TheClevelandShow-related stories
Posted Oct 30th 2009 9:33AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
The Fox network cannot risk pissing off Seth MacFarlane. If they do, they run a good chance of suddenly finding most of their entire Sunday night line-up sucking eggs. At least, that's one possible reason for the renewal of
American Dad for a sixth season. That pickup gives MacFarlane the renewal trifecta for Sunday nights.
Actually, of MacFarlane's three series,
American Dad is the best one (although I'm finding
The Cleveland Show inching closer to first place). As opposed to
Family Guy, the storytelling is more linear than the other two and the jokes actually have some relevance to the plot or characters (I'm on Team
South Park regarding that "feud").
The Cleveland Show is also better at linear storytelling and jokes than its predecessor, but it's still not up to the standards of
American Dad. Sadly,
American Dad will likely live in the shadow of
Family Guy and
The Cleveland Show for years to come. At least MacFarlane has three chances with Fox to keep on working.
Posted Oct 26th 2009 9:09PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Animation, Music and Variety, Reality-Free
Well, it seemed like an unusual pairing when it was announced. Kind of like oil and water. Well, the oil slick has hit the proverbial fan.
Microsoft has withdrawn its sole sponsorship of Fox's Seth MacFarlane comedy special. That's the special that Fox was promoting like crazy yesterday all during the NFL games, the special called
Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show.
In the grand tradition of show business, though, the special will go on November 8, just without Microsoft commercials. Fox is looking for alternate sponsors. Here's my first call if I'm at Fox -- Apple. Don't you think those Mac/PC ads would send a message to viewers who might still think Microsoft is behind this?
It would also be a brilliant PR move by Steve Jobs and Apple. After all, they could say, "Hey, we're not afraid of the content in Seth MacFarlane's show. We have a sense of humor."
Continue reading Microsoft backs out of MacFarlane's Fox comedy special
Posted Oct 15th 2009 5:47PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Animation, Pickups and Renewals, Ratings, Reality-Free
Not that the future of this series
was ever in doubt, but Fox has extended its original season-and-a-half order of
The Cleveland Show to a full two seasons. Given the strong premiere ratings for the show, seasons beyond number two will likely be in the bag. If Fox didn't extend, they'd have to deal with an irate Seth MacFarlane who currently controls most of their Sunday night line-up.
Is
The Cleveland Show going to end up being more popular than its progenitor
Family Guy? Do these ratings simply represent a high initial interest in the new show that will wane over time? I have used the analogy of
The Jeffersons spinning off from
All In The Family, but did
The Jeffersons ever beat
All In The Family in the ratings?
Whatever the case, Seth MacFarlane doesn't have to worry about it for at least two seasons, and probably longer.
[Watch
clips and free episodes of The Cleveland Show at
SlashControl]
Posted Oct 14th 2009 1:08PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Programming, Celebrities, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
The man who virtually owns Fox Sunday nights, Seth MacFarlane, will be
joining Carrie Underwood in what is seemingly Fox's attempt to
revive the variety show genre. Didn't anybody learn the lesson of
Rosie O'Donnell?
The show is called
Family Guy Presents: Seth and Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show. It'll be broadcast on November 8th and be commercial-free thanks to Microsoft (who will be promoting Windows 7). The special will be a mix of animated and live performances. I've seen Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein (the voice of Lois Griffin) perform together in
Family Guy Live and they're certainly better together than anything Rosie could produce.
It's interesting how retro these planned variety shows are going. It used to be that shows like
The Colgate Comedy Hour would have live sketches about their sponsors sprinkled throughout the show. I wonder how MacFarlane and company will handle shilling Windows 7. Do they even like Windows 7? MacFarlane strikes me more as a Mac guy. "Mac" is even part of his last name.
Posted Oct 12th 2009 9:25AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, Animation, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
This is the third week of the new FOX Sunday night, so it's time to check in and see how the lineup is shaping up. I wanted to give
The Cleveland Show a few weeks to settle down and start to figure out what kind of show it wants to be. The pilot wasn't the strongest, but there was so much set-up involved, you couldn't tell anything about what future episodes would be like.
With Seth MacFarlane now providing a full hour-and-a-half of FOX's Sunday programming, we decided to take a look at all of his shows in a single post each week. At first, I wasn't sure if I was even going to like
The Cleveland Show enough to do this, but it's already grown on me. And that's much faster than
American Dad, which took more than a year of sampling here and there before I tuned in regularly.
