Post by mexicanjunior on Aug 15, 2008 10:18:38 GMT -6
tv.ign.com/articles/897/897899p2.html
Would you guys be onboard with this? I would probably give it a shot...
Cleveland on the Cleveland Show
Actor and writer Mike Henry talks about the Family Guy spin-off.
by Travis Fickett
August 11, 2008 - There was a time when Seth MacFarlane was a young guy who made a failed animated comedy that had a rabid cult following. It was just another canceled show that had a fan campaign to revive it that went nowhere. That is – it went nowhere before the DVD box sets went on sale and broke records. Numbers don't lie - Family Guy's commercial power was undeniable and it returned to the FOX network to great and continuing ratings success.
While American Dad was a spiritual successor to Family Guy, and bares all the hallmarks of MacFarlane's chaotic and frantic humor, it's technically not a spin-off. That's where The Cleveland Show comes in. The first true spin-off of the series takes on of the major regular characters, Cleveland Brown, and gives him his own show. There has been precious little released about this new series. There's one image and a few re-edited clips from Family Guy that have surfaced. Oh – and there's a theme song.
Now we've had a chance to go to the source, to Cleveland himself, Mike Henry. Henry serves as Cleveland's voice as well as a writer on Family Guy and now Cleveland. Henry has been a mainstay in the MacFarlane world – performing multiple voices on Family Guy and America Dad. The fact that he has also served as a writer since day one makes him one of the primary voices for the franchise – and elevating him to his own series seems an obvious choice.
IGN TV: We keep getting this one promo image, of Cleveland and his new family, the English family…and some bears. What are the bears all about?
Mike Henry: It just kind of rolled out that we got Cleveland in his old home town, hooked up with an old high school sweetheart. Cleveland has Cleveland Jr., she's got two kids – they're kind of a Brady Bunch. And next door there's an uptight British kind of "Tudor" family and on the other side of the house is this family of Bears that speak with a foreign accent. Across the street there's some red necks. It's hard to classify the show. It's not really a black show, it's based on a mixture of all kinds of whacky characters – but absolutely grounded with Cleveland and this family.
There will be a lot more family-oriented stories than Family Guy. Still flashbacks and cutaways and everything that you enjoy about Family Guy, but a whole new cast of characters; some of whom are black, some are uptight British, some are rednecks, and some are bears. It just kind of played out, the way all these characters came together.
IGN: When did it get to the point where you started talking about spinning Cleveland off from Family Guy?
Henry: Last summer Seth pointed out that he felt the studio would love a Family Guy spin-off. So at that point everyone just kind of pointed at me and said "Cleveland, Cleveland, Cleveland!" So I talked to Richard Attell, who was running American Dad at the time, and we started coming up with a lot of ideas pretty quickly. And we talked to Seth not too far into that process and realized that we kind of had something.
So we just ran with it. And the whole series took shape in a couple of weeks. We came up with the idea that Cleveland would move to his hometown, reconnect with his high school sweetheart – he's got a kid, she's got some kids – and the other characters sort of rolled out.
IGN: And the story is that Cleveland is her "safety?"
Henry: Yeah, back in the day she saw him as only a friend. And he told her that if she ever needed him, he'd be there for her. In this case, the way it plays out is that he has to "man-up" and go for it. He can't be playing the safety that she settled for him. He's got to go outside of himself and be a real man, and that's what hooked her. It's him getting to a point where he has to step-up. And he does.
IGN: So where does it happen in the development process where someone says "How about some bears?"
Henry: Well we talked about whether we have a "wild card" aspect to this, and we came up with the family of bears. Some of the voices that we started hearing for the bears started making us laugh. So it's that same type of thing where it's a little bit surreal, but it's played straight most of the time. But they are actually bears, so you can go to those jokes too.
IGN: Can you give us an idea of some of the episodes that you might be doing?
Henry: Yeah, it's like a black Brady Bunch. We make that joke in the pilot. We explore a lot of the territory that the Brady Bunch would never touch. Which is basically combining families and the comedy that comes out of step-families. It really is a family-oriented show. It'll have crude jokes – the s*** jokes, p**** jokes, whatever you need to do – but at the end of the day it's all about the family and their connection.
IGN: Can you give us a release date, yet?
Henry: It's still unclear, but I think some time in '09. Probably next fall.
IGN TV: So are you all done with Family Guy?
Henry: Oh no. I'll still do voices on Family Guy. But writing wise I'll be spending most of time on Cleveland. We're gonna back it up. It's going to be good.
We don't know yet when, but eventually The Cleveland Show will air on FOX, and you can bet good money it'll be on Sunday night.
Would you guys be onboard with this? I would probably give it a shot...
