Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show crossovers

Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show are all adult animated sitcoms that air on Fox's Animation Domination lineup. The programs all have a common creator in Seth MacFarlane. Though MacFarlane co-created American Dad! along with Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman, he created Family Guy and The Cleveland Show on his own. Family Guy and The Cleveland Show are closely related in that The Cleveland Show is a spin-off of the former. The Cleveland Show was cancelled in the 2012-13 television season.

The crossover is technique in which widely known characters from one program make an appearance on another program. The technique has been commonly used between the three animated series in question. Characters from each of the three series have made appearances on the other two within the trio. Characters from American Dad! have made several appearances on Family Guy and a couple of appearances on The Cleveland Show. Characters from Family Guy have made several appearances on American Dad! and some on The Cleveland Show as well. The Cleveland Show characters have made appearances on Family Guy (Cleveland Brown, the title character of The Cleveland Show is originally from Family Guy).

Moreover, characters from American Dad! Family Guy and The Cleveland Show have all made a three-way crossover appearance once in American Dad! At the very beginning of the 2011-12 television season, Animation Domination aired a special programming block entitled Night of the Hurricane between the three aforementioned series. The programming block consisted of a corresponding theme in which all three programs were hit by the same hurricane.

Crossovers on American Dad! with Family Guy characters

  • At the beginning of the American Dad! episode "The Return of the Bling," Klaus proclaimed that he was ready to pretend going to school if someone was ready to pretend seeing his bus outside. He had a Family Guy lunch box and was wearing a baseball cap with Brian Griffin on the front.
  • Brian Griffin made a brief cameo in the American Dad! episode "The People vs. Martin Sugar" as Stan's #1 Fictional Dog. Brian carelessly asked Stan, "Uh, do I know you?" before Walking away. Stan replied by shouting "Stop pretending I don't exist!"
  • In the American Dad! episode "The Worst Stan," Steve and Roger were watching a fictitious episode of Family Guy featuring Stewie and Brian going to Miami to enroll in Florida State University. While viewing this, Steve questioned how a baby and a dog were able to get on an airplane.
  • At the end of the American Dad! episode "The Unbrave One," Glenn Quagmire was portrayed as a mysterious Internet doctor, Dr. Vadgers, whom Francine kept emailing for results on her pregnancy.

Crossovers on Family Guy with American Dad! characters

  • In the Family Guy episode "Lois Kills Stewie," Stan and Deputy Director Avery Bullock attempted to catch Stewie for breaking into the CIA, where Stewie mistook Stan for Joe Swanson.
  • At the end of the Family Guy episode "Meet the Quagmires," Peter commented AbOUT everything being back to normal, until Roger entered the living room and said, "Who ate all the Pecan Sandies?", a reference to the American Dad! pilot.
  • In the first Family Guy Star Wars special "Blue Harvest," Roger was seen as one of the various aliens in the Mos Eisley cantina.
  • Brian had an epiphany in the Family Guy episode "Excellence in Broadcasting," in which he changed his political views to republican conservatism. Once he realized this, a cutaway gag displayed Stan Smith sitting on the couch supposedly watching the episode and saying to himself, "Good. Good for Brian."
  • In the Family Guy episode "Foreign Affairs," Bonnie remarked to Lois before having an affair, "Joe just isn't the same man I married." The American Dad! opening sequence from the early episodes (in which the running gag was that of a newspaper headline, not the later version with Roger in costume) is then shown, with Joe acting as Stan.
  • In the third Family Guy Star Wars special "It's a Trap!", Roger made a cameo as an Imperial Officer. He was sent to meet Darth Vader (played by Stewie) when he arrived at the second Death Star. Upon encountering Roger, Stewie remarked, "Did we run out of our own characters?" Elsewhere in the episode, Klaus played Admiral Ackbar.
  • In the Family Guy episode "Killer Queen," Barry was shown as one of the fat kids that sat next to Peter Griffin.
  • At the beginning of the Family Guy episode "Bigfat," Peter Griffin had a dream in which the Smiths had moved into Cleveland Brown's old house, in which he also confuses Stan for Joe. The dream concluded with Stan shooting and [...] Peter for sharing information on Roger being an alien. Hank Hill from King of the Hill later appeared in the same dream.

Crossovers on The Cleveland Show with American Dad! characters

  • In The Cleveland Show episode "Gone with the Wind," Quagmire told Cleveland that after he dropped Loretta's coffin at the funeral home, he was heading to Langley Falls for a background gag in a bachelor party scene in American Dad!
  • In The Cleveland Show episode "Ain't Nothin' But Mutton Bustin'," Rallo has a belt buckle of Roger that he was looking to replace after winning his first mutton busting competition at the fair.
  • Roger was shown on a stained glass window in The Cleveland Show episode "Jesus Walks."

Three-way crossover & programming block

  • The first crossover between MacFarlane's three animated sitcoms (American Dad! Family Guy and The Cleveland Show) occurred in the "Night of the Hurricane" — a special programming block in which each of the three programs produced episodes about a hurricane that stormed through the towns of Stoolbend (setting of The Cleveland Show), Quahog (setting of Family Guy), and Langley Falls (setting of American Dad!). The programming block commenced with The Cleveland Show episode "The Hurricane!" which aired first on the Animation Domination lineup. In this episode, Channel 6 News reporter Larvell made a meta-reference to the event, stating that the hurricane would make its way through Stoolbend, Quahog, and finally Langley Falls. This was followed by Family Guy, which aired next and then American Dad! The actual crossover of the event took place at the final part of the American Dad! episode "Hurricane!" In the brief scene, Stan faces Cleveland Brown and Peter Griffin in a standoff once the hurricane has passed.
  • An instance on the programming block is during the 2012 election, with a short featuring Brian and Stan telling the viewer to vote. Soon their own political views conflict resulting in Stan shooting Brian in the leg.