animation

While Cleveland and Rallo were learning to face their fears, and Cleveland Jr. and Donna were facing many people's worst nightmare, Roberta had to face simple reality on 'The Cleveland Show' (Sun., 9PM ET on FOX). People who look and talk like Edward Cullen and Jacob Black aren't just mysterious and brooding. They're also not vampires or werewolves. In fact, they're probably just gay.

At least, that's the reality according to this show. Also, girls all across the world got a good tip on how not to find the right man. Throwing yourself off a cliff may attract the handsome man with a supernatural secret in the movies, but in real life you'll probably just find yourself flattened on a rock.

It's pretty rare for an animated series to be so clear in its vision with the very first episode, but 'Allen Gregory' (Sun., 8:30PM ET on FOX) seems to know exactly what it's going to be about. It has a crisp look, well-defined characters and a lead who's completely unlikable but utterly fascinating.

Voiced by Jonah Hill, Allen Gregory is more than just another genius grade schooler. He's arrogant, socially clueless and way more confident than he should be. And he's apparently into much, much, much older women.

When he first lays eyes on his principal -- and the first thing he sees is her behind -- he's immediately whisked off into a rather disturbing fantasy, to say the least, of the two of them jet-setting together on a romantic getaway.

Paired up with the return of 'Beavis and Butt-Head' is the new animated series 'Good Vibes' (Thu., 10:30PM ET on MTV). It's the story of Mondo, an overweight teen from New Jersey who goes to the one place a teenage boy will never get tired of ... the beach!

There, he makes friends with Woodie, a local who clearly has never been outside of California. While he teaches Mondo some of the tricks of the trade as a local, he also seems to think that the businesses along the beach front are representative of any town in America.

There is nobody more suited to poke fun at some of the programming on MTV than 'Beavis and Butt-Head' (Thu., 10PM ET on MTV). Thank goodness the show returned after far too many years off the air.

While they still seemed to be able to find music videos to skewer -- we laughed, and agreed, with their assessment of MGMT's 'Kids' video -- they also found themselves having to comment on reality fare like 'Jersey Shore.'

Unfortunately for them, they picked an episode without fighting or sex, as they noted, but rather featuring the cast learning how to make pizza.

A game of 'Border Patrol' sparked a real border crisis between Mexico and America on 'South Park' (Wed., 10PM ET on Comedy Central). The boys were playing a game, with half of them border patrol and the other half Mexicans. Butters, playing a Mexican, wound up lost.

A well-meaning couple found him and tried to make him a happy Mexican by letting him do work around the house and yard, but as he wanted to go home, they dropped him off at El Pollo Loco. There he inadvertently sparked a movement among the other Mexicans to return to Mexico, where conditions are much better than in the U.S.

¡Ay caramba! It may soon be time to say good-bye to 'The Simpsons.' Edge of the seat contract negotiations are nothing new for the show, but now Fox has reportedly upped the ante, telling cast and crew to settle or lose their jobs.

According to 'The Wrap,' Fox has said that if no agreement is reached in the ongoing contract dispute the show will be cancelled at the end of the current 23rd season.

And, even if the dispute is settled before tomorrow's deadline, the network will only air one more season of the show.

After the mid-season finale that saw Stan turning ten and literally seeing the entire world as crap, everyone wondered how Parker and Stone would follow it up. With this 'South Park' (Wed., 10PM ET on Comedy Central), we saw.

They didn't cop out and pretend it never happened, but they kind of did do the next best thing. They basically found a way to reset everything back to the way it was, leaving Stan with a little secret to explain it away.

That said, we loved it when Stan met Morpheus and the other leather-clad cynics like himself who saw the world for what it really was. And rather than a pill to see the real world, they used alcohol to see the fake one everyone wants us to see.

Originally planned to the be the season finales for Seth MacFarlane's shows this past May, the hurricane crossover for 'The Cleveland Show,' 'Family Guy' and 'American Dad' (Sun., 9:30PM ET on FOX) was shelved in response to a swath of tornadoes devastating the country at that time.

While there was a lot of fanfare for their impending premiere back then, FOX very quietly dropped them in as the second episodes of their respective series this season. Disappointingly, it wasn't until 'American Dad,' though, that the hurricane really became the focal point of the story.

As such, it was a bit of an overall disappointment as a crossover event, though we absolutely loved Cleveland Brown and Peter Griffin making a cameo at the end of 'American Dad.'

