TVSquad

A few more voices have been added to the cast of the Family Guy spin-off, The Cleveland Show. The voice of the main character will still be provided by Mike Henry, who also gets an executive producer credit on the show.

Kevin Richardson from The Cleaner is voicing the character of Lester, a redneck neighbor of Cleveland. Interestingly, Mike Henry is a white man voicing an African-American while Richardson is African-American voicing a white man.

Also joining the cast is Sanaa Lathan who will play Cleveland's love interest Donna and Nia Long (pictured) who will play one of Donna's children, a rebellious teen named Roberta.

I suppose the success of this show will depend on the execution of it. It has to be similar enough to Family Guy to not alienate those fans but different enough to spark an interest. Cleveland Brown never struck me as a character who could carry his own show but maybe I'll be proven wrong.

Along with running three shows on Fox (Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show), Seth McFarlane is also getting into online content development. Even worse, he's doing it for a Fox competitor.

McFarlane will be developing fifty two-minute animated vignettes for Seth McFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy which will be distributed via Google's AdSense network (a competitor for Fox's Myspace).

The article goes into the corporate issues behind this strange move and asks a few good questions: why didn't Fox get a first-look offer at this idea? If they did, why did they pass on it? It seems inexpensive enough to produce and given the popularity of the creator, it seems a no-brainer.

Finally, a new teaser for the much anticipated Family Guy spin-off, The Cleveland Show. Actually, "anticipated" is probably a strong word since American Dad has already destroyed my faith in Seth MacFarlane's ability to produce another hit. Frankly, I don't see how The Cleveland Show could possibly be worse than American Dad.

"New" probably isn't the right word either since the following video looks like something that most likely aired during last month's upfronts. But hey - I hadn't seen it yet, so it's new to me. Complaining aside, I'm pumped for this show and the preview doesn't disappoint. The idea of Cleveland packing his bags and heading south to marry a woman he hasn't seen since high school is hilarious to me. Bears and British folks as neighbors? This could work. Video and full description from FOX after the jump.

It looks like someone took the effort to create a Flash player with embedded videos of many of the upcoming new fall shows. Included are clips from Dollhouse, Fringe, Life on Mars, The Eleventh Hour, Scrubs, The Cleveland Show, The Goode Family (pictured right) as well as several others. I only had a chance to look at some of them. The previews aren't of all the new shows available in the fall (NBC only has one preview), but it's still quite a few. Which ones are missing?

Embedded videos after the jump

FOX announced its plans for the 2008-2009 season today. Here are the highlights:

Returning: The Moment of Truth, So You Think You Can Dance, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, American Idol, America's Most Wanted, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, Bones, Cops, Don't Forget the Lyrics!, Hell's Kitchen, House, King of the Hill, Kitchen Nightmares, MADtv, The Moment of Truth, Prison Break, Talkshow with Spike Feresten, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, 'Til Death

Out: Back To You, Canterbury's Law, K-Ville, Nashville, New Amsterdam, Next Great American Band, Return of Jezebel James, Unhitched

New: Sit Down, Shut Up; The Cleveland Show; Dollhouse (Midseason); Fringe; Do Not Disturb (formerly The Inn); Secret Millionaire (Midseason)

Schedule and detailed descriptions of the new shows after the jump.

From the "Things that make you go, hmmmm?" department... Just let this one roll around in your noggin for a bit. According to reports, after 2 1/2 years of negotiations, Mr. MacFarlane has a new deal with 20th Century Fox TV that could be worth more than $100 million. The deal will keep him with the studio through 2012. To put it in some perspective, J.J. Abrams signed a five year feature/TV deal with Paramount and Warner Bros that was valued at $60 million.

Now, I don't mean to slight Seth or his accomplishments, but doesn't that strike you as just a bit odd? I mean, I'm a fan of his work. I've never missed an episode of Family Guy or American Dad. Hell, I sat through The War At Home to catch his guest spot. Still, I also follow ratings rather closely, and while Family Guy is certainly a success, I wouldn't have expected it to garner him highest paid status. Maybe The Cleveland Show is just that much better than any of us are giving it credit for.