Western Animation / The Cleveland Show

All spoilers for the first eleven seasons of Family Guy will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

"My name is Cleveland Brown, and I am proud to be...
Right back in my hometown, with my new family!
There’s old friends and new friends and even a bear
Through good times and bad times, it’s true love we share!
And so I found a place, where everyone will know...
My happy mustached face, this is THE CLEVELAND SHOW!" *giggle*

The Cleveland Show is a Family Guy Spin-Off starring bit character Cleveland Brown. The show follows Cleveland's new life in his hometown in Virginia as he remarries his old flame Donna and settles down to raise his own child, Cleveland Jr., now a morbidly obese, shy boy, and his two stepchildren, teenager Roberta and five-year-old Rallo.

It takes place in the same universe as Family Guy and the characters cross paths on occasion, but like American Dad!, the series gradually steps out of the shadow of its predecessors to find its own brand of humor, developing the title character as far more sympathetic than the other leads and using a more subtle comic style throughout.

The series was launched in September 2009 and was renewed for a second season before the first episode had even aired, supposedly due to positive reaction to a deliberately leaked pilot. However, it was cancelled after the fourth season finished airing in 2013, making it the first Seth MacFarlane-penned show that went down with no hope for a revival. The Brown-Tubbs family subsequently moved back to Quahog, Rhode Island and once again became characters on Family Guy.

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The Cleveland Show contains examples of:

