© (C) 2008 Fox THE CLEVELAND SHOW

Television:

Exclusive Interview: MIKE HENRY GETS ANIMATED ABOUT 'THE CLEVELAND SHOW' -- HIS NEW 'FAMILY GUY' SPIN-OFF

iF Magazine gets a first look from the star about what to expect when the new show debuts next year

By CARLOS DELGADO, Contributing Writer
Published 8/26/2008

In TV land, you know a show is doing something right when it starts getting its own spin-offs. That’s exactly what’s happening with FAMILY GUY.

Cleveland Brown, the soft spoken friend of Griffin clan, is movin’ on up. This Spring, FOX will be introducing the new animated series, THE CLEVELAND SHOW. Seth MacFarlane, creator of FAMILY GUY, is giving Mike Henry, voice of Cleveland, a crack at his own show (he also serves as co-creator and executive producer alongside Rich Appel and MacFarlane).

Unfortunately, that means Cleveland won’t be joining Peter and the gang at the Drunken Clam anymore. It does, however, mean that instead of cameo appearances, Cleveland will be the bonafide star in his own animated half hour series.

iF Magazine caught up with Mike Henry, star of the new show and voice of several of the new characters, and asked him about what viewers can expect in the upcoming series.

iF MAGAZINE: What can you tell us about the show? How alike are THE CLEVELAND SHOW and FAMILY GUY going to be?

MIKE HENRY: The similarities to FAMILY GUY will be like the character design, the animations, we will have cutaways and flashbacks like FAMILY GUY, but it’s all new characters, except for Cleveland. We’ve aged up Cleveland Jr., so he’s fourteen. He’s kind of heavy set. Cleveland and Cleveland Jr. end up in a blended family with a woman named Donna who Cleveland was in love with in high school and she has two kids: Roberta who’s fifteen and is in the fast lane. She’ll be voiced by Nia Long and Donna will be voiced by Sanaa Lathan. So basically Donna has two kids, Cleveland has Cleveland Jr. and they’re kind of like a black BRADY BUNCH.  They come together. There’s a family of rednecks across the street, there’s a family of British people next door, the father of which will be voiced by Seth MacFarlane, and then on the other side of their house is a family of bears who speak with a foreign accent.

iF: A family of what now?

HENRY: Of Bears. Like bears, like out of the woods. There’s many different cultures colliding, white, black, British, bears. All kinds of people coming together with really family based stories which revolve around the new merged family and stepparents, blending kids: the things the BRADY BUNCH never addressed, we’ll address the same frenetic way as FAMILY GUY, but a sweeter tone than FAMILY GUY. It’ll be a nicer show, I guess, but still just as raunchy with plenty of sh*t jokes and pussy jokes and everything else.

iF: Is THE CLEVELAND SHOW still set in Quahog?

HENRY: Oh no. They move from Quahog. They end up in Virginia, which is where Cleveland grew up. Donna, the woman that he reconnects with, was the love of his life in high school but she always saw him as a friend. So he’s kind of got to man up and earn her love and then we go from there.

iF: Why did Cleveland decide to move from Quahog?

HENRY: He lost the house to Loretta in a divorce settlement and he got custody of Cleveland Jr. who’s now older and you know, have more fun.

iF: Can we expect any cameo appearances from any of the FAMILY GUY characters?

HENRY: Not any time in the near future. We really want to establish the new universe and we’ve got a lot of different characters, and we don’t think we have to do that so we’re not gonna do it.

iF: Which roles are you providing the voice for?

HENRY: I play Cleveland, I play Rilo, his five year old stepson who is basically kind of jacked up and can’t wait to start puberty so that he can start getting laid. I’ll play Wally who used to be a nerd in high school, but is now the principal of the high school so he’s in charge. I also play Terry who’s Cleveland’s sidekick on his job which  is being a cable repair man and Terry can’t keep his dick in his pants and so he gets himself in a lot of trouble and Cleveland has to just be responsible for him.

iF: What’s the deal with the family of bears?

HENRY: You know, we were thinking, should we have like a Brian-type character, you know, a talking animal, and then we just kind of came up with a family of bears. It just felt right.

THE CLEVELAND SHOW debuts on Fox this Spring


(C) 2008 Fox
RICH APPEL and MIKE HENRY, co-creatords and executive producers of THE CLEVELAND SHOW at a panel during Fox's 2008 Summer TCA session

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