Continue reading Sundays with Seth: Meet the Crinklesacks and fly with the Smiths
Posted Sep 27th 2009 9:04PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S01E01) The Cleveland Show begins with the
Family Guy crew in Quahog. After his divorce papers with Loretta are finalized and the prerequisite destruction of his house by Peter occurs, Cleveland decides to abandon his deli (you know, the one he never seems to be at anyway) and move to California. On an out-of-the-way detour, he stops in his old hometown of Stoolbend, Virginia and reconnects with an old flame.
Based on the pilot episode, the analogy that can be made is this:
Family Guy is to
All In The Family what
The Cleveland Show is to
The Jeffersons (with a little
What's Happening!! and
Good Times thrown in). Even the theme music is reminiscent of a 70's black sitcom, plus a few visual cues from
Soul Train. The theme is catchy and even better than the
Family Guy theme.
Continue reading The Cleveland Show: Pilot (series premiere)
Posted Sep 24th 2009 3:02PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: OpEd, Animation, Early Looks, Reality-Free
Having watched the first three episodes of
The Cleveland Show, I find it's a bit like a 70's black sitcom such as
Good Times or
What's Happening, but more demented. The standard
Family Guy humor and asides are still there, but generally the plots feel a little more linear and directed towards a goal. Of course, going forward that could be an exception and not the general rule. The show could end up being a complete
Family Guy copy, but with a black family.
The first episode (airing Sunday at 8:30 ET on FOX) begins in Quahog with the cast of
Family Guy. The entire circumstance behind Cleveland's departure from that show is explained before the opening theme song. And what a theme song! It's better than
Family Guy's. Very catchy. It's the sort that sticks in your mind like Fun Tac.
Continue reading The Cleveland Show -- An early look
Posted Sep 24th 2009 10:00AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Animation, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free, Press Kits Unwrapped
You've heard it before. The character of Cleveland Brown is the last person in the cast you'd expect to get a spin-off from
Family Guy (well, except maybe Herbert, the pedophile down the street). Well, he did in the form of
The Cleveland Show. Fox is trying to promote the hell out of this program and as a result, members of the press got a cute press kit to go along with a DVD containing the first three episodes of the show.
This particular press kit contained a body brush (for scrubbing those hard to reach places while in the bath or shower) as well as a plastic bag that contained a towel and some bubble bath . The only thing I can conclude from this particular batch of items is that watching
The Cleveland Show will somehow make one feel unclean. This is a nice continuation from the same feeling one would get from watching any given episode of
Family Guy.
Actually, the kit is a bit contradictory. The bag is obviously to keep a wet towel from dripping on anything, but who brings such a thing to the bath? That sort of item is usually reserved for the beach. I guess they were afraid the towel would get wet in transit or something.
Continue reading Press Kits Unwrapped: The Cleveland Show
Posted Sep 3rd 2009 12:04PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Programming, Reality-Free
The networks have had a quiet summer, quietly introducing scripted bomb after scripted bomb, so they're certainly ready to jump into the new fall season. And It looks to be an interesting one. ABC is scheduling a two-hour block of new comedies on Wednesdays as the sitcom tries to make a comeback.
Even more risky is NBC handing 10:00 to Jay Leno every night of the week. Everyone's waiting to see how that one plays out. FOX is banking on huge positive buzz for
Glee to make it a hit, while ABC is hoping
FlashForward can pick up where
Lost is leaving off when it wraps its run this season.
To help you with it all, TV Squad has put together a handy calendar of all the premieres so you can schedule responsibly in this busy time of TV watching. Some nights have as many as twelve premieres scheduled, so you might need to invest in a few more DVRs to catch all your favorites; Monday's still look grim. Bookmark this page and you'll have it handy to help see you through.
Continue reading TV Squad's complete 2009-10 fall season premiere calendar
Posted Jul 7th 2009 9:42PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Programming, OpEd, Upfronts, Reality-Free
While it was a little odd that the "screener" of
Glee we got was the exact same episode that FOX aired after
American Idol in the spring, the rest of these shows were truly new. Dramatic offerings included FOX's loose adaptation of the DC Comics property
Human Target and
Past Life. On the comedy side they offered us screeners for
The Cleveland Show, Brothers, Sons of Tucson and the aforementioned
Glee.
