Tuesday, July 15, 2008

New animated show 'Cleveland' goes multi-ethnic

Lynn Elber writes:
A Family Guy spinoff show featuring the character of Cleveland Brown is mixing up its voice cast, ethnically speaking. Mike Henry, who is white, will continue to provide the voice for Cleveland on Fox's new animated series. Joining Henry in the cast will be black actors Nia Long. Sanaa Lathan, and Kevin Michael Richardson, the network announced Monday.

Fox programming chief Kevin Reilly said the casting wasn't provoked by [the] ribbing the network has taken for a black role voiced by a white actor. "Mike's been doing that character for a long time, so we knew going in that was a fix, we're going to have a white guy," he said at a Television Critics Association meeting, responding to a reporter's question. READ MORE