The Cleveland Show: The Complete Season One starts off with Loretta divorcing Cleveland, taking everything but their son. As a result, Cleveland decides to pick up an old connection of his and move to California to become a baseball scout. On the drive across the country, Cleveland (Mike Henry) and Cleveland Jr. (Kevin Michael Richardson) stop off at Cleveland's home town.
Well, their quick stop ends up realizing one of Cleveland's life-long dreams, the woman he was in love with back in high school is available and in the two short days of their visit has fallen in love with him. Donna (Sanaa Lathan) has two children, a teenage girl named Roberta (Reagan Gomez-Preston) and a five year-old "black Stewie," Rallo. Actually, Rallo is an odd blend of Stewie and Brian. He is the not-so-innocent kid of the group, but there are also times when he behaves just like a five-year-old that are reminiscent of the times Brian behaves just like a dog.
Before the pilot ends, Cleveland marries Donna and the five of them are living together in semi-harmony. Many of the season's episodes focus on Cleveland trying to win over the kids, or Cleveland Jr. trying to fit into a new school, and a lot of if feels like a natural extension of the Family Guy style, complete with cut-away gags and everything.
Helping to keep the Family Guy feel, Cleveland has a few drinking buddies. These include his next-door neighbor, Tim the Bear (Seth MacFarlane), the redneck neighbor from across the street, Lester (Richardson) and a short guy who lives with his mother named Holt Rickter (Jason Sudeikis). Eventually, when Cleveland lands a stable job at the local cable provider, an old buddy of his from high school joins the cast. This character, also voiced by Sudeikis, is Terry, and he and Cleveland go on a few interesting adventures alone, including one where Terry starts stripping for cable customers and Cleveland becomes his pimp.
There are a few other characters as well, and my favorite among these side characters has got to be Roberta's boyfriend, Federline Jones (Jamie Kennedy, who seems to draw from his character in Malibu's Most Wanted). Other recurring characters include Robert, Donna's ex-husband, and Cleveland's parents, Cookie and LeVar, as well as Donna's Aunt, Auntie Momma, who has a secret only a few in the family know.
The Cleveland Show: The Complete Season One comes with a few really good featurettes for the Seth MacFarlane fan. For one, there is a full-episode table read for "Brotherly Love" which guest stars both Kanye West and Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). There is also a Christmas music video called "Get Your Hump On" which has Cleveland singing alongside Earth, Wind & Fire. To compliment this music video, there is a making-of featurette that not only interviews Henry about getting to sing with his favorite band, but also the band itself concerning their work on the song, the video and even their role in the season finale, "You're the Best Man, Cleveland Brown."
The Complete Season One also comes with a pretty standard making-of featurette on the show as a whole. This featurette covers everything from Fox deciding they wanted a spin-off of Family Guy, to the decision to follow Cleveland, to keeping with the musical theme of the first show, but making it lean more towards the funk style. There are even discussions on how each of the supporting characters were created, and the decision to change Cleveland Jr.'s look, especially since he was hardly ever seen in Family Guy to begin with.
While not exactly the same, nor quite as good as Family Guy, fans of the first series should enjoy this spinoff quite well. For those MacFarlane fans out there, The Cleveland Show: The Complete Season One is a pretty safe purchase.
