Cleveland Live!

"Cleveland Live!" is the second episode of the second season of the animated television series The Cleveland Show, airing on October 3, 2010 on Fox.

In this episode, Cleveland and Donna attempt to celebrate their anniversary, their unruly kids and disruptive friends, including Donna’s ex-husband, Robert, get in their way.

Plot

Set during a live episode of The Cleveland Show in which Cleveland Brown tells the boys they are staying with Robert Tubbs so that Cleveland and Donna can celebrate their anniversary. Roberta announces she is going to a friend's house and an unseen stagehand yells that Cleveland is fat, much to his offense.

At Robert's house, they hear a knock on the door and Robert believes that it is people he scammed that have come after him. Robert shows Cleveland his secret stash of guns and Cleveland shoots the stagehand, not realizing the gun has real ammunition. Cleveland then shoots the guy who called him fat then arranges for Robert to stay at Tim and Arriana's where Robert seduces Arianna.

Back at the Browns' house, Cleveland and Donna try again for a night of romance where Roberta arrives and complains about being written out of the episode. Just then Tim arrives and tells of seeing Robert and Arianna. Roberta interrupts by walking across the stage with a bottle of alcohol and says she is starting the afterparty since her role was cut from the show. Cleveland nervously tries to get her off stage and she hits him in the throat, forcing him to call for commercial.

When they return, Cleveland has a stagehand in Roberta's clothes and wig read from a script that "she" is sorry for interrupting, gives an explanation for her actions and says she is going back to her friend's house.

Back to a disconsolate Tim, Cleveland and Donna decide to go to Arianna's house where they find her still glowing from the sex and dropping innuendos. They try to convince Arianna that Tim needs her and she describes how hard it would be after a night with Robert and Arianna and Donna start comparing experiences.

Cleveland and Donna return home where they tell Tim he has to fight to keep Arianna. Robert bursts through the door convinced his pursuers are closing in. Arianna follows trying to persuade Robert to take her with him. The door bursts open and Julia Roberts bursts in portraying "Julia Robertson", Robert's parole officer. A drunken Roberta returns and despite the director and camera crew desperately trying to keep her out of frame, she gets to perform her monologue from the debate scene that was cut. When she slams the door on her way out, a light falls on Julia Roberts. As a medic crew rushes in to save Julia, the director announces that they are running out of time and Cleveland hastily rushes through a scenario of Tim and Arianna making up, Robert spending more time with the kids and Cleveland and Donna getting their romantic dinner, finishing just in time as Julia is pronounced dead. The cast hurriedly says their goodbyes over Julia Roberts' corpse, revealing characters who did not appear in the episode and twins portraying Rallo.^[1]

Reception

"Cleveland Live!" was broadcast on October 3, 2010, as a part of an animated television night on Fox, and was preceded by The Simpsons and was followed by Family Guy and the 100th episode of American Dad!. It was watched by 6.65 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings. The episode also acquired a 3.1 rating in the 18–49 demographic, beating American Dad!.^[2] The episode's ratings increased slightly from the show's season premiere.^[3]

In a simultaneous review of the episodes of The Simpsons that preceded the show, and the broadcast of Family Guy and American Dad! that followed it, The A.V. Club's Rowan Kaiser gave a very negative review to the episode, going as far as to say he is "not entirely certain why this show exists," as he says it is "complete with unfunny jokes, audience laughter, and more terrible meta-humor than you could ever possibly want".^[4] Despite the criticism, Kaiser did point out positive highlights of the episode, saying Julia Roberts' sudden appearance and subsequent death "got a laugh out of me" and admitted the "visual gag of the couch spinning into a gun rack was kind of clever."^[4] Nonetheless, concluding his review, he ultimately rated the episode an F.^[4]

References