We’ve taken a look at a lot of animated sitcoms this year and so far they’ve all been repeat visitors to The Christmas Spot. It feels like it’s time for something new, though it has a very familiar feel. The Cleveland Show is a 2009 spin-off of Family Guy created by Seth MacFarlane, Richard Appel, and Mike Henry. Spin-offs of animated shows are quite rare, but Fox must have been so pleased with Family Guy and American Dad! at the time that another MacFarlane animated show was needed. Never mind that The Simpsons helped build the Fox network and never got a spin-off. Simpsons creator Matt Groening had to practically beg them to let him do Futurama, which Fox treated even worse than it did Family Guy in its original run.

Taking the soft spoken and mild mannered character of Cleveland Brown (Mike Henry) and giving him his own show felt like an odd move at the time. The character did have a divorce angle in Family Guy which left him a single parent and perhaps made him too similar to Quagmire. Whatever the reason, the decision was made to take Cleveland and move him out of Quahog and down to his hometown of Stoolbend, Virginia. There he reconnects with an old friend from high school, Donna (Sanaa Lathan), sparks fly and they get married, and Cleveland inherits two step-children: the teenaged Roberta (Reagan Gomez-Preston) and preschooler Rallo (Henry). Also in tow is Cleveland Jr. (Kevin Michael Richardson) who was previously depicted as an elementary school-aged boy with a very hyperactive personality. Now, he’s 14, overweight, and speaks slowly and is, for all intents and purposes, a completely different character from what we saw on Family Guy.

That’s the premise of the show: a dad, a mom, and three kids consisting of two boys and a girl with the girl being the oldest. All that’s missing is a talking dog and you basically have the Griffin family, which is probably why Cleveland has a talking bear for a neighbor. The show is also referred to as a Black Sitcom because the family is quite obviously black. Only, the three co-creators of the show as well as the voice of Cleveland are all very much not black. The late 2000s was probably the last time a show could get away with this. Most of the writers appear to be non-black as well. The show did at least cast people of color to play most of the new roles, but even Henry was still handed Rallo. And no, having Kevin Michael Richardson voice white character Lester doesn’t make up for that.

The Cleveland Show has long since been cancelled and is mostly looked at now as a failure. That’s probably way too harsh a word to describe a show that ran for four years and totaled 88 episodes. It’s ratings were solid for the first two seasons, but if you’re not The Simpsons then Fox has a tendency to jerk you around when it comes to time slots. The Cleveland Show got kicked around the Sunday night lineup, probably being the chosen show to suffer most if baseball or football ran too long. Ratings slipped in the third season and basically continued to decline through the end of the fourth season. Fox initially seemed open to bringing it back for a fifth season, but the show was eventually cancelled and the Brown family packed their bags and moved to Rhode Island to rejoin the cast of Family Guy. Not a bad fallback plan, all things considered.

Personally, I didn’t really care that much for The Cleveland Show. I gave it a shot when it first premiered, but honestly don’t recall how many episodes I actually watched. I didn’t think it was terrible, it just felt too similar to Family Guy. It does at least feature a cast that seems to like each other. Or at least, they want to like each other and, in turn, want to be liked. The Griffin family is basically self-admitted trash and kind of hate each other. Cleveland is at least trying to figure out how to be a good father to his new step kids while also being a good husband to Donna. There’s more heart here so from that angle I can definitely understand why someone might actually like The Cleveland Show a lot more than they do Family Guy, though in general, I think if you like one then you’ll probably like the other. Perhaps with Cleveland, we’re less likely to get a bunch of suicide jokes.

One compliment I can levy at the show is that it has an earworm of a theme song. It’s reminiscent of an 80s children’s cartoon in that the song basically lays out the plot. It’s sung by Cleveland who just sounds really tickled by the idea that he has his own show. Unfortunately, this being a Christmas episode we don’t get to hear it. Instead, the show opts for a holiday title card set to Christmas music which is Cleveland singing “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Normally, this is something I very much endorse when it comes to Christmas specials, but I was kind of looking forward to hearing the song since I so rarely watch the show.

