Cleveland Brown

This article is about the Family Guy and Cleveland Show Character. For the professional American football team, see Cleveland Browns.

Cleveland Brown, Sr. was born in Chester Gap, Virginia. Cleveland Brown, Sr. is a fictional character on the animated series Family Guy, and central character in the upcoming spin-off series, The Cleveland Show. He is one of Peter Griffin's neighbors and friends as well as one of the few recurring black characters on the show. He owns a delicatessen named "Cleveland's Deli". He is voiced by Mike Henry.

Personality

Cleveland is usually depicted as almost exceedingly gentle and patient. This is sometimes played for contrast in the show's often-violent humor, such as when Cleveland is compelled to vandalize a taxi that refuses to pick him up ("Deep Throats"), or when he exhibits uncharacteristic remorseless hatred after shooting Skeet Ulrich ("The Perfect Castaway"). When Glenn Quagmire is discovered to be sleeping with Cleveland's wife, Cleveland exhibits a short, comical burst of rage, but ultimately forgives Glenn so the two remain friends. Cleveland often acts as the voice of caution when other characters hatch harebrained schemes.

Cleveland's speech is slow, almost elongated. Various flashbacks give conflicting histories of his speech patterns.

He has also been known to procrastinate. In "Fifteen Minutes of Shame", he shows Meg the guest room to his house and states that his great Uncle Chet died in there, "sometime between the Tonight Show and the Today Show". When he opens the door, it is shown that he has not bothered to move the body. In "Fore Father", he admits that even though he has been suspicious that his son was suffering from ADD, or epilepsy, he simply watched television instead of doing anything about it.

Cleveland displays a political and cultural interest in promoting his fellow African Americans. While Cleveland's ethnicity seldom causes conflicts with his entirely white neighbors, and while he serves as President of the local Chamber of Commerce ("Peter Griffin: Husband, Father...Brother?"), he remains subject to "different" treatment by the local police (as seen in "Stuck Together, Torn Apart", where the machinery in a police car labels him as a minority suspect), and Cleveland differs with policeman neighbor Joe Swanson on how black strangers should be viewed in white neighborhoods (all in a symbolic, friendly discussion about a black bowling ball amidst white bowling pins) ("Blind Ambition").

The Brown household play Afro-centric board games, such as "Two Decades of Dignity" ("Petarded"), and Cleveland's wife Loretta "does not allow white literature in the house." ("Wasted Talent")

Mike Henry has stated that Cleveland's voice was based on a person who used to play basketball with him. His friend went to the University of Maryland, but he had a speech impediment that made it sound more like "Merlin"

Alternate timeline depictions

In Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, the red carpet intro has Cleveland coming out of his limo saying that he has a new clothing line, C.C. Brown, in Quahog. In the future, Cleveland is mostly bald with white hair around the sides of his head. He uses a wheelchair and speaks even more slowly than in the present due to a stroke.

In the Star Wars parody "Blue Harvest", he portrays R2-D2. In this role, Cleveland looks exactly like R2-D2 down to the last detail, with the exception that the droid wears a wig resembling Cleveland's hairstyle. While R2-D2 communicates with beeps, Cleveland retains his normal voice, though he does make beeping noises once in a while for comedic effect (C-3PO, played by Quagmire even tries to interpret, but gets it wrong) and makes the exact same noises that R2-D2 makes when he is stunned by Jawas. His voice is also altered slightly to make it sound more mechanical. His body is completely computer generated and cel-shaded. Concept art of the episode shows that Cleveland was to retain his face while the rest of his body would appear as R2-D2's. This concept was dropped.

In the episode "Lois Kills Stewie", Cleveland is shot and killed by Stewie as he casually walks into the Griffins' house during a hostage situation. As the other Griffins grieve his death, Cleveland is shown to be at the pearly gates where he tries to get past a racist Saint Peter by showing him his credit card. This episode is revealed to be part of a computer simulation Stewie was running, obviously signifying that Cleveland is alive and well.

The Cleveland Show

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 spin off will be titled The Cleveland Show. It will be set to premiere March 2009 on FOX, right after Family Guy. The Cleveland Show will be 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 new wife, Donna, her 16-year-old daughter, Roberta, and her 5-year-old son, Rilo. Cleveland Jr. also is in the family but is now much fatter than he appeared on Family Guy. Cleveland's neighbors also include a family of talking anthropomorphic bears, a redneck couple and a British family.

External links

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