A-F

• Abusive Parents: Pretty much the entire cast has abusive parents.
  • Cleveland's father Freight Train was (and still is) emotionally and physically abusive.
  • Donna's mother abandoned her at birth and left her to be raised by "Auntie Momma" (in reality her uncle Kevin in drag).
  • Tim had a massive falling out with his father, both because Tim hated living in the woods and moved to human society and because he took Arianna from him in a display of dominance.
  • Holt's father treats him like crap because of his height.
• Accidental Misnaming: In "A Cleveland Brown Christmas," Robert refers to Rallo as "Rolo" and "Rocko," and Roberta as "Rwanda."
• Acrofatic: Cleveland Junior can move pretty fast for a boy his size when he wants to.
• Adult Adoptee: In the episode "Hustle 'N' Bros", Cleveland's father adopts Donna's ex-husband Robert.
• Afro Asskicker: Donna as Hot Cocoa Bang Bang.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Cleveland's parents Cookie and "Freight Train". Even Donna shows this to some degree; in some episodes she seems to express some amount of dissatisfaction with the meek and passive Cleveland and pines for her neglectful ex-husband Robert.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Arguably the case with Tim the Bear. He's indicated at least a couple of times that he has a crush on Donna.
• Animation Bump: The Hip Hop Illuminati song in "Menace II Secret Society."
• Angry Collar Grab: In the pilot, Cleveland does this to Federline when telling him not to try anything strange with Roberta on their date.
• Ascended Extra: Dr. Fist, who went from being a minor character voiced by Seth MacFarlane (and later Tom Kenny, when Seth was busy with the movie Ted) before getting a full episode dedicated to him late in the 4th season, during which he was voiced by Bryan Cranston. After which, he became a main member of Cleveland's drinking buddies, still voiced by Cranston.
• As the Good Book Says...: Invoked by Rallo, though it promptly backfires.
  Rallo: Doesn't the Bible teach us about forgiveness?
  Lester: And vengeance.
  Rallo: And doesn't it say about loving thy neighbour?
  Lester: And killing sodomites.
• Author Filibuster: Subverted. Cleveland takes time out of the episode to complain about what's wrong with America today, but it turns out that it's just a set up for another gag, and that Cleveland was merely reciting lines from a play.
• Awesome McCoolName: Cleveland's father.
  Holt: Cool nickname. Why do they call you Freight Train?
  Freight Train: 'cause I destroyed your mama on the train tracks.
• Ax-Crazy: Donnie.
• Bankruptcy Barrel: Happens to Cleveland, Freight Train, and Rollo at the end of "The Way The Cookie Crumbles".
• Bears Are Bad News: Averted with Tim the Bear. Yes, he does growl and threaten to claw and maul people, but really, he's more human than bear (not on the same level as Brian acting more human than dog on Family Guy, but pretty close). And the episode "Like a Boss" reveals that he moved into a house because he's afraid of living in the woods.
  • He has attacked a handful of people, most notably Lester when the gang briefly got into a fight, and severely injured him.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Cleveland's once fat (now hot) high school classmate was still obsessed with him.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Cleveland Junior is constantly proving that you should heed this.
• Big Eater:
  • Tim, being a bear. In one episode, he gorges himself at a huge buffet and still wants more.
    Tim: "All you can eat" my furry ass!
  • Also Cleveland Jr. and Kendra, Lester's morbidly obese wife.
• Big Damn Movie: Parodied with a cold-open trailer that seems to be a mix of every action movie from the 1980s to now ever made.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: The Tubbs-Brown siblings: Junior (big), Roberta (thin), and Rallo (short).
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Arianna.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: In "Love Rollercoaster", Cleveland Jr. and Roberta (disguised as a fat girl) have trouble perfecting Junior's science-fair rocket:
  Cleveland Jr.: Another failed launch. I'm starting to feel like whoever's in charge of Fox's live-action sitcoms.
  • In "Frapp Attack", Rallo brags about how many views on Youtube his video making fun of Cleveland has gotten. Cleveland complains, "Why couldn't this have been on the Fox homepage? Then, no one would've seen it."
  • In "American Prankster", when a judge demands Rallo be put in juvenile detention for 6 months, Donna says, "My baby is going away for six months! Oh, Rallo, when you come back you won't recognize any live-action shows on Fox."
  • Done and subverted in "Mama Drama" when Cleveland calls himself "The Finder". It gets pointed out that that's already the name of a show on Fox, and Cleveland says The Finder can't find any decent ratings. He then immediately apologizes and begs not to be cancelled, promising he's a company man.
• Black and Nerdy: Cleveland Junior, who is nerdy even by white people standards.
• Black Comedy Rape: The final scene of "A Cleveland Brown Christmas".
• Black Gal on White Guy Drama: Roberta dates Federline, a white man who acts black. Rallo (during a black supremacist phase) asks his sister why she's going out with a white guy, she answers with "Do I look like a white girl? Or an Asian girl, or a..."
• Blatant Lies: "I fought off six Al Qaedas."
• Blended Family Drama: The show is partially about learning to live in a blended family — specifically one formed by Cleveland, his old flame Donna, his biological son Cleveland Jr., and his stepchildren Roberta and Rallo, with whom he doesn't quite get along.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Rallo
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Roberta.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: In "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Roberta?", a Cutaway Gag has Jackie Earle Haley try to pick up chicks by saying he's been in the movies Little Children, Watchmen, and the remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street. He then adds, "I played the child molester, the serial killer, and the serial killing child molester."
• Break the Haughty: In "Pins, Spins, & Fins!", Donna takes Rallo bowling, and at the behest of one of the employees, she lets Rallo bowl with gutter rails up, so he never throws a gutterball. Rallo throws several strikes thanks to the rails keeping his throws from going into the gutter, and it quickly goes to his head. He brags about how good he is and harshly insults Donna's bowling ability... until she gets sick of it and takes the rails down in the middle of one of his rolls. The gutterball he throws brings him back down to Earth and then some.
• Brick Joke: In the beginning of the episode "Ladies Night", Arianna offhandedly comments about how she likes confetti so much that she actually keeps some in her house to take with her to parades and such. At the end of the episode, after Cleveland Jr. wins the election for student body president, Arianna shows up to collect confetti from the auditorium floor.
• Broken Aesop: The moral of the episode, "The Hurricane," was suggested to be the importance of keeping an open mind and respecting the view points of others. The problem is that the one who learned the lesson (Cleveland Junior) was the one being persecuted by the rest of his family for not believing in God like the rest of them. In fact the only time he does actually mock their beliefs is towards the episode's end and only after being threatened with damnation if he didn't change his views and even being blamed for Cleveland being stuck under a collapsed tree as punishment by God for Junior's atheism. And of course since Seth Macfarlane has a tendency to use his shows as a soapbox for his own views, the rest of the Family is depicted as being morons for having faith. Especially towards the end when Junior uses a system of pulleys to free Cleveland and the rest of them instead credit it to God answering their prayers.
