Cleveland finally lands a job while Roberta and Rallo try to get their stepbrother to connect with his emotions in this weeks episode of The Cleveland Show, titled “Birth of a Salesman”. Keep reading for the full written review.
Episode Summary
The family is at breakfast and Donna asks the kids to make their beds and Cleveland Jr. tells her that he already has. This upsets Rallo and Roberta, who promptly leave the table to do the same so their mother doesn’t get upset. Cleveland starts dropping hints to Junior that he should lose some weight and Junior responds by telling his father that he should get a job.
Later at the bar, Cleveland is cranky and tells his friends it is because he hasn’t found any work. Tim the bear tells him that he will put in a good word for Cleveland at the cable company where he works as a telemarketer. He is able to get the job but on the first day, Mr. Waterman (of Waterman Cable) makes a racist comment to Tim about Cleveland and walks away.
Tim starts showing Cleveland around the office but before he can even finish Cleveland has already made a sale and before long, Cleveland is surpassing Tim by a wide margin in sales. That night, we are then given our first glimpse inside the bear household where Arianna (Tim’s wife) is ordering expensive coffee, more on this later.
Back at the house, Rallo and Roberta are watching television when Donna and Junior enter with folded laundry. Donna snatches the remote away from her kids and tells them they can have it back when they finish putting away their own laundry.
Soon it becomes apparent that Tim is struggling financially — he’s not making enough money to support Arianna’s exotic taste in coffee — as he stays late in an attempt to make more sales. He also tries to take some coffee supplies from the break area, but another employee catches him in the act.
The next day, Cleveland sees that his old friend Terry also works at the cable company and we see a flashback of them as teenagers getting caught at school with weed. The racially insensitive teacher assumes that it was Cleveland’s weed even though both kids were smoking, but Terry covers for Cleveland and tells him to take advantage of the opportunity. When he asks Cleveland if he did in fact take advantage, Cleveland sarcastically retells the storyline of the pilot episode. This is a bit of the writers poking a little fun at themselves in my opinion.
Rallo and Roberta have had it with Cleveland Jr. doing so many chores around the house and making them look bad, so they storm into his room. Rallo messes up Junior’s sheets and he immediately freaks out and tries to fix them, stating that’s how mommy did it. The kids are shocked to discover that Jr. does so much work to cover up his feelings about his parents’ divorce.
After hanging out at the bar, Terry crashes his cable truck into a light pole with Cleveland in the passenger’s seat. Cleveland recalls the time that Terry covered up for him, so he decides to return the favor. The cops arrive and take Cleveland off to jail.
Donna bails him out but it becomes apparent that Cleveland might lose his new job. Tim confesses that he prayed for something bad to happen to them because he was jealous of Cleveland’s quick success. In the office Mr. Waterman fires Cleveland and as things are about to end, Cleveland notices several pictures of Terry on the wall and a “Sex in the City” coffee mug.
Cleveland realizes that his boss is in love with Terry, so he starts retelling a graphic story of Terry when they were on the swim team in high school. Once he has his attention with the tales, Cleveland negotiates not only for his job back, but also a promotion to installer (so he can work with Terry). He goes on to say that Tim is the best salesman for the job.
Roberta and Rallo have another talk with Junior and realize that he needs to let out his emotions regarding the divorce, so they throw him a roast. A Don Rickles impersonator starts verbally jabbing at Cleveland Jr. until he finally starts crying. That’s when his step-siblings come over and tell him they love him.
In the final scene, Cleveland and Terry are seen buying a case of beer and heading out in the truck to do the day’s work.
Analysis
Similar to how last week’s episode featured Lester, “Birth of a Salesman” focused on Tim more than any other supporting character. We also finally get to see why the theme song contains the lyric “there’s old friends” as Terry is brought into the picture.
There were a couple of things that confused me in this episode, race and religion. Tim keeps mentioning that he prays to Jesus but he seems to have a skewed view, treating Jesus more like a wish-granting genie than anything else. I’m not sure if this was supposed to be a playful jab at Christianity or just showcasing Tim as a hilariously misguided character. Either way, I found the jokes to be neither offensive nor particularly funny.
Race was once again a recurring joke source, and I’m not sure whether this is a good thing. We are still in the early episodes but I do hope that the writers start moving away from this a bit. It’s not that it’s distastefully done, but racial jokes should not be a crutch for this show. It can certainly be entertaining on its own without constant references to color and ethnicity.
I thought the end scenes among the kids were sweet, in a Seth McFarlane way. Through making fun of Jr., they all bonded and become closer, a stark contrast from the Griffin children. Roberta and Rallo were initially furious with Junior for making them look lazy in front of their mother, but once they found out the cause, they took a step back and put their feelings aside, that was very nice.
Donna displayed her undying support for her husband, calling herself a “ride or die chick” and then fantasizing about Cleveland in jail being a tough guy. She didn’t get much screen time, but it was memorable. I hope that in a forthcoming episode we can see more of Cleveland and Donna together having fun.
The Verdict
The flea market cutaway scene where Cleveland sings a jingle and does a cool little dance was enjoyable, but the rest of the cutaway jokes weren’t as great. There were also some bear penis jokes and a casual reference to drunk driving at the end, but they weren’t really funny.
I enjoyed “The One About Friends” a bit more, but that’s not to say that this was a bad episode, just mediocre. Despite this, I still enjoyed it and look forward to the next one, which due to the MLB playoffs will air in three weeks.
In case you missed it, The Cleveland Show has been renewed for a full second season, so there should be no worries because there is a lot of time for it to really catch its stride.
Final Score: 7.0 out of 10
Related posts:
- Episode 5 “Cleveland Jr. Cherry Bomb” Review
- Episode 6 “Ladies’ Night” Review
- The Cleveland Show Episode 4 “Birth of a Salesman” Preview
- “Da Doggone Daddy-Daughter Dinner Dance” Review
- Episode 7 “A Brown Thanksgiving” Review
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You obviously don’t know where the flea market rap comes from or else you’d think that bit was hysterical!! Search youtube to see the original.
Agreed with the guy above..that scene had me laughing hard, cuz i know of the original. One of the highlights of the episode..i love references like that
This was another episode setting up the whole show with Cleveland landing a job, these building shows aren’t the best. I saw the flea market rap for the first time and that’s hilarious! I had to watch cleveland’s rap again! And thanks clevelandshowblog for posting links to the episodes!!