Hip Hop Flop

The Cleveland Show, S04E02

Cleveland discovered a secret hip hop society meeting at Kenny West's house and tried to bring down West to become a member.  Junior joined up with other rejects of the marching band to form their own polka band.

I have to say I was looking forward to the episode a little more than others because of the number of guest stars.  I was particularly interested in what Bruno Mars was going to be doing or saying, but it was quite a let down.  Although, the "Hip Hop Illuminati" sounded like it might provide an interesting story, it wasn't much more than an intriguing name.  But at least with that many talented singers on the show, there were a few songs performed that weren't all-together horrible.

I suppose what I disliked most about this episode was that Bruno Mars didn't really get to say anything to funny or anything at all significant.  I'm sure that there were reasons for that, but the fact that when he opened his mouth, he basically sounded like a foolish kid, annoyed the hell out of me.  I don't want to say that he was made a fool of, but he just didn't seem to have a necessary role in the story.  They could have just omitted him and there would have been no difference in the overall story.  I guess that's what bothers me.  He was probably the least memorable member of the HHI.  So disappointed.  Glad I didn't just tune in for the sake of him or I'd be super pissed.

I won't mention the rest of what didn't work for me and will instead mention some of the things I did enjoy.   It was kinda cute to see Kenny West and Questlove dancing on the huge remote like it was the keyboard from the movie from Big.  I got a little chuckle when Cleveland claimed that a pile of white pillows were racist because I guess he didn't land on them.  It was actually funnier when they repeated the gag when Cleveland passed out on the floor but failed to land on the pillow pile again.  I don't even know why.  But the second time that joke really worked for me.  There were also two lines that I thought weren't so bad.  The first was when Lester was annoyed that he would have to start an ostrich delivery service:

Now I got a job I don't want.  Thanks, Obama.

The other was from Cleveland regarding Questlove:

 If you're looking for your comb, it's in your hair.

This one may have been my favorite just because it was so like Cleveland to say something that ignorant.  If only there had been more funny things like that in there!  But you get what you get.

Lastly, I just wonder why they were playing that Curb Your Enthusiam theme at the end when Questlove was surprised that Will.i.am wasn't Wyclef.  Maybe it's a joke from that show that I just don't get and I really haven't watched enough of it to know a lot about it.  Either way, I thought it was a dumb way to end the episode.

Hopefully we won't see another episode packed with so many celebrities in one story.  It might have been overkill and not particularly funny.  I'm sure that this show doesn't get as good ratings as the others in Seth MacFarlane world, but I don't know if it's necessary to use such ploys to keep people interested.  Or perhaps others really enjoyed it and it's just me.  I might have been unable to appreciate the story for itself because I kept hoping that Bruno Mars was going to have a really funny line.  I might need to rewatch this episode with less biased eyes.

Not The Best Halloween Story

The Cleveland Show, S04E01

Donna and Cleveland forbid Junior and Roberta from dressing up for Halloween, so to teach their parents a lesson, they dressed as their parents and went out to cause trouble.  Cleveland took Federline to a football game so he could be the designated driver, but the boy ended up stealing a wooden doll from Stoolbend's rival town and causing a riot.

Compared to last year's Halloween story, I didn't like this one as much.  I suppose because it didn't really have too much to do with the holiday.  Cleveland's story was about football/town rivalry, Donna was getting arrested for prostitution, and Junior and Roberta did a prank (which is a little more in the spirit of the holiday) but it didn't really lead to anything significant.  I will say that it is nice that they didn't make a cheesy horror story instead, but it being mostly about football and riots was kind of lame.

Rather to continue to go on about what I didn't like, I'll point out my favorite parts.  One was when Cleveland was trying to get a hold of Toonces, the driving cat.  That was great!  Toonces was one of my favorite SNL skits ever!  And I liked that the cause of Toonces' death was not the more likely car accident, but feline leukemia.  It was just unexpected and good (in a dark kind of way).  Cleveland was also funny when he told Federline to go after he had ruined their night sufficiently:

[Cleveland] Let him go.

[Tim] No one's trying to stop him.

 Junior also had a pretty good line when Chet had a knife to his throat:

How did you find my throat?

 Lastly, I enjoyed the insanity that Rallo was left to himself while he was bleeding to death.  It became a running gag in the episode and at the very end Rallo was seen as a ghost saying:

Hi, I died--just kidding.  I'll see ya'll next week.

This kind of echoes that running gag in the show that Rallo is often left unsupervised by parents (and siblings) who really couldn't give a damn about what kind of danger he gets into.  But although I liked this, I was annoyed that they pretty much left Rallo out of the story.  Last year was good because we got to see him be scared to death along with Cleveland.  But anyway.

This was probably better than most episodes I saw last season, so I can't be too mad this was their premiere.  I'm actually just looking forward to the episode they're supposed to have with Bruno Mars in it (love him!).  So until that happens, I can be all right with a few stupid episodes until then.