  • "Grave Danger" has Rallo dealing with three bullies harassing him and his friends at the kindergarten. While it is setup for the bullies to learn their lesson by stop bullying others, the children there call them names about their social standing, forcing Rallo to call his friends out on their behavior to the bullies, who then receive gifts from the others to earn sympathy. The bullying issue is entirely dropped out as they leave happily with their new stuff and Rallo's kiddie bike before Rallo calls the police to arrest them since he can't forget they were annoying.
• Bus Crash: Loretta, who had not had any speaking lines since Family Guy's fourth season (with the exception of one episode), is killed in a cutaway.
• The Cameo: In "Hot Cocoa Bang Bang" Jeff "Comic Book Guy" Albertson makes a speaking cameo, voiced by Hank Azaria.
  Comic Book Guy: Worst. Cameo. Ever.
• Celebrity Casualty: Julia Roberts briefly shows up at the end of "Cleveland Live" just to be crushed under a falling stage light.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • When Donna is surprised by a turn of events, she often shouts "Sweet [X] and [something that rhymes with X]!"
  • If Roberta is within earshot of someone mentioning pancakes, she'll pop into the scene and exclaim "Did somebody say pancakes?!"
  • Cleveland tends to try justifying things he does by telling Donna "Ain't nothin' but somethin' to do."
• Characterization Marches On:
  • Tim the Bear was devoutly religious in the early episodes, and he was a smoker but kept it a secret from his wife. The smoking part was dropped after the pilot episode.
  • Donna started out being nicer and Happily Married to Cleveland. She eventually Took A Level In Jerk Ass as the show progressed, and she and Cleveland constantly bicker.
• Chekhov's Skill: Combined with a Brick Joke. At the beginning of one episode, Cleveland Jr. slowly rolls into the scene, explaining that he's practicing what he would do if he were on fire. This looks like usual Cleveland Jr. weirdness until a house he is in catches fire at the end.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Cleveland and Donna. They were best friends when they were in school, but eventually, Cleveland began to develop feelings for her- feelings that went unreciprocated, as Donna fell in love with Robert Tubbs instead. Once Cleveland returned to Stoolbend, he reunited with Donna (who had divorced Robert), and their friendship was rekindled and blossomed into a romance.
• Christmas Episode:
  • "A Cleveland Brown Christmas" (Season 1): While playing Santa at the Waterman Cable Christmas party, Cleveland shatters Rallo's faith in his dad. To save the holiday for him, Cleveland tries to find Robert and repair the father/son relationship.
  • "Murray Christmas" (Season 2): Rallo befriends Murray, an elderly man in a retirement community. Meanwhile, Donna trains Cleveland to face Freight Train in the Brown version of Boxing Day, only for Freight Train to wind up hospitalized.
  • "Die Semi-Hard" (Season 3): Cleveland tells the family the story of Die Hard.
  • "'Tis the Cleveland to Be Sorry" (Season 4): Rather than volunteer at a shelter, Cleveland pretends to be homeless to get some quality food, is exposed on the news, and has to salvage his image. Meanwhile, Roberta tries to help Kendra fulfill her dream of being a Mall Santa.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Cleveland's best friend Terry had his screen time significantly drop only AFTER he was finally given a trait that sets him apart from the other friends (he's a bisexual). He eventually disappeared altogether only to be replaced by Dr. Fist (who was now voiced by Bryan Cranston rather than Seth MacFarlane — and, on one occasion, Tom Kenny).
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Cleveland Jr.
• Comically Missing the Point: Lester Krinklesac doesn't realize the historical significance of the Confederate Flag, instead thinking it to be a tribute to The Dukes of Hazzard.
• Constructive Body Disposal: One episode has a Cutaway Gag that shows what Bob the Builder is like before his morning coffee; he kills a guy that makes him angry with a hammer and hides his body by covering it with concrete and building a house over it.
• Continuity Nod: Meg makes a cameo and continues to be the Butt-Monkey during the opening credits for the first Christmas Episode.
• Control Freak: Principal Farquhare
• Cool and Unusual Punishment:
  • Rallo gets an elaborate one for his pranks.
  • Cleveland and Lester's lawsuit was settled this way.
• Cringe Comedy: Despite the humor being a little lighter than what you find on Family Guy and American Dad!, this show is still more messed up and cringe-worthy than Seth McFarlane's other shows.
• Crossover:
  • The first third of the pilot is a crossover with originating show Family Guy (in fact, it's exactly like a regular Family Guy episode), where it's explained why Cleveland's leaving Quahog (his divorce with Loretta was finalized and she got the house, and he was tired of always being the Butt-Monkey in Peter's jokes/schemes/insanity).
  • Peter makes a guest appearance in season 3's "BFFs".
• Cross-Referenced Titles: "To Live and Die in VA" recalls the episode "To Live and Die in Dixie" from the third season of Family Guy.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Cleveland Jr., the badass part showing more and more often as of late.
• Crowd Song: "Small Ass Town (Big Ass Hearts)" from the episode, "The Blue, The Gray, and The Brown".
• Cut Short: The final episode of Season 4 set up a plot thread about Dee Dee and Robert getting married and raising a Chinese baby named Hong Kong Phooey but the show got canceled so the story never came to be.
• Cutaway Gag: Just like Family Guy, the show uses this, though not in excess.
• Dawson Casting: Done and mocked in the episode "Little Man On Campus", when Cleveland has the 32 year old Holt pretend to be a transfer high school student named Colt because Cleveland needed a new pitcher for the baseball team. The other teens comment on this.
  Teen Girl #1:Wow, Colt, you're such a good baseball player.
  Teen Girl #2:And you're so mature with your five 'o clock shadow, and your crow's feet, and your graying nose hairs..."
  Teen Girl #3:Yeah, you look just like the teenagers on TV!
• Deadpan Snarker: Cleveland's mother Cookie, to anyone who isn't her son or grandchildren. Especially Donna.
• Deep South: The show takes place in the fictional town of Stoolbend, Virginia, and one of Cleveland's neighbors seems to be an out-and-out racist.
• Demoted to Extra: Roberta was demoted to this a little into the first season, having very little screen time and even less dialog. She is also currently the only member of Cleveland's new family that hasn't met the Griffins. However this was mainly due to her voice actress being put on maternity leave.
  • Donna meets the Griffins when she and Cleveland have extended cameos in a Family Guy episode in 2011.
  • It would have been commendable of the show to reveal that Cleveland's womanizing best friend Terry is bisexual and in a relationship with a man voiced by Justin Timberlake (the same one who was in **NSYNC and is one of Saturday Night Live's most memorable and frequent hosts)... if it weren't for the fact that Terry was demoted immediately afterwards. To add insult to injury, Terry was eventually replaced by Dr. Fist (who wasn't all that memorable or great) in later episodes.
