Cleveland Brown - Development

Development

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane created a cartoon short entitled Life of Larry, which centered around a middle-aged man named Larry and his anthropomorphic dog Steve. In 1999, when MacFarlane was working for Hanna-Barbera Studios, writing for shows such as Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Laboratory, and Cow and Chicken, he made a sequel to Life of Larry, which Cartoon Network broadcast in 1995. The short caught the eye of 20th Century Fox representatives, who asked him to create a TV series revolving around the characters. MacFarlane received a US$50,000 budget to develop a pilot for the show, which was, as MacFarlane stated in a 2006 interview, " about one twentieth of what most pilots cost".

In three months, MacFarlane created the Griffin family and developed a pilot for the show he called Family Guy.

Writers named the character Cleveland Brown in reference to the similarly named football team, although his last name wasn't revealed until after Family Guy returned from cancellation in 2005. Furthering this connection, a commercial aired during Super Bowl XLV that showed many TV characters wearing NFL jerseys, with everyone in Quahog wearing New England Patriots jerseys except Cleveland, who is wearing a Cleveland Browns jersey in reference to his name.

Mike Henry voices both Cleveland Brown and Herbert, as well as some minor recurring characters like Bruce the performance artist and The Greased up Deaf Guy. Henry met MacFarlane at the Rhode Island School of Design and kept in touch with him after they graduated. A few years later, MacFarlane contacted him about being part of the show; he agreed and came on as both a writer and voice actor. Henry based Cleveland's voice on one of his basketball partners in Virginia. During the show's first four seasons, he was credited as a guest star, but beginning with season five's "Prick Up Your Ears" he has been credited as a main cast member.

During a live broadcast of "Loveline," Seth McFarlane announced that a Family Guy spin-off featuring Cleveland was currently in the works with the studio and writers. The upcoming series was mentioned in the final moments of the Family Guy season 7 episode "Baby Not on Board", with Cleveland telling Quagmire "Did I tell you I'm getting a spin-off". It premiered on September 27, 2009 on FOX, right after The Simpsons. The Cleveland Show is an animated series focusing on the character of Cleveland Brown and his family as Cleveland moves from Rhode Island to Virginia. His newly introduced family includes his high school sweetheart, Donna, who is now his second wife, her 15-year-old daughter, Roberta, and her 5-year-old son, Rallo. Cleveland Jr. also is in the family but is now much fatter than he appeared on Family Guy, and also suffers from astigmatism. Though several of these details were changed, it was announced that Cleveland's neighbors would include a family of talking anthropomorphic bears, a redneck couple and a Victorian-era British family, and one of his son's soccer rivals includes a boy voiced by Kanye West.

Cleveland was officially written out of Family Guy during season eight before The Cleveland Show was broadcast; however, it has been hinted that he might come back for a visit in the future, including the episode "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side", although fantasies and film parodies are generally accepted as non-canon Family Guy episodes. He appeared in a cameo in "Spies Reminiscent of Us", in which he dealt with the indignity of having his new house wrecked in the same fashion as his old one in Quahog, as well as appearing in the season 8 episode "The Splendid Source", where he joins the gang on a road trip to find the source of a dirty joke Chris Griffin told at school. Another idea has been that Peter Griffin and possibly other Family Guy characters will be traveling in the South and make a guest appearance on The Cleveland Show.

Additionally, Cleveland appeared at the end of the American Dad! episode "Hurricane!" where he and Stan Smith have guns on each other while Cleveland's former neighbor Peter has guns on them, prompting Cleveland to say, "Peter, what are you doing? You know me!"