Will there be a Cleveland Show plot on Family Guy?

J

Jahtego

New member
I am curious, will there be a Family Guy episode in the near future, in which Cleveland is the centered character and the characters from his spinoff will be featured, while the Griffens will be reduced to cameos in the beginning and end of the episode?

That has been a tradition many times in television, in which spinoff series will have an unoffical pilot on their parent show. For example, an episode of All In The Family in which I believe only Edith (maybe Archie appeared in the beginning, I don't remember) appeared in the beginning and in the end of the episode, and the rest of the episode is just the Jeffersons and the characters on the spinoff. Or an episode of Diff'rent Strokes in which the Drummands only appeared in the beginning and the end, while the rest of the episode was focused on Mrs. Garett and girls of Eastland Accedemy, which would become The Facts Of Life.

Also they have done it for spinoffs that never got series, personal I thought those episodes should be thrown out, if the spinoff doesn't make it to a series, than don't waste our time with an whole episodes around characters we won't see again.

Anyway will Family Guy do an unoffical Cleveland Show pilot for an episode of Family Guy? If they do, I want to see them parody or acknowlege past unoffical pilots. For example in the beginning the Griffens are watching that episode of All In The Family or Diff'rent Strokes that I previously mentioned.
 
i remember they did that with a married with children episode. it only feautured bud briefly and focused on steve returning as a dean at a school. he was supposed to be always causing trouble for a group of kids running a college radio show. it obviously never got picked up as a series but they would still air it with the married with children reruns.
 
The term you're looking for is backdoor pilot, and yeah, I'm hoping that they actually go to the trouble of writing Cleveland out of the series rather than just having him disappear.
 
Thank your for that term. I think it would be good if they did that, but acknowledge that they are doing. Like Peter saying in the beginning, "Yup this is one of backdoor pilots" and say something like he did in Not All Dogs Go To Heaven about it being a Meg episode.
 
Not as bad as the season 6 premere, which was a backdoor pilot for a short lived show that did get picked up (at least that is what I heard), Al appears very breifly in two scenes. I remember when I first saw the rerun, I thought my local syndication station had replaced Married With Children with another show.

They also did another one in season 10 which was a Friends parody.
 
Exactly. Quagmire is boring. Whereas Cleaveland, he pretty much steals every scene he's ever been in. Remember that time he...um...

...
 
His whole bathroom was destroyed as a result of Peter's wacky shenanigans while he was in the bathtub and then his tub fell and broke on his front lawn...four times.

But honestly, a show centered around Quagmire would be a horrible idea. You could only do so much with an ultra perverted character like him and a whole show centered around his perverted antics would be ridiculous. He's best left to being a supporting character in my opinion.

As for Cleveland, I too agree that he should be given a proper goodbye instead of disappearing with no word said.
 
Originally Posted by langden alger
i remember they did that with a married with children episode. it only feautured bud briefly and focused on steve returning as a dean at a school. he was supposed to be always causing trouble for a group of kids running a college radio show. it obviously never got picked up as a series but they would still air it with the married with children reruns.



You may be thinking about Top of the Heap, a spinoff of Married...with Children that focused on an old friend of Al's who was similar to him and his dumb teenage son (the pre-Friends Matt Le Blanc) living together in a low rent apartment. IIRC, that series did have a backdoor pilot that was a Married...with Children episode. After TotH failed to find an audience, FOX tried the idea again with another series titled Vinnie & Bobby. Matt LeBlanc was back as Vinne Verducci living in the same apartment as before, only this time, his dad had disappeared (what happened to him or where he went was never explained) and in his place was another dumb macho hunk, Bobby Grazzo. Both series also featured a young Joey Lauren Adams (pre-Chasing Amy) as a nubile but underaged nieghbor, Mona.
 
Don't forget about He-Man and She-Ra. That "Secrets of the Sword" Movie was what kicked off the She-Ra series, and there was an episode where Hordak was to watch Horde Prime was to take a two week vacation, and He-Man and She-Ra had to stop both Hordak and Skeletor from conquering the universe.
 
The problem with suggesting a rash of Family Guy spin offs is it's fairly an ensemble show. Alot of the characters come about to fill a basic, one note gag niche which in the wider cast of Family Guy is workable. How ever, take them away from that and you suddenly have a very flat character trying to hold up a show in a spotlight role.

With Cleaveland, I think the stated reason we got was a fairly tactless 'Fox wanted a Family Guy made for black people'. Ignoring that stupidity, Cleaveland is probably the best of Peter's friends to base a sitcom around because he's part wacky but also part grounded. Quagmire would just highlight the earlier stated problem- he's funny when he he shows up a few times each episode but trying to support an entire season of episodes by himself? Not unless you have a really low sense of humour. Quagmire works because he has other, more rounded characters to bounce off. Cleaveland, although fairly one note himself, has more to work with in shaping a spotlight spin off.
 


True, but Quagmire is also a bachelor, and FOX wouldn't be interested in an animated sitcom that's not about a dysfunctional family. Of course, it would be possible to give Quagmire a TV family, but then it would be a very different different Quagmire than the one we know from Family Guy.
 
Didn't they do this with Private Practice and Grey's Anatomy? Also, for another recent example, the final two episodes of Prison Break are actually a backdoor pilot for a spinoff about a women's prison, but Fox won't air the episodes because they have no interest in the spinoff.
 
I kinda thought about it, and it would be pretty random if someone mentioned that he left without any word, like how they had that short talk about Robot Chicken at the end of that Star Wars spoof episode.
 
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