• Deus ex Machina: Whenever any characters find themselves heading toward an Inevitable Waterfall, the scene will cut off (a la a hastily-edited movie) and then cut back to them thanking the magical talking walrus Mr. Flippers for somehow saving them.
• Devoted to You: Cleveland to Donna. Once even lampshaded by Donna. Even Cleveland's comic dream was for her.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: In "Til Deaf", Cleveland asks to be played out, and Donna uses a oboe to play the opening theme.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Donny in "Nightmare On Grace Street". Because Cleveland mocked his bee costume and his puns, he tries to kill Cleveland and his family!
• Distracted by the Sexy: Lester, Holt and Tim by Roberta in a skimpy bikini in the season two episode "Fat And Wet".
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Averted and played straight simultaneously. One episode involves Cleveland trying to find a girlfriend for Holt. He succeeds, but it's not long before he and his friends discover that she's been physically abusive to him. When they go to confront her about this, she responds by beating the crap out of each of them (even Tim the bear). None of them fight back because they Wouldn't Hit a Girl. Predictably, this is to set up a Designated Girl Fight with Donna near the end of the episode.
  • Donna has hit Cleveland on more than one occasion, and it's always Played for Laughs.
• Double Entendre:
  • Cleveland unintentionally does one when he tries to get someone to play with Cleveland Jr. He ends up getting busted for soliciting sex from a minor.
  • For a nonsexual example, in "My Gang" Cleveland gets the task of changing some troublemakers from Stoolbend High to good kids. He wants to do this by making them sell a product, and pitches that they sell cookies - though the way he describes the business strategy sounds suspiciously like selling drugs which the kids notice and do. Hilarity Ensues.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: "Essence of Cleveland", the formerly fat Patty drugs Cleveland then steals a sample of his "essence," planning to impregnate herself with it. While Cleveland is understandably squicked by this, Donna blames Cleveland for it because she told him not to see the woman. The whole situation is, as always, played for laughs.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Holt's father. Shows constant contempt for his son who was not the required height to join the army. He ends forcing the entire cast to do push ups.
• Dumb Jock: Oliver. He talks and sounds like an idiot, although his deafness compensates for that.
• Enhance Button: Done on Junior's laptop with a YouTube video no less.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Kenny West's ego is to big even for The Hip-Hop Illuminati.
• The Every Man: This was pretty much Cleveland's role on Family Guy as well, considering how disturbing Peter, Quagmire and even Joe acted at times.
• Expy: A bit here and there, but actually averted to some degree.
  • While (for example) Rallo fills much the same role as Stewie (toddler-aged child prone to un-childlike behavior), but Rallo isn't a matricidal Depraved Bisexual bent on world domination.
  • Roberta is a stand-in for Hayley on American Dad!; though, unlike Hayley, Roberta doesn't care about politics (though she did stand up for animal rights and sexual harassment in the workplace on two separate occasions), is still in high school, and isn't Hollywood Homely. However, she followed Hayley's footsteps in terms of getting less screentime as the series went on.
  • Brian has some similarities to Tim, both tending to be the voices of reason in their respective shows, both being talking animals (a dog and a bear respectively), and both voiced by MacFarlane. However Tim the Bear has proven he's not like Brian at all in personality. Tim is actually aware that he's a bear and acts like a bear on occasion (compare to the later episodes of Family Guy where Brian's FurryReminders of being a dog are very few and far between), he's a devout Christian (but not to the point where he would be The Fundamentalist), the voice Seth MacFarlane did for Tim is very distinct from Brian, Tim doesn't live with Cleveland, and Tim actually has clothes on (even if it's just a shirt with no pants).
  • Cleveland Jr., who was originally a thin, smart, hyperactive kid in Family Guy, has become a physical duplicate of Chris. Their intelligence levels and personalities are pretty different though. He also bears similarities to American Dad!'s Barry Robinson, being a heavyset teenager who's outwardly wholesome and innocent but sometimes exhibits darker, disturbing personality traits.
  • Side character Kenny West is not the same person as Kanye West (who actually provides the voice). He just sounds like him, looks like him, lives the same lifestyle, is exactly as famous for doing exactly the same thing, and once accidentally called himself Kanye.
  • Holt Richter, who is very similar to Quagmire, in that he's a sex hound and is the only member in Cleveland's circle of friends who is not married (until Terry and Dr. Fist come along).
  • Federline, to a certain extent, is pretty much a stand-in for American Dad!'s Jeff Fischer. They even wear similar hats.
• Fake Pregnancy: In the episode "A Vas Deferens Between Men And Women", Donna and Cleveland decide to have a baby. However, Cleveland eventually discovers he had a vasectomy while drunk a while back, but can't break the news to Donna. Donna eventually finds out and pretends to be pregnant to mess with him. She won't admit to lying until he admits to lying about the vasectomy; Cleveland finds out and won't give in until Donna admits she's not pregnant, and the two basically spend nine months carrying on a battle of wills.
• Fan Disservice: Donna without her make-up, padding, wig or false teeth. And no, it's not just a one-time gag. It's canon.
• Fanservice:
  • If you had a liking for Terry, then you'll love the episode "Brotherly Love".
  • Roberta's no slouch in this department either, and sometimes she even does it intentionally. Two good example are the episodes "Fat And Wet" & "To Live And Die In VA" which have Roberta in a bikini in the former and dressed as Slave Leia in the latter.
• Fiery Redhead: Arianna.
• First-Episode Twist: If you've watched any episode other than the pilot, you already know that Cleveland marries Donna and adopts Roberta and Rallo, ditching his plans to move to California. Of course, when you do watch the pilot, you'll have this spoiled by the episode itself in the first few minutes when they play the Expository Theme Tune: "Right back in my hometown / with my new family (gestures at Donna and the kids)"!
• Flirty Stepsiblings: Cleveland Jr. has a crush on "Tyra", who is actually Roberta in a fat-suit.
• Flushing Toilet, Screaming Shower: Rallo does this to Cleveland in "American Prankster".
• Forgot I Could Fly: Averted. Tim remembers he's a bear and nonchalantly threatens to tear Donna to bits if she doesn't stop faking having broken legs and using it to exploit Cleveland around the house.
• Furry Confusion: Tim (An anthropomorphic bear) had apparently been donating money to "Fight bear AIDS", for it to go to a cutaway gag of a badly mauled scientist coming out of his lab and another asking if he got the condom on a (Probably) normal bear.
• Furry Reminder: In "Beer Walk" after Donna threatens the guys not to reveal she's faking her double leg break, Tim goes back over and tells her he just remembered. He's a bear. She has no ability to act on her threats because he could easily kill her and won't even go to jail over it, because again. He's an animal. Not a person. So he threatens her right back to tell her husband the truth before growling at her.

