them out at a rate of about one ever five to ten seconds, that's a pretty abysmal success rate. They try to play around with a lot of issues but don't handle any that well, and it's hard to like a show that leans on the "this man is a terrible husband and father constantly" trope so heavily. At least Peter Griffin has the excuse of being an idiot most of the time. And while his show is getting increasingly avant-garde, Cleveland's is hopelessly mired in cliché. There were a couple moments that stood out like a rap battle between Cleveland Jr. and a local rapper played by Kanye West, but not much else. The best thing I can say about the show is that it's not the complete train wreck it looked like in commercials before it started, but that's not enough to make me watch a second season.