When the intro is finished we open on a tree lot. Lester, his wife Kendra (Aseem Batra), and son Ernie (Glenn Howerton) are all trying to attract customers to what I suppose is their lot. Lester is a typically designed redneck type while Kendra is a morbidly obese woman on a motor scooter and they live next door to the Browns. Kendra tries luring in customers by urging them to get a tree so that their neighbors don’t mistake them for Muslims. We then find Cleveland and Donna looking over a tree. Cleveland is excited for their first Christmas together and wants to get a perfect tree. He’s eyeballing this one for it is full on top and has a big old bottom. When he turns to ask Donna for her approval she adds “Don’t forget bushy in the front!” This seems to excite Cleveland who starts grinding on the tree and mimes like he’s slapping a big ole booty while quoting Sir Mix-a-Lot with “My anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hun!” Donna appears to be getting pretty excited too and warns her husband she may just jump in there to make it a “tree way.” These two really like trees.

Rallo interrupts the festivities by kicking his step dad in the shin. Apparently Rallo is used to being the one who picks out the tree and Donna confirms as much saying she let him do it after his dad, Robert (Corey Holcomb), bailed on the family. Cleveland begrudgingly accepts this, until Rallo shows him the tree he has selected. It’s an itty, bitty, little tree about the size of what Charlie Brown would select, though far less sickly. Cleveland is not impressed and he picks it up by the tip and remarks how it’s not full enough for him comparing it to an Asian or a little boy or a little Asian boy. That’s pretty gross. Cleveland then goes into his “My anaconda don’t want none,” routine with this tree, but stops in the middle declaring that he feels ridiculous. He should feel like a scumbag since he just compared this tree to a little Asian boy and then tried to slap its…”ass.” Cleveland declares they’re getting the tree he likes so Rallo goes low in return: by comparing him to his real dad. We also learn that Rallo thinks his dad works for the FBI and that’s why he’s too busy to come around and see him. Cleveland asks Donna if this is really the story she had fed Rallo about his daddy and she confirms it. When Cleveland starts to protest, she kicks him in the shin causing him to cry out, “Ow! Bitch!” I said this show had more heart than Family Guy, but I suppose I should stress that it’s no less crude.

At the Brown house, Cleveland and Donna are getting some decorations out of the attic while the conversation from the tree lot continues. Cleveland can’t understand why Donna would lie to her son about his dad being an FBI agent unless FBI stands for “Freeloading Booze Idiot.” Cleveland laughs at himself for the joke he just made on the spot while Donna explains that it was better than the truth. Plus, her ex came up with the lie and she just went along with it. She says that she’ll tell the boy when he’s old enough to understand and, honestly, it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Cleveland concludes that sometimes a lie is better than the truth, then he sets up a classic Family Guy cutaway complete with “Like that one time…” And the joke is he encountered the star of Entourage, Adrian Grenier (though not voicing himself), on an airplane and, I guess, he was going to not point out how he doesn’t look like a movie star, but did anyway. It’s basically a stock joke at this point.

It’s time for a company Christmas party! Cleveland has taken the family to the home of his boss, Mr. Waterman (Bruce McGill), who owns the Waterman Cable company which proudly boasts that it’s a monopoly as its slogan. Mr. Waterman is also quite likely to be a homosexual as we see right away that the staff for his holiday party are a bunch of a shirtless muscle dudes in reindeer antlers. Rallo calls attention to these fellas and Cleveland tries to explain his boss’s orientation in a more roundabout way, but Rallo just asks “Oh, is he a gay?” Cleveland confirms as much and Rallo just points out that his boss knows how to celebrate Christmas better than Cleveland.

