Not so bad Sunday

Animation Domination on FOX Sunday nights had fallen into a pattern: bore us to death with The Simpsons, then fill up The Cleveland Show with disgusting, unfunny bathroom humor, then all the offensive, catty racial jokes into Family Guy, and then delve in Roger's eccentricities on American Dad.

This division of labor was not in evidence last night. I caught the last few minutes of The Simpsons; then followed The Cleveland Show with some cliched story about the paterfamilias spending money necessary for the children on something frivolous, in this case casino gambling; and then on Family Guy the drinking buddies are reunited with Cleveland on a quest to find the source of the world's dirty jokes. None of these shows are now anywhere near the heights reached in their golden pasts, but these breaks from the usual rut they had fallen into lately was a pleasant break.

Sad state of the Animation Domination

Yesterday I happened to catch a snippet of The Simpsons in the middle. Agnes was reminiscing how she participated in the Olympics long, long ago, while pregnant (weirdly paralleled in real life in Vancouver today), and baby Seymour's kick within her belly cost her the gold. Back in the present, Seymour says he remembers that. As big a grain of salt recollections from the womb would normally require, this one requires a huge monolith of salt. For one thing, "Seymour Skinner" is really Armin Tamzarian, who usurped the real Seymour's name and life after Vietnam. It's as if the show is begging to be nitpicked. One thing it's not begging for is laughs. Which reminded me why I had stopped watching the show. I turned off the TV, not to turn it on again until just before The Cleveland Show, in time to catch Homer dancing with a half-section of his face. Huh? Who cares.

On The Cleveland Show, Cleveland Jr. gets "pregnant" with Rollo's fish. You can just see the miscarriage coming from miles away. At least on TV they had to decency to describe it (likening it to Louisiana cuisine) rather than showing it; any sickos who would've actually liked to see that will probably be satisfied by the DVD. This is one episode I don't care to ever watch again, on any medium. Come to think of it, I should perhaps stop watching this show altogether.

Then on Family Guy, Chris is inexplicably enamored of a retarded girl who turns out to be Sarah Palin's daughter (Palin is not explicitly mentioned in that regard, but it's quite obvious that's who they were thinking of). Coming at the end of such a dreadful evening, American Dad! did not look so bad, and even had a few chuckles.

When did Cleveland Brown become a dumb stoner?

As you probably know, Cleveland Brown is a fictional character who existed prior to The Cleveland Show as a secondary character on Family Guy. Cleveland was somewhat of a slow talker and his mood was extremely sedate. These characteristics were so defining of his character that the writers apparently thought it necessary to explain them in a cutaway gag in "Blind Ambition" in which Cleveland is an accomplished auctioneer, fast and animated in his speech, until a totem pole falls on him and immediately slows down his speech and body movements.

Now on The Cleveland Show, Cleveland's speech, while slightly faster, is still recognizable as the character originated on Family Guy. But now he's constantly giggling like a dumb stoner. In fact, he even giggles on the opening credits. What happened to this character on the move from Quahog, Rhode Island, to Stoolbend, Virginia, to obliterate his sedateness, a fundamental trait of his character?

About nitpicking Cleveland's show

Well, last Sunday the long-awaited Cleveland Show premiered. It seems that of all the secondary characters on Family Guy, Cleveland Brown was the worthiest for his own show. But in all fairness to the Family Guy, Cleveland sometimes rose above the level of token black guy. There's plenty of grist for debate here, but for now it would be best to wait for a few more episodes of the new show before further expounding on this particular issue. Another issue to debate is whether the show is any good.

But what matters to us as nitpickers right now about The Cleveland Show is to what extent old Family Guy episodes can be used to nitpick the old show. I would say that quite a bit of the old show can be used for this purpose. The Cleveland Show starts out with Cleveland and his son Cleveland Jr. leaving Spooner Street behind, clearly establishing that Cleveland's history as established on Family Guy is perfectly valid for The Cleveland Show. Maybe the writers will occasionally forget, but we nitpickers won't. We have practically all the old episodes on DVD and won't hesitate to refer to them.

Peter Griffin has many ancestors invented for purely comedic purposes (as well as for jokes that don't really lift off), while Cleveland has hardly any. So almost everything about Cleveland's past shown on Family Guy can be used to nitpick the new show. Still, I would caution about using anything from the Family Guy episodes "Untitled Griffin Family History" and the Star Wars homage episodes.