G-N

• Gasshole: Auntie Momma, who is outrageous. Cleveland also temporarily becomes this after Donna puts him on a high-fiber diet.
• Gassy Gastronomy: "Gone with the Wind" sees Cleveland with flatulence issues that are so bad that when he tries to turn on a fan to clean up a fart cloud he produced from a house, it turns into a mini-tornado which wreaks havoc. His doctor eventually confirms that this is normal for a high-fibre diet, which he had been forced on at the beginning of the episode by Donna.
• Gay Romantic Phase: In one episode, Cleveland calls "lesbianism at women's college" a phase, which is presented as a sketch of a graduation at which all the girls (in the front row, at least) turn to each other and say "We Need To Talk.".
• Genius Ditz: In one episode Cleveland Jr. is able to create a suit of power armor complete with a shoulder-mounted gatling gun out of nothing but pots and pans.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: Cleveland's last wish before leaving is to watch Lois and Bonnie make out.
• Golden Snitch: In Coolympics, the last round determined everything. Subverted because Cleveland (who was losing) lost it too, and lost the whole game.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: Cleveland's angel/devil are played by Hall and Oates.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Tim the Bear wears no pants which was lampshaded in the episode "Once Upon a Tyne in NYC"

  Cleveland: Cartoon bears NEVER wear pants!

