Seth MacFarlane Craps Gold

Recently I’ve had the unique situation fall in my lap to watch Fox’s Sunday night lineup, the continuation of their ‘Animation Domination’ block. Now, Fox has had a long history of airing cartoons on Sunday night. It’s general knowledge that The Simpsons has been in that block since what feels like the beginning of time. It is also common knowledge that when the network comes across a formula that makes money, they will repeat it ad nauseum (as any network will do, they are looking to make a profit after all). The first time they did this with their cartoon block, it resulted with letting Futurama on the air. The premise for this being that since Matt Groening made The Simpsons, and that show was profitable (read: prints money), his other show must be the same.

Of course, that show had a somewhat different formula, so it was eventually axed (the fate of most good things on Fox).

This time, they’ve managed to find such a winning formula that they can air what is essentially the same show three times in a row. It should be obvious I’m talking about the Family Guy formula; the formula of basic sitcom family comedy that’s used in Family Guy, American Dad, and the new spinoff The Cleveland Show.

Now, I enjoyed Family Guy when it first came out. Its odd sense of humor struck me, and I followed it as much as I could until it was cancelled and after it was rerun on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block. When it came back on the air, I was excited at first, but that faded within the first episode of the new season when they got too self-referential and non sequitor (they always had some non sequitor jokes, but the first episodes at least had more related to the plot of the day). American Dad was pretty enjoyable too, nothing really new, but took the formula from Family Guy and put it in a different enough setting to allow for different stories.

The Cleveland Show, however, seems to be bringing nothing new to the table. I know it’s still pretty new, so I may be surprised later on, but so far it gives me the impression that if you replaced The Cleveland Show’s cast with Family Guy’s there would be little to no discernable difference. To prove this theory, let’s play a little game. Take a look at the following scenarios and try to guess which ones came from Family Guy and which came from The Cleveland Show:

Dad remembers that one time in college when he was roommates with the Elephant Man.

Dad teaches one of the kids how to look up skirts without being caught.

Parents accidentally get another family’s kid taken away by child services, problem solved with huge gunfight.

Incredibly flamboyant shoe shopping montage.

Cutaway joke to caveman training dogs.

Give up? Ok, I lied, they’re all from The Cleveland Show. Could you figure it out? I know I couldn’t, and I was watching them as they happened. For almost the entirety of my time watching the show, I kept finding myself expecting it to cut back to the Griffins doing something retarded.

If you’re a die-hard fan of Family Guy, you’ll more than likely love this show as well. If you’ve grown to hate Family Guy, avoid it like the plague. Either way, Seth MacFarlane has found himself in a position to sit on a golden throne and burn money for warmth, all from having the same idea over and over. If this continues, look forward to watching the Fox ALL SETH ALL THE TIME lineup and the new Greased-Up Deaf Guy Show.



Yeah. I’m calling it.

The Cleveland Show
3/5 Overall
0/5 for originality