Arif Zahir’s Cleveland Brown Deserves More Screen Time On “Family Guy”

Mike Henry, the voice actor who originally played Cleveland Brown on Family Guy, announced in June 2020 that he would be stepping down from the role due to the character being of African American descent. Henry’s decision to leave the role sparked a wider conversation about representation and the importance of allowing marginalized communities to tell their own stories. In his place, Arif Zahir is widely regarded as the best example of a character’s originally portrayed white actor being replaced by a POC actor and it actually working.

Cleveland Brown first appeared on Family Guy as Peter Griffin’s neighbor and friend in the show’s pilot episode, which aired in 1999. Over the course of the show’s 20 seasons, Cleveland became a central character and a fan favorite. In 2009, Henry and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane decided to spin Cleveland off into his own show, The Cleveland Show, which aired for four seasons on FOX.

In an interview with The New York Times, Henry explained that he felt Cleveland deserved to be the star of his own show because the character had evolved and grown beyond his role on Family Guy. Henry also noted that Cleveland’s family, which included his wife Loretta and their children, had become an integral part of the show’s storylines and deserved more screen time.

Henry’s decision to spin Cleveland off into his own show was a testament to the character’s popularity and the strong bond that had formed between Cleveland and Family Guy’s audience. The Cleveland Show allowed Henry and the show’s creative team to explore new storylines and delve deeper into the character’s background and relationships. One of the ways the show did this is by replacing Loretta as his wife with the far more malleable Donna Tubbs (portrayed by Sanaa Lathan) and replacing Cleveland Jr.’s more athletic physique to the far more dorky and chunky Jr. voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson that we know today. In addition, The Cleveland Show debuted two of Cleveland’s step-children, Roberta and Rallo Tubbs. This eclectic family is seldom used in Family Guy and the writers would be wise to dip into this reservoir of possibilities.

Overall, Mike Henry’s decision to spin Cleveland Brown off into his own show was driven by his belief that the character deserved to be the star of his own show and that marginalized communities should be given the opportunity to tell their own stories. The conversation surrounding representation in entertainment is an important one, and Henry’s decision to step down from the role of Cleveland Brown highlights the need for diversity and inclusion in the industry. But, none of it works unless if Arif Zahir’s “Cleveland” gets to really flourish and the rest of his family get more storylines that are front-and-center.

Over the last couple of seasons, Family Guy has introduced a number of new characters that have worked. Former Pawtucket bosses Bert & Sheila had a bunch of press going into their premieres with big names like Bryan Cranston and Niecy Nash taking on the roles, only for it to go nowhere. Chris Parnell’s “Doug” and Sam Elliott’s “Wild Wild West” characters have been quite a bit more prominent and have been fantastic. But the show has a deep mythos of characters from The Cleveland Show that would make for excellent centerpieces for plots and storylines, if not, then what’s the point of Cleveland in the first place if all he does is the occasional one-liner?