Wednesday, September 30, 2009
TBG TV: The Cleveland Show
When/Where: FOX – Sundays at 8:30 PM
10-Word Premise: Black "Family Guy" (or Seth MacFarlane owns Rupert Murdoch's soul).
Starring: White guy Mike Henry as the lead Black guy; Sanaa Lathan as the stereotypically promiscuous Black single mother wif dat fat ass, boyyy!; Reagan Gomez-Preston as the stereotypically skanky Black teenage girl and Kevin Michael Richardson as the stereotypically unintelligent Black boy.
The Best Thang: If you like "Family Guy", you'll like this show. "The Cleveland Show" has the same pacing, the same broadly written characters and even the same "this is like that time when I…" cutaway gags. Hell, the first 10 minutes of the premiere episode was a "Family Guy" episode.
The Worst Thang: This sh*t ain't funny, son. Now, I know I'm talking to the Fox News generation – raised to believe Black folk are a hypersensitive, self-loathing lot, so you'll have to just trust me on this: I would've welcomed being offended if "The Cleveland Show" at least made me laugh. Last Sunday's debut couldn't carry its comedic weight (An R. Kelly piss joke? In 2009?!) and – here's where I get a wee bit racial – I can't take it seriously as an African-American satire when the premiere was written by three white guys. Oh, and confidential to the writers: Joe Torre is a manager, not a "coach". Jesus.
The Verdict: Mrs. Bootleg watched with me in stone silence. At least she didn't storm out of the room like the time she saw these guys on our TV. I've wanted to do something on this blog with FOX's "Animation Domination" programming block, but 25% of that block might be out before it ever had a chance to get in.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Haha! I knew it was gonna be Cryme Tyme!!!
Dude. WTF WITH THE CRYME TIME????? I... I... I just can't even believe it.
You forgot about the stereotypical lazy, alocholic, negligent Black father.
That said, your review is pretty much spot on. I'm going to try and pretend that a lot of the storyline had to be how it was in order to set up the premise of the show. But if after next week its more of the same, I'm out. It just wasn't funny.
In some ways I'm almost hoping this show fails, just to bring the Browns back to Quahog.
The worst part is that I thought it had comedic potential. I didn't hate Rallo and I thought the bear neighbors were funny. This show gets four weeks before I go "meh".
But at least they made a self-referential joke about how it was written by three white guys.
Wait, really, Tom? How the hell did I miss that?
Also, someone should've told Seth that the common colloliquial spelling isn't "Rallo" it's "Rollo". You learn these things when your grandfather's from Alabama.
Post a Comment