Beer Walk!

"Beer Walk!" is the ninth episode of the second season of the animated television series The Cleveland Show, which originally aired on December 5, 2010 on Fox.^[2]

In the episode, Cleveland participates in a Charity Beer Walk.

The episode was written by Aaron Lee and directed by Jim Shellhorn. It was viewed by approximately 5.9 million viewers in its original airing.^[3] The episode featured guest performance by Patrick Warburton, along with several recurring guest voice actors for the series.^[4]

Plot

In the opening scene, Cleveland prepare for the weekend by removing his trousers, sitting down with a supply of beer and snacks and turning on a sporting event. The events of the weekend are compressed into a short time period with Cleveland remaining mostly motionless while the rest of the family go about their routines, in particular Donna, who spends the whole weekend cleaning.

Donna, frustrated by her husband's laziness on the weekends, nags Cleveland to help her around the house and to do something more with his life. Donna brings up her charity work prompting Cleveland to prove to Donna he can be as charitable as her. After coming up with the idea of pledging money to charity for each beer that they drink, Cleveland recruits his buddies from Quahog and Stoolbend to participate in the First Annual Charity Beer Walk. Pleased with himself, Cleveland decides to show off drunkenly, but when Donna gets injured at the event, Cleveland has to take over the housework. Cleveland soon finds himself in over his head taking care of the kids and Donna. After seeing what Donna has turned Cleveland into, the guys decide to pay her a visit where Holt exposes her charade. Donna admits her ploy but threatens the guys if they reveal the truth to Cleveland. After a night of reflection, Tim returns and calls Donna's bluff, reminding her that he is a bear and can maul her without any consequences. Donna comes clean to Cleveland but the next day finds him still taking care of the house. Depressed because Cleveland seems to not need her, she goes out drinking with the guys until she decides to take her rightful place back. She begs Cleveland to let her take her rightful place back to which he reluctantly agrees. As it turns out, he was aware of her faking and staged the guys exposing her as a fraud. After returning to her chores Donna too, realizes she's been had.

Meanwhile, Rallo decides it's fun to scare his friends after watching scary movies so he decides to take his show on the road, scaring as many of his friends and family as possible. He stops after his mother punches him out of pure instinct when he scared her.^[1]

Production

This episode is written by Aaron Lee and directed by Jim Shellhorn.^[3]

In addition to the regular cast, Patrick Warburton guest starred in the episode. Recurring voice actors Al Thompson, Jamie Kennedy, David Lynch, and Arianna Huffington made minor appearances as well.^[5]

Cultural references

• This episode was originally titled as "Cripple Threat".
• When Rallo is having fun scaring people he dresses up as Jason, from Friday the 13th, Chucky, from Child's Play, Leatherface, from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Freddy Krueger, from A Nightmare on Elm Street.^[6]
• Cleveland has an extended fantasy of faking his own death and fleeing to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to become a bull rider in order to avoid helping out Donna.
• Peter mentions that FOX paid the salaries of the Family Guy characters for their appearance on The Cleveland Show.
• In Cleveland's fantasy segment of running away to Brazil, they wrongly speak Spanish in Rio, but in reality the official language spoken in Brazil is Portuguese.

Reception

In its original broadcast on December 5, 2010 on Fox, this episode was watched by 5.96 million U.S. viewers and acquired a 7.2 rating/share.^[7]

Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club graded the episode with a D, saying "It's not a big deal when one of these shows uses a cliché plotline because there are only so many family sitcom plots in the first place. But when The Cleveland Show uses one, it's doubly disappointing, just because the characters are so bland. "Beer Walk" is a problem on this level because it's pretty much just the "now the husband has to do the housework!" plotline, which is not exactly a new one (pretty sure I Love Lucy did this one). There were some attempts to make this a little different, like having Donna hang out with Cleveland's friends, but Donna and Cleveland are the weakest characters on this show, and that makes "Beer Walk" almost a complete dud. (But, OK, I continue to like the fact that David Lynch is a semi-regular.)" ^[6]

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: "Beer Walk!"

• "Beer Walk!" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Beer Walk!" at TV.com