  • Also used in two jokes where Tim is sitting a strip club. He mentions that being in one is (pause) awkward since he wears no pants when Cleveland asks him why he's sitting all alone. Of course, this ties into the follow up joke where Tim gets up to give Cleveland a hug.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Hinted at being so for Kendra before whatever happened to make her gain the weight. Other characters refuse to let her reveal much information of this, however.
• Halloween Episode:
  • "It's the Great Pancake, Cleveland Brown" (Season 2): Cleveland Jr.'s attempt to enjoy Halloween like he always has ends with him being horribly humiliated and contemplating changing his approach to life.
  • "Nightmare on Grace Street" (Season 3): Cleveland and Rallo keep trying to prove which one of them is braver, leading to Donna to send them to a creepy house to teach them a lesson.
  • "Escape from Goochland" (Season 4): On Halloween night, Cleveland and friends try to enjoy a game, but Federline accidentally gets them in hot water with their Goochland rivals. Meanwhile, Donna won't let Roberta wear a hooker costume, so Roberta retaliates by dressing as her and committing pranks all over town (with Cleveland Jr. dressed as Cleveland in tow).
• Happy Holidays Dress: Kendra wears a Happy Holidays Cape in the first Christmas episode.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: The escort who helped cash Junior and Rallo's Vegas winnings. She could have easily stolen the money, but she didn't.
• Hypocritical Humor: The show is riddled with this style of comedy.
• Idiot Savant: Junior.
• Instant Web Hit: Rallo and Jr. make a YouTube video of Cleveland having his frappaccino thrown in his face. "Frappe Attack" ended up getting over 500,000 hits in 20 minutes.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Rallo and Murray.
• Irrational Hatred: Cleveland and Choni, though it's not because of racism.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Rallo, after an episode of trying to supplant Cleveland out of the matrimonial bed.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Kendra
• Ink-Suit Actor: David Lynch as Gus, the bartender.
• Jerkass: Cleveland's father. He tried to stab his son and frequently verbally abuses his wife.
  • Donna has also started playing the role of this trope midway through the first season, from beating Cleveland up to shooting him in the foot.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Rallo.
  • Despite his more abrasive and egotistical habits than before, Cleveland is still rather well intentioned and benevolent.
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Cleveland and Cleveland Jr. respectively. Highlighted in the episode, "Field of Streams", where Cleveland (who was p a star athlete in high-school) wants his son, Cleveland Jr., to join the baseball team and carry his legacy but the latter is more invested in joining the Math Club.
• KidAnova: Rallo.
• Killed Off for Real: Loretta and Lydia Waterman
• Lampshade Hanging: Quite common. For example, in the episode where Roberta disguises herself as Tyra in a fat suit to learn a lesson about getting by on other qualities than your looks, Cleveland, upon discovering this, remarks "What the hell kind of comedy high school do you go to anyway?"
  • Of course, then a Teen Wolf walks right past the two of them.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: The Man Running the booth in "Ain't Nothin' but Mutton Bustin'" Has lawyer friendly duplicates of characters for doll prizes. "SPIDER BUDDY!" "BRAT SIMPSON!" and "Family Dude's "STEVIE!" Not to mention Gengar (Pokémon) Dolls in the other booth.Click to see a picture◊.
  • They didn't even need to evoke this trope in Family Guy's case (same franchise), and arguably, The Simpsons as well, since that show does air on Fox and a Family Guy episode has shown Homer's famous "D'oh!" without consequence.
    • Also, one episode included Hank Azaria voicing one of his The Simpsons characters, Comic Book Guy, who you would expect to see at San Diego Comic Con.
• Lighter and Softer: Compared to Family Guy and American Dad!, this show isn't as brutal or offensive, but it does have all the humor and character hallmarks of a Seth MacFarlane show.
• Limited Wardrobe: Lampshaded in "Skip Day", when Cleveland makes out a will, he plans on giving Roberta his collection of 365 yellow shirts.
• Live Episode: Obviously not really live, but a parody of one where everything goes spectacularly wrong.
  • And with TWO Rallos in the final Breaking the Fourth Wall scene, implying that the Animated Actors were Making Use of the Twin.
• Low-Speed Chase: In an episode set in New York, Cleveland orders a taxi driver to chase after another taxi driver. However, being New York, there's so much traffic that Cleveland could have caught up to the driver by walking.
• May–December Romance: Both Robert and Dee Dee, and Roberta and Walt in the season 4 finale.
• Medium Awareness: Right from the pilot, when Stewie complained that Cleveland was getting a spinoff.
  "What the hell? He's getting his own show?!"
  • In "Once Upon a Tyne in NYC", Cleveland refers to Tim as a 'cartoon bear'.
  • In the Christmas Episode: "Of course I worked it out! It's my damn show!"
  • In the Thanksgiving Episode:
    Donna: "Cleveland, we're not Jewish."
    Cleveland: (looks at camera) "No, but my writers are."
  • The third season premiere has a couple examples. When Cleveland visits the Griffin house, Stewie asks if his show had been cancelled. In the end, after stopping the rednecks, Peter pointed out that they would've showed the rape on his show and then did a song about it. Cleveland adds that in that case he would've "just been the black guy."
  • In one episode Cleveland goes into the basement and finds the writers and animators working on that very show. In a nod to the Daffy Duck cartoon "Duck Amuck", one animator briefly gives Cleveland a tail. Amusingly, an animated Mike Henry can be seen in the background recording the very lines Cleveland's currently speaking.
  • In one episode Lester asks Cleveland if he ever felt the world would be better off without him. Cut to a parody of the opening credits with Quagmire singing in Cleveland's place "My name is Glenn Quag-mire/And I say gig-it-tee..."
    Cleveland: (very seriously) "No...the world needs me."
• Missing Mom: Donna's mother, Dee Dee Tubbs. she was a singer in a 60s girl group who gave birth to Donna at 19. Wanting to maintain her singing career, she gave Donna to her brother Kevin, aka Auntie Momma.
• Mistaken for Dying: In "The Brown Knight", Rollo thinks Roberta is dying by bleeding to death because he doesn't understand what a woman's period is.
• Mistaken for Toilet: The episode "American Prankster" has Rallo pulling pranks on people all over Stoolbend, one of them being disguising rooms like electrical rooms and stairwells as bathrooms. Cleveland ends up falling for it twice.
• Monster in the Moat: In "Escape From Goochland", the fight between Cleveland and Chet Butler leads to the bridge over Stoolbend's riverway, that in addition to being severely polluted, as Goochland's propaganda says, also houses a giant tentacled fish-like monster that eats Chet when he tries to kill Cleveland Jr. Cleveland offhandedly mentions that nobody knows what said monster even is.
• Mouthing the Profanity: In "BFFs", Peter Griffin clearly mouths the word "fuck" while in the car being confronted by Cleveland.
• Ms. Fanservice: Unlike Family Guy and American Dad!, pretty much every female character between the ages of 15 and 50 is drawn with a shapely, plump ass, and if a male character is drooling over a female, they're likely to mention this as the reason.
• My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: Happens to Cleveland in "Das Shrimp Boot", as he imagines himself rapidly aging from embryo to death all while clips of past episodes play in the background.
• Mysterious Past: Kendra, apparently. She has started a few flashbacks about her past life, which looks quite glamorous (at one point she was married to a nobleman), but before she can elaborate someone always tells her to shut up.
• Mythology Gag: Aside from just references, crossovers, and cameos from the show's root series, there are a lot of subtle continuations of the original show's lore and running gags in The Cleveland Show.
  • Several episodes continue Cleveland's Bathtub Gag as though the jokes were still happening on the original series.
  • Junior Has a Cleveland R2-D2 toy in his room.
  • In "The Cleveland Junior Cherry Bomb", Cleveland uses the term "Cleveland Steamer" to describe himself and then tells Federline to take a shit on him. This continues a running gag from Family Guy, which invented the term "Cleveland Steamer" to describe this sexual act.
  • In "Harder, Better, Faster, Browner", Rallo takes his girlfriend to a Cheesy Charlie's. Their Quahog location was supposed to host Stewie's first birthday party, but Peter canceled.
• Negative Continuity: Often Lampshaded for comedy.
  • Rallo ended up getting killed off screen in a couple episodes. In one episode he ends up bleeding out from his own injuries while all of Stoolbend was getting into a rumble with a nearby town, and shows up as a ghost at the end. He says that things will be back to normal in the next episode. He's also told not to run with scissors, but as soon as he does, he ends up cutting his head off, walks back into the shot with him holding his head, and casually asks for assistance.
  • In "Brown History Month" it was implied Lester and Kendra are related, but in "To Live and Die in VA" the very next season, it was revealed Kendra was a guidance counselor in Lester's school and she made him drop out so they could be together.
• Nerds Are Virgins:
  • When Jr. swore to remain a virgin until marriage, Cleveland tried to scare him straight by taking him to a sci-fi convention. It backfired when Cleveland bough a ton of Worf merchandise. According to a DVD Commentary, that episode was actually shown at a comic-con, and when Cleveland talked about where virginity would lead, and it cut to the convention hall, the audience was laughing so hard, they couldn't hear the rest of the scene.
  • Principal Farthquar was described to be a "virgin principal."
• Nerds Speak Klingon: In "Love Rollercoaster", when a trio of nerds mock Junior's model rocket entry in the Science Fair, he asks them what their entry is. The lead nerd tells him that they "translated Monty Python and the Holy Grail into Klingon, and were going to do a Stop Motion Shotfor Shot Remake using vintage, new-in-box, eight-inch, Mego DC Comics "action figures", combining a lot nerd stereotypes into one.
  Trio: (High five each other) Nerds!
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Federline Jones, Roberta's boyfriend, is quite similar to Kevin Federline. LeVar "Freight Train" Brown is clearly based on NFL Hall of famer Jim Brown. There is also Uncle Kevin/Auntie Momma, who is quite obviously an expy for Tyler Perry's alternate persona Madea.
• No Communities Were Harmed: Stoolbend is based heavily on Richmond, Virginia, where Mike Henry (the voice actor for Cleveland and co-creator of the show) grew up. During the opening theme, especially, many of the scenes are literally cartoon versions of parts of Richmond.
  • This parallels the way Family Guy's Quahog, Rhode Island, is based on Providence, where Seth MacFarlane went to college.
  • American Dad! also takes place in Virginia, but in the eastern part of the state which is much more affluent and "northern" due to its proximity to Washington, D.C.. So we get two related shows portraying the same state in very different ways.
• Noodle Incident: "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Roberta?" ends with Cleveland asking how Cleveland, Jr. (who is naked) got a Caesarian section scar. We never find out why, not even in later episodes.
  • In "Birth of a Salesman," one of Cleveland's stories to Mr. Waterman was about why Terry was called "The Wet Banana." We never find out why, but it might have to do with his days on the high school swim club.
• No Periods, Period: Averted with Roberta which Rallo finds this out the hard way. It then leads to a Mistaken for Dying plot until Donna explains to Rallo that women are supposed to do that.
• Not Really a Birth Scene: Junior accidentally drinks a glass of water containing Rallo's pet goldfish, swallowing it whole. The two expect him to eventually "pass" it without incident and spend the next few days acting like he's pregnant. When he actually goes to the bathroom, predictably the fish is metaphorically stillborn.
• N-Word Privileges:
  • When rescuing Lester from an angry mob of black people in Harlem, who were using him as a pinata because he referred to one of them as "that word you [Cleveland] call Rallo all the time", Cleveland says that white guys with at least one black friend get one free use of the N-word (which was a bluff, but it did save Lester's neck).
  • When Rallo fell down the stairs, he accuses Cleveland of calling him "the N-word," with Cleveland saying, "What? I'm allowed to say it. Right?"
  • In "Pins, Spins, & Fins!", Cleveland calls Lester a "crumb bum." Lester angrily retorts "Only my people can use that word!"