Cleveland growls and grabs a flute of champagne from one the serving trays and chugs it, then giggles because the bubbles tickle. The family is then approached by Mr. Waterman and his wife, Lydia (Stockard Channing), who looks a little tipsy already. Waterman sees the Brown family and announces to “hide the silver!” It’s a joke because they’re the only all black family in attendance. He says he’s just kidding then matter-of-factly states “It’s already hidden.” Lydia introduces herself as Lloyd Waterman’s wife and Cleveland laughs in response. He then says to Donna that this is already better than the last homosexual’s Christmas party he went to. It’s a setup for another cut-away, and if you’re a Family Guy regular, you already know who Cleveland is talking about. We’re taken a home where the old man, Herbert (Richardson), is singing “Silent Night” while dressed as Mary in front of a group of young boys and Cleveland. It’s very uncomfortable. When Cleveland tries to leave, Herbert angrily orders him to sit back down and continues the song because you know the writers need him to say the line about virgins. Which he does, and the uncomfortable scene soon ends. I do not like this joke, not because I’ve never laughed at a Herbert joke, but the setup is basically equating homosexuality with pedophilia which is bullshit.

Back at the party, Waterman asks Cleveland for a favor. He then asks if he remembers a Fred Peterson. Cleveland confirms that he does and then Waterman informs him that he’s not here, but usually he plays Santa at this party. And why isn’t he there this Christmas? He killed himself – I should have known! Waterman then adds that Peterson also raped a bunch of people which shocks Cleveland. A suicide joke, plus a rape joke – they’re topping Family Guy at this point. Cleveland agrees and then Waterman quickly adds that Peterson raped old ladies so that Cleveland can be shocked again. He then takes him to try on the suit, but the beard has seemingly been misplaced. Waterman cries out, “Where’s my beard?” and his wife sidles up to say “Here I am.” Hah!

We then find Donna and Roberta at a buffet and they run into Tim (the bear, voiced by MacFarlane) and his wife Arianna (also a bear, voiced by Arianna Huffington), and there’s clearly some hostility between she and Donna given how Donna greets her. That’s only amplified when Arianna says she could see her daughter’s cleavage from across the room, which is Tim’s cue to get the hell away from that conversation. Then one of the reindeer men gets everyone’s attention and throws open some doors to reveal Santa Cleveland arriving on a one reindeer open sleigh. Roberta is both shocked and a little impressed that there’s an actual reindeer and asks Lydia if her husband rented it. She confirms that, no, he actually owns it. When Roberta points out how crazy it is to have a living being you only parade around a bunch of people one day a year Lydia sarcastically remarks “I can’t imagine how that feels.”

Rallo, on the other hand, is very impressed that Waterman landed Santa for his party. He’s so eager to sit on the big man’s lap he even shoves a little girl down just to get to Santa. Cleveland seems to enjoy having his youngest step child seek his attention for a chance, until Rallo starts trashing him. Cleveland, as Santa, tries to assure Rallo that his step dad is just doing his best, but Rallo politely tells Santa that, no, Cleveland just sucks at Christmas causing Cleveland to call out to one of the reindeer men (“Hey, Prancer!”) to leave an entire tray of eggnogs by his chair. Meanwhile, Roberta is outside livestreaming herself preparing to set the reindeer free. She thinks it’s cruel to keep such a creature locked away 364 days out of the year, plus she wants to get the attention of Tyra Banks and views this as the gateway to her becoming the Gayle to Tyra’s Oprah. Then she adds, “Without the sexual obligations.” A bit of a dated joke even by 2009 standards. We then see Cleveland Jr. setting the reindeer free, and immediately upon doing so the reindeer just thrashes him a whole bunch and runs off.

Back inside, Cleveland has just about finished off all of the eggnogs while Rallo is still sitting on his lap trashing him. He imitates him in a humorous way, and since Mike Henry voices both characters Rallo’s impression is spot on, but Cleveland still angrily retorts “I bet that sounds nothing like him!” Rallo, not sensing Santa’s hostility in the least, then moves onto the subject of his real father. Cleveland can’t stand to hear this kid slander him (especially his moustache) while worshiping a deadbeat dad instead so he uses the opportunity to drop some truth on poor Rallo about his dad. Rallo immediately looks like he’s about to burst into tears while Cleveland gets a death stare from Donna. He turns to the camera and breaks the fourth wall to ask “How am I gonna get out of this one?” before telling us to come back after some loud and off-putting messages. And since I am watching this on Hulu with ads, I can confirm that everything about said messages was very off-putting since the Hulu app on Roku is a horrible piece of shit and the ads seem to break it all of the time. I refuse to give them more money to go ad free though, because that would be rewarding them for their shitty practices.

