Worldbuilding

"Transmedia extensions, often not central to the core narrative, that give a richer depiction of the world in which the narrative plays out. Franchises can exploit both real-world and digital experiences. These extensions often lead to fan behaviors of capturing and cataloging the many disparate elements."
Caddell, 2009

The Cleveland Show is a spin-off where the minor character from The Family Guy show is a protagonist. Peter’s friend, Cleveland, moved to Virginia in order to set up a new family. There are not much references about each others in the shows, sometimes Peter and Cleveland call each other however, no common plot or events were created yet to bind those two shows together.

Roberto Bianco in USA Today said, “The characters here creak, including the talking bear who mirrors the alien in American Dad [another MacFarlane’s cartoon] and the dog in Family Guy, and the watered-down setup now feels like a copy of a copy of a copy” (Bianco, 2010).
 

But Cleveland pretty quickly became Family Guy II, with similar characters and dynamics (Cleveland's toddler stepson Rallo is essentially Black Stewie) and the same taste for quick-fire cutaway jokes and pop-culture references (including self-conscious ones about white writers making sitcoms about black people)”
                                                                                (Poniewozik, 2009)

Furthermore, the story enhancement, its spin-off called The Cleveland Show had a great potential of being a real unfolding piece of transmedia project for The Family Guy. Unfortunately, instead of creating something new and meaningful the show happens to be The Family Guy black repetition. It occurred that the show concept is not flexible enough to absorb other ideas of presenting the universe. Well known patterns of characters, relations, show’s dynamics and construction were repeated and instead of other point of view, point of view of Afro-American family, with different ethnical, ideological and geographical background, we have a takeoff on The Family Guy. That kind of repetition is hard to call a real enhancement of the universe however, from the audience’s point of view it is a parallel story in the same storyworld. The question is:  if this universe is constructed well enough to support other stories creating a real transmediatic production?


 In spite of the fact, that some signs of negative capability exist (utterly insufficient as for such a complex project) migratory cues are not its implication. There are no intermedial hooks that would entertain audience, create mystery and make the story more enjoyable, which in the end makes the story world quite poor in audience’s reception as we are limited to one location, the same family members and friends.