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Daryl Hall and Mike Henry Talk Cleveland Show Turkey
by Reg Seeton
 Although
most characters on Family Guy could carry their
own show, Cleveland Brown and family pulled up
stakes in Quahog and headed to Virginia where
the Brown's settled into Stoolbend for their own
Sunday night spin-off timeslot on the Fox airwaves.
Co-created by Seth MacFarlane and Mike Henry,
who also voices Cleveland Brown and son Rallo,
The Cleveland Show has been keeping the spirit
of Family Guy alive in a completely different
but hilarious light.
With Thanksgiving upon us, Cleveland and the Brown family welcome relatives and guests to Stoolbend for the holiday on Sunday, November 22, as his own parents, Cookie and Freight Train (voiced by Francis Callier and Craig Robinson), arrive along with wife Donna’s Auntie Momma (voiced by Kym Whitley).
The animated thanks gets crazy when Roberta and Federline (voiced by Jamie Kennedy) hold a dinner of their own and Cleveland discovers a secret about Auntie Momma that forces him into a clash with both sides of his conscience in the form of Daryl Hall and John Oates of Hall and Oates who play an angel and the devil on the shoulders of Cleveland.
Ahead of the Thanksgiving episode of The Cleveland Show, we hopped on the line for a quick conference call with co-creator Mike Henry and music legend Daryl Hall to talk turkey about what fans can expect, how The Cleveland Show is different than Family Guy, how Daryl felt about stepping into the role of an angel, and where Daryl Hall is at with his music today after the gargantuan success of Hall and Oates.
THE DEADBOLT: Walking into The Cleveland Show, is it easy to throw your act away and have some fun even though you’re playing yourself?
 DARYL
HALL: I’ve tried to figure out what my act
is for a long time. You know, I don’t actually
have an act. Maybe that’s something unusual
about what John and I do. We’re just ourselves.
Because of that, I think that I can sort of
stretch in any direction. I love doing comedy.
I did a show called Z Rock about six months
ago that was a lot of improv and a lot of fun,
and I’ve done other things, even back to SCTV
back in the early ‘80s, so this is one of those
things I like to do occasionally. I think John
is the same as me. We really feel sort of comfortable
with this comedic thing, and we like to stretch.
MIKE HENRY: Let me just say that they’re real good at it, too. It didn’t take much to get what we wanted. I think we knew how to write for them, and they knew how to deliver, so it was certainly not one of these things where we just started trying to shoehorn somebody in. It was really just kind of the perfect thing. From our end, they were right on.
THE DEADBOLT: Given the huge success that you and John have had, can you talk about the challenges you’re faced with today as an artist? Is it easier or harder than it was?
HALL: What I’m doing musically right now is actually easier. I think that the way the world has gone in, with the Internet and sort of the demise of powerful record companies, and all that kind of thing, is very much in tune with the way my brain works and the way my artistry can flourish. I think that that’s a big part of why there’s such an interest, a sustained interest in what it is that I do and what John does.
If there’s a challenge, I just take it in stride. I love challenges. The web show that I’m doing, Live from Daryl’s House, is a gigantic challenge because I was creating something that nobody had ever really done before on the Internet, but I really enjoy stretching myself and applying myself to situations.
Other Conference Call Highlights
Mike Henry on why Cleveland
got his own show and not other Family Guy characters
like Stewie:
 "Well,
Stewie kind of has his show, and that’s Family
Guy. You know, when we were looking at spinning
off, Cleveland was kind of the only character
ever mentioned. A spin-off is a dicey thing
because you don’t want it to be a clone of your
show, and Cleveland really is kind of a step
removed from all of the other characters on
Family Guy. He’s a little more thoughtful and
kind of a nice guy. So we figured we could kind
of easily make it more of a family show. He’s
the kind of guy that we’re hoping people are
rooting for because he’s doing things out of
the goodness of his heart. He’s not just bumbling
into situations like Peter or Homer Simpson,
you know, just kind of being idiotic or not
caring about whatever, and then here we go.
But Cleveland gets himself into situations by
trying to do the right thing."
Daryl Hall on working
with Mike while recording for The Cleveland
Show:
"Well, we were sort of coached through it. John and I did it separately, and we were sort of coached through it. I didn’t see the animation. I wasn’t working to the animation. We were just working to the script. It was really just me reading it my way, and if the inflection that I put into it or whatever was different than what was required, then we talked about it, and I would change it. I would do it a couple times, so it really wasn’t that hard. It was really just doing and re-doing the lines until we got what Mike was driving at, and so it really wasn’t that hard."
Mike Henry on upcoming
episodes of The Cleveland Show:
"Well, the Thanksgiving episode is coming up. We have a wonderful Christmas episode coming up where, as you know, Cleveland and Cleveland Jr. are in a blended family now with Donna and her two kids, Roberta and Rallo, and as part of our Christmas episode, Rallo is missing his real dad who lives in town, and he’s voiced by Corey Hokum, who is an absolutely hilarious standup. Rallo’s real dad, Robert, is kind of a bad boy, and so Cleveland sets out in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve to try to find Robert to bring him home for his stepson on Christmas morning. There’s a great blend of sweetness and Christmas carols and everything else. And kind of just a seedy nightlife where Cleveland goes into a strip club where they’re playing a honky-tonk "Oh Come All Ye Faithful", looking for Roberta. And it’s kind of a blend of sweet and kind of hard jokes, so that one in particular I’m very excited about.
Mike Henry on the Hall
and Oates guest cameo:
 "It’s
a recurring thing in our series where, from
time-to-time, they’ll pop up when Cleveland
is in a dilemma. So it’s a nice shot of Hall
and Oates, a nice boost of Hall and Oates, including
a little bit of a riff of one of their classics,
so that’s the screen time."
Daryl Hall on whether
it bothers him when people refer to a Hall and
Oates comeback:
"Yes, of course. Well, it doesn’t bother me, but ... We never went anywhere. This sort of concept of mass popularity in our careers has come and gone more than once, and we take the ups and downs of the masses in stride. That’s not what we’re really all about. We’re musicians. We’ve always been musicians. We always will be musicians, and we just do good work or do the best work we can. If a lot of people like it, that’s good, and I’m glad. I think circumstances have come our way and a lot of old battles that we’ve fought, we’ve long won, and we’re just happy to be intergenerational."
Mike Henry on the progression
of the show and how it's different from Family
Guy:
"Certainly in the episodes that are in production now, we’ve really kind of hit a stride, and you’ll see Sunday night. There’s no lacking comedy, but we won’t tell a rape joke. We won’t tell an abortion joke. We won’t have Cleveland punch his daughter or stepdaughter. We won’t do the things that Family Guy will do just because we don’t need it. That’s kind of where we’re different, and we won’t take an awfully mean shot at a celebrity like Family Guy will."
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