You Just Got Rallo-ed!

The Cleveland Show, S03E17

Rallo took his new fondness for pranks too far when he ruined a powerpoint presentation for Junior and got him kicked out of the Freedom Scouts.  Cleveland tried to teach him a lesson by making Rallo think that he had to spend 6 months in juvenile hall for exposing Junior's naked photo in public, but it backfired when Rallo ran off to the woods to escape.  Junior later used some of his scouting skills to save Rallo, earning himself a renewal membership into the scouts and the title of youngest chief scout.

I liked Rallo's pranks, particularly when he kept replacing signs for the men's bathroom and Cleveland kept falling for it.  He even fell for it when it was on his car door!  Didn't expect that.  I also liked the first prank that Rallo pulled on Cleveland.  When Cleveland was examining the can he pointed out several things that would alert anyone to the fact that it wasn't a real can of nuts.  Rallo was lucky that he picked such a good first victim.  If Cleveland hadn't been such a moron to think that something made out of plastic (or cloth) was a real snake, Rallo might have gotten bored with pranks and moved onto something else.

Before Cleveland tried his punishment, I liked seeing Donna fail to remove all the fun from Rallo's room.  He had every kind of electronic to connect to the internet or provide him with games or music that you could think of.  He was also denied playing poker and dressing up like Al Sharpton (adorable).  Even just sitting in his underwear, Rallo still could entertain himself with just his imagination, which is admirable.  You'd think a kid with that much technology savvy would forget that his mind can be the best toy of all.

Junior (and Donna) remarked that Cleveland's plan to teach Rallo a lesson was the worst idea ever.  I don't think so.  I have to side with Cleveland that he can't be blamed that his technique worked too well to scare Rallo (I guess it was seeing Jaden Smith in the video that really got to him).  Someone should have taken care to make sure that Rallo couldn't run away before they could tell him that it was all a prank.  Still, I'm sure that Rallo would be just as angry and would have thought of an equally crazy revenge scheme like faking his own death.  I just like the idea that Rallo being 5 years old had no bearing on the law applying to him.  He was treated like an adult for the most part, which in most cases Rallo already acts like one.

Another good moment was when Cleveland asked where Rallo's name came from.  It was revealed that it came from Sanford and Son.  I like that.  Gives Rallo's character a little more coolness.  To tell the truth, I had wondered where his name came from too.  It's not the most common name, but it is one that sounded so familiar.  Glad that they explained that one.

The last thing that I really liked was when Cleveland was looking for Rallo in the woods.  He saw some footprints and had a funny line:

Footprints!  My tracking badge taught me that footprints are left by feet!  ...These badges are very basic.

Which made it even funnier when he found some of Rallo's gag gum a little later and it snapped on his finger:

 Ow!  I've been Rallo-ed!  Wait--Rallo!  My thinking is very basic.

I like when they have these self-aware jokes, as if they are saying what the viewers are thinking.  They do that quite often in the Seth MacFarlane shows, but it still manages to stay funny because you don't really know when they are going to point out something for you before you have a chance to even think about it.

Of course, an episode about Junior and Rallo is almost guaranteed to fall into my favorites.  I wish that Rallo had even more pranks, though.  But after looking at his family at the dinner table, it looked like he had had plenty of them that we didn't get to see.  I think one of the best things besides the jokes was that Roberta was safely tucked away at the mall where we didn't have to think about her.  Unlike Meg who is a pariah because of popular trend to outcast her, Roberta is just so vapid and irritating that it is practically necessary to push her to the background.  I'll welcome any story with any of the other characters over a story about her, so I'm grateful for that.