Did ‘The Cleveland Show’ attribute to the development of ‘Bordertown’?

It might be crazy to think now…but it’s possible that two episodes of The Cleveland Show that aired in late 2011-early 2012 very well could have laid the foundation for what will now be Bordertown a brand-new animated series coming to FOX in 2015 which promises to be a satirical look at the cultural shifts taking place in America. Exploring family, politics and everything in between with a cross-cultural wink, the series centers on two very different families living in a fictional Southwest desert town on the U.S. – Mexico border.

One of those elements, family, was featured as an important plot point for two episodes of The Cleveland Show, ‘“Y Tu Junior Tambien” and “There Goes El Neighborhood”. For those that don’t recall, feel free to click on the links and read the recaps and reviews for both episodes. For everyone else, both episodes surrounded Cleveland Jr. marrying into a Latino-family by way of a girl he meets at school named ”Cecelia”. Clearly, Cleveland Jr. was way out of his league from the get-go and this would certainly lead to the young couple’s undoing, however I enjoyed the hell out of the ride. The producers for The Cleveland Show did a hell of a job depicting the many social issues that came about the pairing of Junior with Cecilia. From Lester calling the INS to Cleveland trying to adapt to a more Latin-esque life style in an effort to impress Cecilia’s mother ‘Choni’, you can definitely tell that there was a bunch of fun had by the writers in what would eventually be a short-lived effort.

Fast-forward to last year when it was announced that Seth MacFarlane and Mark Hentemann would be producing this new series Bordertown, right away I couldn’t help but think of the aforementioned Cleveland Show episodes that aired years prior and whether or not we will be seeing similar ideas for the new series. If so, I think Bordertown is going to be a hit series because those episodes of Cleveland, in my opinion, were the brightest of the series’ entire run! The only thing that has me concerned is that Cleveland Brown was a somewhat established character before those episodes of Cleveland aired. Will Bud Buckwald be able to do the same? Thankfully, we will get to find out next year on FOX. But, what are your thoughts?