O-Z

• Obfuscating Disability: In "Beer Walk", after Donna broke her leg, Cleveland had to do all of her chores. However, since Donna finally has her husband do some work, she fakes her injury after she's healed. It took a Batman Gambit to snap her out of it.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: One of the show's recurring gags is Cleveland trying to figure out if Junior is doing this.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Cookie to Donna.
• An Odd Place to Sleep: Gus sleeps in a crypt. Given that he's voiced by David Lynch, this could be a play on how dark and weird David Lynch is said to be.
• Older Than They Look: Kendra. During one of her flashbacks she talks about being a twenty-something in 1962. When Cleveland questions how old she is, she smugly says "Fat don't crack!"
• Old Shame: In universe example; "Hot Cocoa Bang-Bang" (a 1970s blaxploitation film that Donna starred in) is apparently this to Donna.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Cleveland attempts to pay a young boy to play with Cleveland Jr. in the car. He gets arrested for attempting to solicit sex from a minor.
  Cleveland: Hey, sport. I got a proposition for you. My name's Cleveland. How'd you like to play with Cleveland Jr?
  Boy: What?
  Cleveland: Oh, you'll love him. He's a little chubby but he's always up for a good time. A lot of other kids have jerked him around, but I can tell you're the kind of guy who would treat him right. Don't get me wrong... he's a handful, but a nice handful. Look, I'll be honest with you. I'm tired of playing with him. You wanna see him? Come over by the car and I'll let you have a look. I'll give you 30 bucks right now if you'll play with him in the car.
• Orwellian Retcon: Between this promo and the actual show, the last line of the theme song went from "My happy black guy face" to "My happy mustached face", likely because of unintentionally invoking the term Blackface.
• Out of Character: When Terry is revealed to be gay. He's not sure himself, but Paul claims he is. Terry is the polar opposite of his former self — caring, not a sexual deviant... You can see his relations with those women as him showing off, but the sudden change is jarring as hell.
• Out of Focus: Roberta, who seems to be following in the footsteps of Meg and Hayley in terms of screen time. Lampshaded on the "Cleveland Show Live" episode in which a drunken Roberta crashes the performance several times after her debate team B-story was cut.
  • Still in full force by the end of season 2. You could make the argument that Meg or Hayley have more screentime in half a season than Roberta has had throughout the entire series so far.
  • Lampshaded again at the end of "Ain't Nothin' But Mutton Bustin". After the plot, which revolved mainly around Rallo and Junior going missing, is resolved, and Cleveland remarks how glad he is that all of his kids are home, Roberta walks in for her first appearance all episode.
    Cleveland: Oh yeah, I have three kids...
• Painting the Medium: The first act of the pilot takes place in Quahog, where everything is fullscreen. The rest of the Cleveland show takes place in Stoolbend, where everything is widescreen.
  • In Our Gang, Cleveland is told by the leader of the Stoolbloods that if he doesn't get the cocaine, he'll kill Cleveland Jr. in ten minutes. Guess how much running time is left.
    • A commercial break later, everyone took two off-screen minutes to go to the bathroom.
• Parents as People: A rare case for a Seth Mcfarlene show, Cleveland and Donna for the large part remain flawed but sympathetic parents till the show's end. They do try to raise their kids well, and even accept their step kids as their own, just their childish eccentricities and blunt arrogance in directing their lives make things very dysfunctional. When they realise their mistakes they do almost always repent and make things up to their kids. Naturally the odd bit of Comedic Sociopathy seeps through however.
• Parody Episode: The episode "Die Semi-Hard" is a parody of the first Die Hard movie with Cleveland in the John McClane role and the regular and supporting cast of the show filling out the rest.
• Passing Judgment: Arianna the Bear does this to Donna all the time, criticizing everything about how she runs her life. In "Ladies' Night", it's mentioned that before marrying Cleveland, she didn't even allow Donna into her house, because she doesn't like single mothers.
• Pest Episode: Donna finds a rat in the house and leaves with the kids to stay with her mother. Cleveland develops an attachment to the rat but it has rabies.
• Pillow Pregnancy: In "A Vas Deferens Between Men And Women", Donna tries to pretend to be pregnant all the way to pretending she had her water break, and going to the hospital, where Dr. Fist "delivers" the sofa cushion she has hidden up her dress.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: Similar to Stewie, Rallo frequently switches back and forth between kindergarten-level intelligence and adult intelligence depending on the joke.
• Pink Is Erotic: In "Y Tu Junior Tambien" Cleveland Junior dates and later marries Cecilia, they move into an apartment that's illuminated by a pink neon sign (that shines through one of the windows). On their first night, Cleveland Junior is anxious about sharing a bed with a woman for the first time but he immediately gets over it when he sees Cecilia in a pink alluring nightie as his voice drops by the ten-fold. However, they don't have sex because she figures out Cleveland Junior is only 14 and they both accept that they're too young for marriage.
• Playing Cyrano: In "Once Upon A Tyne In New York", Coach McFall was trying to impress Tyne Daly, and Cleveland gives lines which are typed by Donna onto a teleprompter for the Coach.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: In the season three opener before Peter and the Evil Monkey rescue Cleveland and friends from the rednecks: "Leggo my negro."
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Gabriel Friedman, AKA Federline Jones.
• Pretty in Mink: A few furs, including Donna having worn one for a Blaxploitation film she did years before, and then we Rallo sees her getup, complains that he got in trouble for wearing a mink coat and underwear for a school photo.
• Prisoner's Last Meal: Referenced in "Brown History Month". When Kendra's "peepaw" was on death row, his last meal was 77 mozzarella sticks. Consequently, he died from a massive coronary before they could get him to the electric chair. Rallo mentions that, if he were on death row, he would choose popcorn shrimp as his last meal, before it dawns on him that popcorn shrimp is becoming so hard to find that he'd kill somebody to get it, meaning he'd have to end up on death row in order to get that meal, anyway.
• Prodigal Family: Invoked in 'Mama Drama'. Cleveland forces a reunion between Donna and her mother, who abandoned Donna with her gay uncle to tour as a singer. Donna breaks down in tears as any mention of her mom is traumatic to her, seeing that she didn't get the chance to meet her mother or ask her why she left her.
• Prom Is for Straight Kids: The lesbian girl Junior was accidentally dating.
• Pun: Cleveland suggests that he and Donna work through an argument through roll-playing. With dinner rolls.
  Cleveland: I'm Cleveland Roll!... I'm Donna Roll!... and I'm Esther Roll! Oh JJ, you'd better not join a gaaang!
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: From "Our Gang"
  Cleveland: Why! Is! This! Hap! Pen! Ing! To! MEEEEE!!!!
• Quietly Performing Sister Show: While it doesn't draw in the ratings of its siblings Family Guy or American Dad! (and was written off as a watered-down Family Guy by a lot of critics), it did very well for itself, despite many people considering this one of Seth MacFarlane's lesser works.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Cleveland wore an all pink outfit during his stint as host of a daytime women's talk show.
• Record Needle Scratch: In "Field Of Streams", this happens when Cleveland Jr. says he's not interested in baseball, and Terry apologizes for doing that to the record out of shock.
  • Done in "All You Can Eat" twice, when "C.J." (Cleveland, Junior) admits to the school he's not a lesbian, he's male and the girl he went to the prom with is his step-sister.
• Recycled IN SPACE!: The promo for the show features Cleveland saying his show is "Family Guy with an afro".
• Reference Overdosed: Justified as it wouldn't be a Seth MacFarlane cartoon without it.
• Religious Stereotype: Surprisingly averted in a MacFarlane work. Tim is a devout Christian, but there have been no jokes or burns against Christianity nor is Tim the Bear portrayed as a Bible thumper.
  • Also, Cleveland Junior is an atheist, but, unlike Brian, he's not pushy about it. In fact, he's more like Hayley Smith from American Dad! (read: doesn't believe in God, but pays lip service to the church because the rest of his family believes in God).
  • Played somewhat straighter with Tim's wife, Arianna, who makes a comment that Rallo cursing Santa and Christmas at a pageant is what happens "when you put a Jew in charge of a Christmas pageant."
    • Arianna criticizes Donna for being a single mother (something that she despises), even though her husband walked out on HER. Ironically and hypocritically, she cheated on Tim on "Cleveland Show Lived" and Donna criticizes her.
• Running Gag: Usually whenever Quagmire makes a brief appearance, he's always complaining about how he never got a spin off.
  Quagmire: Wow. They really made it through the whole season. Hey Peter, can I have my own series, now?
  Peter: Quagmire, you're a rapist.
  • Throughout the series, (though mainly seasons 1-2) Cleveland calling out Junior for doing or saying something immature by reminding he is 14.
• Sassy Black Woman: Roberta, though thankfully without the stereotypical "Mmmm-hmmm!" MOST of the time anyway. She *has* dropped one or two in the course of the show.
  • Donna may not SAY "Mmm-hmm!" but she reads a magazine with that title!
• Satellite Love Interest: Donna has received some criticism for being nothing more than a stereotypical sassy black woman. Possibly lampshaded in "Your Show of Shows". At the end of the episode Donna asks for her own show, when asked what she can do, she pulls out a recorder and plays a very basic tune.