Following those off-putting messages, we find the Brown family back at home. Donna is trying to soothe her son as he lays in bed while Cleveland pounds water, clearly still feeling the effects of the eggnog. Donna has to come clean about Rallo’s dad and the lie apparently went pretty far with Donna even faking letters to Rallo. He can’t believe his mother would lie to him like that, but the two just leave him to go to sleep. We cut to a Christmas pageant and some kid is doing a performance of “Gloria.” It’s very…theatrical. Apparently, this is Wally (Will Forte) and the Fluffers. Anyway, we’re here because Rallo is supposed to read his letter to Santa Claus which goes, “Dear Santa, Fuck you and fuck Christmas!” Arianna, in the audience, turns to her husband and says “That’s what you get when you put a Jew in charge of a Christmas pageant.” Rallo had been introduced by a very Jewish woman (Alex Borstein) and I am to assume that she was the one who organized this. Arianna is a pretty awful bear.

Back at home, Donna is laying the blame for Rallo’s offensive letter at the feet of her husband. He counters by saying it’s her fault for lying to him while Roberta announces she’s just happy that the lie is over. She then reveals that it was her job to call Rallo and pretend she’s their dad. She does her impression of him and they dub her with the actual voice actor for Robert, Cory Holcomb, for comedic effect. Cleveland then takes responsibility anyway and vows to help Rallo rediscover the Christmas spirit. Roberta, still speaking as Robert, praises him for standing up for Rallo, but then also calls him dough boy. He can’t win.

Cleveland, in a bid to cheer up Rallo, takes him to the local mall. There’s a giant, toy, train display that he thinks might do the trick on account of it not being as depressing as the real railroad industry. Rallo just sees a stuffed Santa “driving” the train and wants blood. He grabs the doll and referring to Santa as “A waste of a life,” holds him down in the path of another oncoming train. It strikes the doll, which has a frightened expression upon seeing the train, causing a derailment. The doll and train crash through a pile of fake snow and collide with another train resulting in a fiery explosion. A bunch of toy first responders arrive quickly on the scene and it even goes into a full-on toy news broadcast. What the hell is going on?

Following the odd tangent, we find Cleveland with his friends Lester, Timothy, and Holt (Jason Sudeikis) at The Broken Stool bar. Outside, we see the escaped reindeer from Waterman’s party chasing some random guy in the street. The boys apparently had a secret Santa thing and Lester has gifted Cleveland a bunch of plain, old, ordinary, pens. Lester saw him using a pen once and assumed he would like enjoy them. Cleveland takes it all in stride, despite the disappointment on his face. Cleveland had Holt and he gives him a can of some Red Bull private reserve which causes him to get very emotional. Holt takes off to enjoy his present while Cleveland turns to Timothy and Lester for help with Rallo. Timothy tells Cleveland the only thing that will help the child at this point is for his father to be there with him on Christmas. Cleveland agrees and feels the need to point out that the most human among them is a bear before gathering up his pens and leaving quietly, for some reason.

Back at the Brown household, Cleveland is putting his biological son to bed. He tells him he’s lucky to have a dad and shares his plan to find Robert so Rallo can have a dad on Christmas too. They’re having a nice little conversation where Cleveland is showing genuine affection for his boy. Then he makes it weird by continually stroking his face and pointing out that his son went from being an eager and excited toddler to a fat kid who can’t play baseball worth a damn! He points out that Cleveland Jr. still writes letters to Santa Claus at 14 and is especially angry that he’s just laying back and taking this abuse from his own father. His mood then immediately brightens as he says, “Okay! Now I’m going to go find Rallo and Roberta’s dad!” Why? Why do we have to make Cleveland a horrible, emotionally abusive father like Peter? Why?