When Bart Simpson pranks a fundraising event, Principal Skinner challenges Superintendent Chalmers to try educating the perennial troublemaker on 'The Simpsons' (Sun., 8PM ET on FOX). In the heat of the moment, Chalmers accepts, but is immediately consumed with self-doubt.

That doubt takes us to a flashback of the last time he was a teacher, which was apparently in Shermer High School back in 1985, as we saw him stepping into the library of 'The Breakfast Club.' Except, even though their faces were familiar, they said they were the Fight Club and proceeded to give him a beatdown the likes of which both Brad Pitt and Edward Norton would have been proud of.

Cee Lo Green was a revelation on the Season 7 premiere of 'American Dad' (Sun., 9:30PM ET on FOX), and that's not easy to do as a guest voice actor on an animated series. Still, we couldn't help but notice the way his unique style and sense of humor permeated every aspect of this musical experience.

An obvious nod to 'Little Shop of Horrors,' the plant was replaced by a sentient hot tub voiced by Green. He lured Stan in and slowly began to take over his life. Eventually, Stan left his family behind along with his job, devoting himself entirely to the hot tub.

The Griffins won the lottery on the season premiere of 'Family Guy' (Sun., 9PM ET on FOX), but don't worry that this is going to be like that last lame season of 'Roseanne.' They blew through the winnings -- twice, actually -- by the end of the episode.

But while they were sitting pretty, Peter let it go a little too far, torturing his friends for his own amusement. Before he turned the tables on them, though, Quagmire and Joe were doing the classic things friends do when one of them comes into a large sum of money.

Quagmire was looking for an investment while Joe was suddenly needing to throw a private concert for his wife. Even more egregious, they were laughing awfully hard at his jokes.

Seth MacFarlane kicked off his portion of 'Animation Domination' with a crossover on 'The Cleveland Show' (Sun., 8:30PM ET on FOX). After finding out Peter Griffin had been in Stoolbend and not contacted him, Cleveland headed to 'Family Guy's Quahog to find out why.

There was a lot of fourth wall-breaking, like the Griffins assuming Cleveland's show had been cancelled. Finally, Peter bluntly told Cleveland that he no longer thinks of them as friends.

The episode then followed Cleveland trying to forge a tighter bond with his Stoolbend drinking buddies, only to have Peter arrive at the last moment -- with Chris' evil monkey -- to save them all. It was a fun nod to Cleveland's past, and another reminder of how fun these shows can mesh together.

Kiefer Sutherland lent his voice to 'The Simpsons' (Sun., 8PM ET on FOX) as a character reminiscent of his Jack Bauer days. Wayne is the new security guard at the nuclear power plant, but he has flashbacks to a much more dangerous past.

One flashback revealed the special CIA training he received, complete with circus strongmen, ferocious animals, Chucky and Kobe Bryant! But, despite his harrowed past and his resistance to befriending people in Springfield, Homer gets under his skin.

And then Homer needs saving when Wayne's past literally comes to town -- though we're not sure how he found it considering Wayne chose Springfield because it isn't on any maps. It was a fun episode, and a fun character for Sutherland. We loved the Korean animation re-enactment, and we're happy to see Nedna going strong!

It was a life or death choice on 'Archer' (Thurs., 10:30PM on FX) as our hero had to choose between saving Rip Riley's life or saving some bottles of booze.

After a terrifying plane crash into the sea, Archer swims back into the wreckage and rescues three bottles of hooch as well as a life raft. Meanwhile, an unconscious Rip is floating helplessly as a large shark starts circling him.

As the shark begins its attack run, Archer takes Rip's gun and tries to shoot it. Only to realize that he can't fire the gun properly because he's got his hands full. He just can't manage the gun, Rip and the booze.

So what's he going to let go of? We think we saw him waver a bit, but he eventually makes the right choice, lets go of the bottles and shoots the shark.

Most parents who allow their young children to watch TV spend a lot of time fretting over issues such as which shows are age-appropriate, which ones are educational or improving, and which ones could be harmful.

The latest kids' show to be called into question is Nickelodeon's long-running cartoon series, 'SpongeBob SquarePants.' According to The Wrap, a study due to be published online Monday by the journal 'Pediatrics' found that watching just nine minutes of 'SpongeBob' had a negative effect on four-year-olds' attention spans.

Nickelodeon questioned the validity of the findings, criticizing the small size of the control group and pointing to the fact that 'SpongeBob' is targeted at children aged six to eleven, not four.