After enduring the screener for
Do Not Disturb last season on FOX, I could only hope that these offerings were at least better than that offense to the senses. And they were. Well, most of them. Unfortunately, it seems that FOX has at least one
Do Not Disturb in them every season. Other than that, one of these shows was far better than I expected, another a bit worse, and a third one stands as one of the better pilots I've ever seen.
Continue reading TV Squad previews FOX's new shows
Posted Jun 29th 2009 2:43PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Reality-Free, Comic-Con
It seems like a no-brainer that television and Comic-Con would go together like peanut butter and jelly. But TV has actually been a bit slow to the game and viewed their presence at Comic-Con as something that goes together like peanut butter and regular butter (trust me, I've tried peanut butter and butter, and it's not good).
This year, studios have recognized the importance of the annual geek con-fab and are presenting more shows and panels than ever before. There is going to be more TV at the Con than you can shake a stick at, so don't forgot your shaking sticks.
Why so many?
Variety reports that studios and networks are recognizing the buzz they can generate at the convention through electronic social networking and good ol' word-of-mouth by showcasing and premiering exclusive screenings of their shows.
Continue reading Comic-Con turning more TV on
Posted May 25th 2009 12:02PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Animation, Reality-Free
When it comes to
Family Guy, I really tried. I honestly gave it my best shot. I watched the Sunday episodes, the late night reruns on Adult Swim, and even some of the DVDs from my college-aged brother's collection, including the famed feature-length
Star Wars parody. I watched until my eyes started planning a prison break from my skull.
I wanted to like it. It's goofy, occasionally satirical and completely unafraid to be silly and bat#*$& crazy. Alas, I couldn't take it. I didn't find it funny or entertaining. The jumps to the pop culture flashbacks made the whole thing disjointed and screwed up the continuity. The characters are as two-dimensional as the paper the Korean sweatshop animators draw on for each episode. The way the show just drags on certain jokes is downright irritating. We get it. Peter hurt his knee jumping out of
The A-Team van. A prom night dumpster baby musical number would be hilariously tragic. It's the one and only time I ever rooted for Cartman in an episode of
South Park.
That doesn't mean the show's creator deserves the same contempt.
Continue reading Is it possible to hate Family Guy but still like Seth MacFarlane?
Posted May 4th 2009 6:36PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Animation, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
That's a show of faith,
Fox, renewing The Cleveland Show for a second season before its first episode airs. Sure you can say it's because animated shows need more lead time as it takes a lot longer to complete an episode; how else can you explain
King of the Hill getting canceled back in 1976 and having new episodes through next season.
The second season pick-up is only for a half-season, but it does bring the total number of episodes to 35, which is a good start. Especially for a show that hasn't even started.
Continue reading The Cleveland Show renewed before it begins
Posted Mar 18th 2009 3:25PM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free
A Fox press release today confirmed the horribly-kept secret that Kanye "Voice of This Generation" West will voice a character on
The Cleveland Show, a new
Family Guy spinoff intended for the fall schedule. A couple of new details have emerged.
We knew West would play kid rapper Kenny West, and now we know West will throw down with Cleveland Jr. in a rap battle to impress fellow student Chanel, voiced by Oscar-nominated
Benjamin Button co-star Taraji P. Henson. People.com has some
insight about the taping. Apparently, West (Kanye, not Kenny) was a joy to work with, and executive producer Richard Appel said there was a mutual interest in West coming back for more. Would West make a good cartoon character? Would it take away from his beat writing schedule? If they can convince Mike Myers to join the cast, I'm in.
Continue reading Kanye West steps up to the mic for The Cleveland Show
Posted Nov 11th 2008 5:14PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Programming, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
The
Family Guy spin-off from Seth McFarlane and company called
Cleveland (formerly
The Cleveland Show) is being pushed back by Fox and
likely will not debut this season.
No doubt the speculation regarding this decision will run wild throughout the Internet. My guess is that Fox wanted more episodes for a stronger Sunday night animation line-up. With
the end of King of the Hill on Fox, there is now room, plus three of the four shows will be from Seth McFarlane (the non-Seth show being
The Simpsons).
No wonder he's so loaded.
Continue reading Fox is pushing back Cleveland
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