As Cleveland prepares to get in his car to go find Robert, Donna approaches to tell him that she doesn’t want him taking off to go find Robert on Christmas Eve. Cleveland challenges her to try and stop him so she hits him with a stun gun. Cleveland collapses to the ground and lets out a few farts as he passes out. We get a “30 Minutes Letter” title and Cleveland is shown stirring. Donna tells him to just buy Rallo’s love like a normal step dad, but Cleveland vows to get Rallo the only present that can restore his faith in Christmas: his father. Then his eyes widen and he says, “What the hell?” We pan to find the reindeer from earlier has climbed a ladder and is peeping on the neighbors. Inside, Timothy and Arianna are naked in bed getting intimate. Timothy doesn’t see the reindeer, but Arianna does. She locks eyes with the beast and licks her lips and growls softly at him clearly getting a charge out of this reindeer watching.

It’s time for a holiday montage! Cleveland needs to peruse the seedy underbelly of Stoolbend to find Robert while a crooner version of “Sleigh Ride” provides the soundtrack. It sounds like it’s Lou Rawls. His first stop is the morgue where a helpful fella dressed as an elf is happy to show him a corpse that might be Robert. Cleveland snaps a photo of it with his cell phone and sends it to Donna. We see her wake up and look at it while Cleveland uses the corpse like a marionette much to the amusement of the elf guy. When Donna apparently texts back that it’s not Robert, the mortuary worker angrily slams the corpse back into the…cooler?.. and Cleveland moves on.

His next stop is a place called Spanxxx Gentlemen’s Club where the “Gentlemen” is ironic. Before Cleveland can enter, the door swings open and a bouncer appears tossing out the reindeer. He lands in the street, spits on the ground, and moves on with his night. Cleveland has mostly no reaction. Inside, Cleveland shows a picture of Robert to one of the strippers who points out Robert about to duck into a private room with another woman. Cleveland holds out a bill as thanks and the woman’s thighs begin to shiver and so too does the bill. It jumps into her thong with the power of stripper Force! Cleveland just smiles uneasily and backs away.

Cleveland then enters the room Robert ducked into with the other stripper. Robert is most certainly not happy to see Cleveland here interrupting his lap dance. Cleveland gets the stripper to leave by telling her the Atlanta Falcons just entered. Cleveland tells Robert he wants to bring him home for Christmas to cheer up Rallo, but Robert isn’t interested. He points out how it could be worse and shares a story about Brian Wilson’s dad making him take a crap in a box under the Christmas tree. Cleveland is horrified to hear this, but unmoved. He tells Robert that he’s going to dress as Santa and deliver him to Rallo for Christmas and if he won’t do it then he isn’t worth the box that Brian Wilson may have dropped a little deuce coupe in! Terrific wordplay, Cleveland. I would guess the writers thought up a poop joke from “Little Deuce Coupe” and wrote backwards, but Brian Wilson did claim his dad made him shit on a plate as a form of abuse so it’s hard to say what truly inspired this joke. At any rate, Robert isn’t impressed and leaves. Another stripper pops her head out from behind the wall to tell Cleveland she thought what he had to say was very beautiful. He thanks her, then adds a “Murray Christmas, whore,” which is perhaps his most Peter Griffin line of the episode.

It’s Christmas morning at the Brown house and Rallo has just descended the stairs to find his siblings opening their stockings. Donna calls him over to open a present, but Rallo is clearly still depressed. He opens a gift to find the Slinky he asked Santa for, but he just remarks how it makes him think of the old Rallo who thought a new toy could cure anything. As Rallo hangs his head and walks away, Cleveland comes bursting through the door dressed as Santa! Cleveland Jr. runs up and gives him a hug crying out “Santa!” Cleveland just accepts the hug with a grimace while crying out “You’re 14 years old!” Santa then approaches Rallo to apologize for what he said. He pulls Rallo’s little tree out his sack and presents it to him, but that isn’t going to work on Rallo. He throws the tree into the fireplace where it burns in an instant!

