Flush This Story Down The Toilet

The Cleveland Show, S03E20

Junior wanted to write his report about a great American and he chose Cleveland.  After following his father around for a day, Junior realized his mistake and ended up writing a depressing report that suggested that Americans were lazy and unmotivated.  Cleveland wanted desperately to get Junior's respect back after that and decided that he would demand for more toilet safety due to a recent injury from falling off a toilet he had.  The rest of the family ignored his efforts to make a toilet bar and went to Krazy Kingdom where Rallo was excited to ride a roller coaster for the first time, but was denied because he was still too short.  They later saw Cleveland on TV, flying around on the toilet he had been stuck on for the longest time to the capital building.  His "bold" stunt to stand up to the "dangers" of falling off the toilet inspired Junior to write the report about Cleveland again in a much more heroic light.

I have to say that I didn't like much about this episode.  I mean, Cleveland is the last person that Junior should have picked for a topic in the first place, so that was disaster from the start.  Then Cleveland's idea to get his son's respect back is to go around on a toilet hung from a helicopter?  Only Cleveland's real son would be impressed by that stupid stunt.  What makes it gross is that he was flying around with a nearly full bowl and he didn't have any clothes on below his shirt.  Eww!  But I guess Cleveland will do anything for his son.

I have to call Junior a hypocrite when he told Cleveland that he was a "sad weirdo."  Then what does that make Junior??  Maybe he's just a happy weirdo.  But still.  That whole family has little room to judge anyone because they've all acted less than sane.

My favorite line (and I'm reaching a bit) is when Cleveland tried to get himself out of the toilet bar and tried to use a popular commercial jingle:

Like a good neighbor State Farm is there.  [Pause]  Dang.  I'm gonna die.

That was pretty good.  I like those commercials and the ridiculous way State Farm acts as if they can magically make bad situations better by saying that.  I think that if Cleveland had been saved by them, it would have been just as funny.

I think the best moment, though, was when Rallo had made himself a makeshift roller coaster out of clothes and laundry baskets and was sliding it down the bed.  That was so cute!   I don't know what it is about Rallo that is so adorable for a cartoon character.  But he always manages to make me smile with his childish antics.  If I saw a real kid doing that, it would be crazy amazing.

Not one of the worst episodes, but not one that I'll try to remember (or purposely try to watch again).  You would think that a story centered around someone falling off the toilet would be funnier, but instead it was just sad and boring.  Of course, this is much expected when they make a story around Cleveland's problems, which usually tend to be the least funny when he's handling it on his own.  As always, we need to install more Rallo into the mix to make it a better episode.