The Cleveland Show is what happens when Family Guys Cleveland Brown (voiced by Mike Henry) moves to Stoolbend, Va. Characters, from left, Cleveland Jr., Cleveland, Rallo, Donna and Roberta premiere in the animated sitcom Sunday.

NEW YORK On the premiere of his new Fox show, Cleveland Brown gets a fitting send-off from the world he inhabited on Family Guy.

Forces unleashed by Family Guy lunkhead Peter Griffin cause the front of Clevelands home to be destroyed, exposing him naked in his second-floor bathtub, whereupon he slides yelping no, no, no, no, no, NO! to a crash-landing out on his front lawn.

It isnt the first time.

But if the terminally affable Cleveland has spent six seasons as a Family Guy sidekick and fall guy, thats about to change.

Im tired of being kicked around by this world! he erupts, as best he can in his gently modulated voice.

Divorced by his wife and evicted from his home, he knows its time to set off from Quahog, R.I., with his portly teenage son, Cleveland Jr., for a new life on The Cleveland Show, which premieres Sunday at 8:30 p.m.

He heads back to his hometown in Virginia, where he weds his high school sweetheart, Donna, and becomes stepfather to her children: hotsy high-schooler Roberta and mouthy 5-year-old Rollo.

Befitting a spinoff of Family Guy (where despotic baby Stewie converses with Brian, the dog), Cleveland meets a clutch of nutty neighbors, including husband-and-wife bears.

Its a whole new world and set of characters, said Mike Henry, a co-creator of the show and the man who voices Cleveland. Theres a new tone. Sweet and family-ish.

Say what?!

Theres still plenty of filthy jokes, Henry said, careful not to distance his new venture too far from his old one. But theres a whole, nice message in each Cleveland Show episode. Family Guy paved the way for a lot of coarseness and shock humor, but were not trying to push that any farther.

Yes, there will be comic cutaways and flashbacks but fewer than on Family Guy.

And yes, there will be the rare appearance by Peter and other Family Guy regulars.

But overall, says Henry, We really wanted to get out on our own legs.

The seriess gestation began a couple of years ago when Family Guy maestro Seth MacFarlane pitched the idea to Fox brass.

We didnt have to sell an elaborate premise, said MacFarlane, whos teamed with Rich Appel and Henry on the spinoff. It doesnt matter what the premise of a comedy is, its about the characters. We said, Here are our characters.

Long before then, Cleveland had struck the threesome as a character with more to say than Family Guy permitted. However much he resisted stereotyping, he mostly served as the shows token black guy. But they thought he had more to offer.

All wed seen of him is the tip of the iceberg, said Henry. And, as opposed to Peter Griffin or Homer Simpson or a lot of other protagonist dads, he doesnt get himself into trouble just by being an idiot. He gets himself into trouble by trying to do the right thing but constantly making mistakes.