Cleveland was chosen to star in a spin-off of Family Guy (1999) because Joe was considered to be too eccentric and Quagmire would never learn anything at the end of every week.
The series was cancelled and Cleveland moved back to Spooner Street accompanied by his new family in He's Bla-ack! (2014).
The theme song originally had the line "my happy black guy face," but it was changed to "my happy mustache face" for racial sensitivity.
Originally, a British family was to be featured on the show and Seth MacFarlane would have done the voice of the father, but the writers felt there wouldn't be enough British jokes, so the family was dropped in favor of Holt.
The show's original title was "Meet the Browns," but Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns (2008) beat them to the punch and the title was changed to "The Cleveland Show."