Cleveland Brown (Family Guy; The Cleveland Show, seasons 2-4)

Cleveland Brown "No, no, no, no, no, Nooo!" Gender: Male Type: Slow Talking and Hilarious Black Man Age: 42 Species: Human Portrayed by: Mike Henry Arif Zahir Status: Alive Media of origin: Family Guy (1999-2009, 2014-present) The Cleveland Show (2009-2013)

Cleveland Orenthal Brown Sr. is a fictional character from the animated television series Family Guy, where he’s one of the main characters (seasons 1-7 and 12-present), and a temporary guest character (seasons 8-11), and is one of the main titular characters of its spin-off series, The Cleveland Show.

Why He Rocks

1. He’s a very caring father to Rallo, Cleveland Jr. and well-meaning husband to Donna as it truly seems that Cleveland is in a relationship he can handle, unlike Lorretta and Cleveland is always going to acknowledge whenever he is in the wrong for his actions.
   • Speaking of Donna, both she and Cleveland have a wonderful relationship as unlike Peter and Lois or Stan and Francine's relationship, despite having a few hiccups, Cleveland and Donna truly love each other at the end of the day (though Peter and Lois used to truly love each other at the end of the day in the first seven seasons before their flanderizations, and same goes for Stan and Francine).
2. He has shown to be great friends towards Peter, Quagmire, Joe, Lester, Tim, Terry and Holt.
3. In comparison to most characters on Family Guy, Cleveland is usually depicted as exceedingly peaceful, patient, and sweet, and only on rare occasions has he been known to lose his temper and resort to violence. However, it is good that he is not too soft and unlike Peter, he tends to lose his temper for good reasons such as the fact that Quagmire cheated on his wife or from racism.
4. He managed to do a great portrayal of John McClane in Die-Semi Hard as he brings the character to life as well as not only showing a bad-ass self similar to the original person, but he also managed to show emotion, which only makes him do an even better portrayal.
5. He has an excellent character design with his iconic yellow shirt.
6. We are able to learn more of Cleveland's character as the series progressed. Most notably, the season 19 finale of Family Guy shows us that Cleveland is not only African-American but is also a Cuban person and we get to see his true love for baseball.
7. He has many, MANY funny moments such as his iconic running gag of his house being destroyed with Peter's shenanigans and causing his iconic internet memes. Not only that but he has spawned many hilarious memes, a good example is the “Oh That's Nasty" and No No Noooo....” meme.
8. His slow talking attitude can be really hilarious and is very iconic, sadly, this was the case in seasons 1-7 as since his spin-off series, he longer has that.
9. He also has shown to be smart and reasonable out of the 4 characters in the bar as he is seen questioning the other's decisions
10. He is amazingly, memorably, brilliantly, and hilariously voiced by Mike Henry in a slow yet iconic voice and his iconic laugh that Henry provides is nothing short of amazing. Even his new voice actor, Arif Zahir, got a great job voicing him.
11. He became decent in seasons 2-4 of his spin-off and then fully redeemed himself when he returned to Family Guy and earned his original personality back, unlike other characters in Modern Family Guy.
12. While he is not a fighter like Peter Griffin, Rick Sanchez, Stan Smith and Sterling Archer, he has had numerous moments where he shows strength and bad-ass moments such as fighting Lester, beating up his abusive father, nearly killed Quagmire with a bat, but most notably, Die-Semi Hard where he was at his best and saved Donna from being held hostage and ends up killing his friends in a great parody.
13. Even when Family Guy would go downhill beginning in season 8, he alongside Stewie, Meg, Joe, Bonnie, Adam West, Chris (despite his flanderization), Consuela, Ida and Bruce were the only likable characters.

Bad Qualities

1. He became badly flanderized in his own spin-off during the first season as he acted more like Peter Griffin. Thankfully, as mentioned above, he did improve in seasons 2-4, and he redeems himself when he returned to Family Guy.
   • However, there are times where he is unlikable in seasons 2-4 of his spin-off series such as when he got mad at his son Cleveland Brown Jr. just because he doesn't believe in "God".
2. In June 2020, the protests of George Floyd pressured Mike Henry to step down from voicing Cleveland (fortunately, his new voice actor Arif Zahir does a great job at voicing him as mentioned above).
3. Even before his spin-off, he has his share of unlikable moments such as the time he nearly tried to kill Quagmire, and when he stole Brian Griffin's girlfriend away from him.

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