© Fox Broadcasting Company
S01E01
Title: “Pilot”
Written by: Seth MacFarlane
Air date: 27th September, 2009
After Cleveland gets divorced and loses the house, he decides to take Cleveland Jnr to Los Angeles where his old baseball coach (Joe Torre) has organised for him to be a minor league scout for a major league team. Along the way he stops in his old home town to show his son where he grew up. He encounters an old flame and tries to hook up with her.
I hate The Family Guy. I used to be a fan, but ever since I saw the “Cartoon Wars” episode of South Park I’ve been unable to enjoy The Family Guy. The South Park episode just pointed out the glaring flaw of the show which I’d never even recognised before. I was hoping that The Cleveland Show would be different than The Family Guy but it’s not. It’s still full of non-sequitur jokes that have no relation to the story being told. It has another cast of characters which take the place of Peter, Joe and Quagmire, and there’s another talking animal (this time a husband and wife couple of bears).
There’s nothing wrong with jokes that come from nowhere, but I much prefer comedy that actually comes from the story being told. There’s just no exceptional level of talent required to insert a joke that has no connection to the situation into a story, and after a while this becomes very grating.
It annoys me that all the Seth MacFarlane shows can keep on going when they’re all the same basic show, whilst Futurama gets screwed around, Sit Down Shut Up can’t get viewers, The Goode Family struggles and South Park is overlooked for Emmy consideration. I don’t begrudge Seth MacFarlane his success, I’d capitalise on it too if I was him, but I do think that Fox needs to get their act together and get some varied animation on their network. And to know that they committed to a second season of The Cleveland Show before even one episode has aired is even more of a travesty. Couldn’t they just combine The Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show together and hope that between the three they have some jokes which fit the story and situation? That would free up two spots in the schedule for new animated shows and provide some variety in Fox’s animation block.
CONCLUSION
I hated it from start to finish (I didn’t finish watching it). It’s the same show as MacFarlane’s other two, just with the characters in a different wrapper. Besides, Quagmire is the best character from the MacFarlane universe. Hopefully a Quagmire show can be developed and it won’t rely on the same shitty joke structure as his other shows.
FINAL GRADE: F
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