Cleveland hangs his head in shame, but then another Santa shows up! Cleveland Jr. thinks a warlock has cursed Christmas, but it’s just Robert ripping off Cleveland. Rallo is confused at first, but then Robert removes his beard to reveal it’s him and Rallo runs to him with open arms. Robert scoops him up, calls him “Rollo” by mistake, and then tells him he received some good advice the night before about where he belonged today. Saying that he needs to “see his sperms on Christmas,” he turns to Roberta and asks, “What’s up, Rwanda?” She just says “Merry Christmas, dad,” but in an irritated manner and with her back turned towards him, but Robert doesn’t seem to care. He then tries to tell “Rocko” the truth, but because he’s a lying scumbag, he ends up telling Rallo he can’t come around and see him because he’s Santa Claus!

The rest of the family is shocked as Donna had even remarked that Cleveland appeared to get through to Robert, but clearly he did not. Rallo accepts this lie at face value. He then turns his attention to Cleveland as he hasn’t figured it out yet. He yanks off the beard and seems surprised to find Cleveland under there, but then not as he just adds, “Sorry ass wannabe trying to be as cool as my dad.” Cleveland Jr. sees his dad and asks him if he knew that Rallo and Roberta’s dad was the real Santa Claus? Cleveland looks like he’s about to get angry with his boy, but then his expression softens and he just strokes the kid’s cheek once more remarking “You’re a good boy.” Cleveland Jr. purrs like a cat in response.

Donna then confirms with Rallo if this all makes sense to him? He gives an enthusiastic, “Hell yeah! My dad is Santa Claus!” and the rest of the family can only just shrug. Cleveland then breaks into song with “Let It Snow.” The rest of the family joins in, and we soon leave the cozy confines of the Brown’s living room and head out into the front yard where the REAL Santa Claus (MacFarlane) is standing! He turns to the camera and says, “A black Santa Claus,” in a dismissive fashion. Seeming to take offense, the reindeer makes a final appearance to ram this racist Santa and knock him to the ground. Then he proceeds to rape him. Merry Christmas!

Wow, so I was not expecting that. I said as part of the intro that I viewed The Cleveland Show as being Family Guy with more heart. I was also expecting it to be a bit tamer, but this really wasn’t at all. We had suicide jokes, rape jokes, pedophilia, and Cleveland even seems to resent his own son in an unhealthy way. He may not be as bad a father as Peter Griffin, but I don’t think he’s a good one. He’s at least very invested in winning over his step son, Rallo, and making sure he has a good Christmas. He’s more than willing to play second fiddle to his real dad even if he looks down on the guy, though a moment of weakness at the party threatens to ruin Rallo’s Christmas. He’s definitely way more invested in Rallo than his own son or his step daughter. I’m guessing that’s fodder for later episodes. He’s not really a bumbling oaf with his heart in the right place. He’s actually pretty competent, and when he wants to be, that can make him intentionally abusive, so yeah, Cleveland: not a great guy.

And that’s fine, the show can be whatever it wants to be, but it means this Christmas episode is devoid of charm. It’s a comedy and the only way to get Rallo to have a merry Christmas is for his deadbeat dad to show up, lie, and make his step dad look worse for it. And the real Santa needs to scoff at black people playing him. At least with that last bit, Santa gets what’s coming to him via the reindeer. He’s basically the only person who gets any comeuppance for being shitty in this episode. Most of the other characters are just there to be a sounding board or get a line in. The reindeer stuff is a decent gag, though the episode definitely felt like it suffered some pacing issues. The plot is pretty simple and basically the whole scene at the mall felt like padding.

Did I enjoy this holiday themed episode of The Cleveland Show? It had its moments. I liked most of the first act and the general setup. I was fine with the resolution too. Most of the stuff in the middle was of little interest to me and the jokes didn’t land as well either. I definitely don’t need to see anymore jokes with Herbert, that one is overplayed. Overall though it was fine. A perfectly cromulent holiday episode that I probably liked more than most of the Family Guy ones, at least, but it’s definitely not on American Dad!‘s level. If you would like to catch this episode, or any other Christmas episode of The Cleveland Show (it had one each season), then the easiest way to do so is via Hulu or Disney+. The show was still airing in syndication when I had cable as recently as 2022, but I don’t know if that is still the case. Either way, it shouldn’t be too hard to find if you’re really committed to watching it.