• Self-Deprecation: For the intro of "Cleveland Live", the announcer goes on for a bit on how in 2004 some pothead loser bought a Family Guy DVD, then says very quickly and quietly "American Dad is also a show", referencing how Fox tended to push it to the sidelines before it moved to TBS.
• Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: Roberta for Edwin and Caleb. Who turn out to be gay.
• Serial Escalation: The show was renewed for a second season before the first episode even aired, as mentioned above. Also mentioned above, the show was renewed for a third season... less than three weeks after the first season ended.
• Sexy Santa Dress: In a Christmas episode, Roberta gets hired in a mega store as a skimply-dressed elf. When her sexist boss rejected Kendra for the role of Santa Claus, Roberta and her co-workers complain about continuing to have to wear their costumes and quit...tossing Mr. Grundle their shorts.
• Sexy Whatever Outfit:
  • In an Halloween Episode, Cleveland tries to convince Junior he's too old to dress up for Halloween, but claims that it's okay for Roberta to go out in a ridiculously skimpy red outfit, since Halloween is just an excuse for girls to dress like sluts. When Junior asks her what she's even supposed to be, she says "I dunno, a ghost?" and spends her next few appearances moaning spookily.
  • In another episode Roberta brings home a costume that's too slutty, and Donna is going to return it...until Cleveland says that she'd look good in it, and the two decide to meet in a hotel and use it to roleplay a hooker and her customer. Unfortunately, it's TOO good and Donna ends up being arrested.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Donna everyday, given how she looks without her makeover.
• Silly Prayer: Most of the prayers Reverend Jenkins says are these. An example from "American Prankster":
  Reverend Jenkins: But no sinner is more doomed than the wicked child! Who is an affront to the mighty Harlemites who trotted the globe to smack the generals! As Saint Louis said to the Ferrignos: "Don't make me angry!"
  Attendants: "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
  Reverend Jenkins: Amen!
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Larry Box, Stoolbend's Casually Profane Mayor.
• Sixth Ranger: Towards the end of the series, Dr. Fist becomes Cleveland's fifth friend.
• Slasher Movie: Rallo and his friends watch one in "Beer Walk!", and it inspires Rallo to start scaring people while dressed as Jason, Chucky, Leatherface and Freddy.
• Spicy Latina: Junior's wife's Cecilia's aunt, played by Real Life Spicy Latina, Rosie Perez.
• Spoof Aesop: Cleveland uses Holt to cheat his way to a baseball championship, but upon seeing that he's teaching Cleveland Jr. that it's okay to cheat, he calls it off and the team loses. Cleveland congratulates himself for doing the right thing, but Donna points out that he still cheated in several games, prevented more deserving teams from a chance at the championship and only backed off at the very last moment.
• Spinoff Sendoff: The pilot episode starts in Quahog as Cleveland tells his friends about his troubles and he decides to move away.
• Staggered Zoom: At the start of the opening credits.
• Strong Ants: Ants carry Junior away in "Menace II Secret Society".
• Stylistic Suck: the "Live" episode.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: In "Another Bad Thanksgiving", when the family takes a last-minute flight to Las Vegas on Thanksgiving, Cleveland is forced to bring a live turkey (whom he hides under his jacket) with them as well.
  Cleveland: [at the airport ticket counter] That would be tickets for two adults, five children, and zero turkeys.
• Talking Animal: Cleveland's neighbor, Tim the Bear.
• Tangled Family Tree: Brought up by Rallo (whose class assignment is making a family tree) in "Wheel! Of! Family!" His maternal grandmother is dating his biological father, who was legally adopted by his stepfather's father. They also adopted a Chinese toddler.
• Thanksgiving Episode:
  • "A Brown Thanksgiving": The focus of a first-season episode. Most of the "special guest stars" mentioned at the beginning do not in fact appear, but "Auntie Momma" more than makes up for that.
  • "Another Bad Thanksgiving": A second season episode has Donna's sister and her two kids with the same name visit. She dumps them to run off to Las Vegas with Holt.
  • "A General Thanksgiving Episode": This Out of Order Season 3 produced episode mainly focuses on Holt's bad relationship with his dad, but it kick-starts with Holt being all alone on Thanksgiving and Rallo taking pity on him.
  • "Turkey Pot Die": This Season 4 episode sees Cleveland and Cleveland Jr. try to save a bunch of turkeys. Meanwhile, Donna and Rallo build a parade float, but she gets wrapped up in outdoing Arianna.
• That Came Out Wrong: Cleveland and Donna both say the wrongs things to retired paraplegic veteran Maurice (whom Donna thought didn't exist but sent love letters to) about his condition. "You gonna want to sit down for this-sa-sa-saaa-sa-sa-saaa", "Until you get back up to your feet-ta-ta-ta."
• That Didn't Happen: Donna points out Cleveland is making things up when we see a Cutaway Gag of talking milk in "The Hurricane" episode.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Cleveland himself, since he got his own show.
• Too Much Information: Cleveland's parents have no problems with describing their sex lives in Cleveland's company..... graphically much to his disgust.
• Torches and Pitchforks: In "Escape From Goochland", the people from Goochland carry these when they invade Stoolbend because Federline stole their wooden statue.
• Town Contest Episode: In "Gone with the Wind", a big karaoke contest happens at The Broken Stool in this episode, featuring tons of people from around stool bend, including Cleveland, Donna, Tim, Arianna, Lester, Kendra, Coach McFall, and Gus.
• Troll: Truepopperking33, from "All You Can Eat", edited Cleveland's Wikipedia entries within moments after he made his edits.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Cleveland Jr. and Cecilia
  • Donna isn't as attractive as her standard appearance suggests (she's reliant on a fairly extensive beauty regime) but is still portrayed as a good deal more attractive than Cleveland.
• Unexplained Recovery: Ernie's pet possum, Princess.
  • Also done with Kenny West, who was used sunglasses to cover his free-roaming eye in his first appearance, but miraculously cured in his next.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Cleveland's father being told that Auntie Momma is a man. He didn't take it so well.
• Vanity License Plate: Several characters have been seen with one.
  • Robert's license plate, during a high-school flashback, reads "IFKDNA" ("I Fuck Donna").
  • Lester has an "IFKNDRA" ("I Fuck Kendra") license plate.
  • Oliver Wilkerson, a deaf schoolmate of Cleveland Jr. and Roberta, pulls up in a car with "IKNTHR" ("I can't hear") on the license plate in the episode "It's the Great Pancake, Junior Brown".
  • In "Nightmare On Grace Street", at the very end, Gus has "BOO!" on his license plate.
  • In "March Dadness" Rallo has his name on the license plate of his Mustang.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Hoo boy, the writers really seem to dig this one.
  • Possibly even lampshaded in one episode, with a TV promo for a new FOX sitcom called "The Barf Family".
• Walking Tubetop Scene: Roberta
• Walk Into Camera Obstruction:
  • "Buried Pleasure": Kendra body-slams Jane. She falls onto the screen and it cuts to black.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Cleveland has shades of this, but equal emphasis is placed on Cleveland having to let go of the old-fashioned "manly" rules he most likely grew up with. Also with Cleveland with his at-best strained relationship with his father LeVar "Freight Train" Brown.
• Wham Episode: Subverted. It's revealed in an episode that Fat Cleveland Junior is actually a spy who killed the original hyperactive Slim Cleveland Junior, as part of a gambit to assassinate Tim, who's the head of a terrorist sleeper-cell. Though its doubtful that this is canon since its never brought up again and Tim is never killed, so this is just a Bizarro Episode.
• Wham Line: From the hurricane ep, "I don't believe in Jesus" from Cleveland Jr.
• The Whitest Black Guy: Cleveland is declared "The Whitest Black Man in America" and discovers that he was largely raised by a white woman and undergoes a crisis of racial identity. At one point he tries and fails to act as a parody of black masculinity and Hilarity Ensues since he mostly just tacks on various racial stereotypes; at another he decides to lean in to his new, whiter identity and bursts through the door with two big bags of stuff from Trader Joe's dressed in country club clothes and loafers. He eventually decides to simply be at peace with being himself and not define himself by race.
• Wholesome Cross Dresser: All over the place. The most notable example being Auntie Mamma, but there's also Freight Train in "Who Done It?" as his alter-ego Jocelyn Elderwood. In addition to that, Freight Train also cross dressed along with Cleveland, Holt, Lester, and Tim as part of a scheme to get back the money Cookie lost to a con-man. It doesn't work, which Cleveland is convinced is due to the fact that they didn't get the operation.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Cleveland. But Donna would smack the white out of a bitch.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Rallo pulls one in "From Bed to Worse", breaking his leg on purpose to keep his mother and Cleveland apart. Leads to a My God, What Have I Done? moment when he realizes his behavior's hurting his mother, too.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: In "Nightmare on Grace Street", an unnamed female character jumps off a cliff because she thinks real life works like a Twilight movie, and a hunky vampire or werewolf will save her. She crashes onto a rock and presumably dies.
• You Must Be This Tall to Ride: Rallo is excited to go to an amusement park because he's finally tall enough to ride on the roller coaster. But when he gets there they measure him not counting his Giant Afro and he's still too short.
• Younger Than They Look: Despite being full grown and acting like a middle aged human, Tim is actually only 4 years old.
  • However, it can be assumed that he is older in "bear" years, as he is a bear himself.

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