Mike Henry on The Cleveland Show: "Seth Taught Me — When Everyone's Laughing, Say 'Let's Do Better Than This'"

Mike Henry — co-creator, executive producer, and voice of Cleveland, Rallo, and others on FOX's The Cleveland Show (Sundays at 9:30 p.m. Premier Guide Miami sat down to find out what that means — and what comes next.

Mike Henry — co-creator, executive producer, and voice of Cleveland, Rallo, and others on FOX's The Cleveland Show (Sundays at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT) — credits Seth MacFarlane with changing his life and career. Henry met MacFarlane through his brother Patrick at the Rhode Island School of Design, where both were film animation majors. After years of stand-up, short films, and sketch comedy, Henry joined Family Guy as a writer and character creator before co-creating The Cleveland Show with Rich Appel (The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Bernie Mac, American Dad).

On how Seth MacFarlane changed his life: "Back when I had finished college in Virginia, I worked in advertising for a short time, moved to L.A., started doing stand-up and shooting short films. I met Seth, who was at the Rhode Island School of Design with my brother Patrick. I played a bunch of crazy characters in this film that my brother did, and Seth and I just hit it off. I thought the guy was hilarious, and I think I made him laugh. So we kept in touch for a couple years after that."

On the most important lesson from MacFarlane: "The thing that I learned most about him or from him was there were times in Family Guy, in the writer's room, where we all loved a joke and Seth just didn't like it. 'We need to do something better or I don't like that.' And so it was good to be able to see somebody do that because that's what I have to do a lot now — when everyone's laughing, to say, 'You know what, let's do better than this.' That was a big thing for me. So thanks, Seth."

On the NBA All-Star episode: "Basically, Cleveland gets some tickets from work to the NBA All-Star game in Los Angeles. He and Donna fly out for the game, and Cleveland gets drunk at the game and starts heckling the players. They get their feelings hurt by this heckling, as I'm sure they would in reality, and vow to band together to go to Virginia to beat Cleveland up. Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Dirk Nowitzki, Shaquille O'Neal, Dwyane Wade, Steve Nash — they are all hilarious. I guess when you get to play basketball and make millions and millions of dollars you are a pretty loose guy."

On the Justin Timberlake episode: "We have one coming up with Justin Timberlake, which is going to air a week from Sunday, where he plays a singing booger, and Rallo is trying to kick his booger-eating habit because it's turning off the ladies at school. Junior takes him under his wing as his mentor, and it's kind of an addiction story, and this song takes place as Rallo is flicking his last booger good-bye. It's a breakup ballad between Rallo and this booger that is voiced by Justin. I'm happy with that episode, and I'm very happy with that song."

On the show's success: "We had a huge platform that we were coming off of. Family Guy has been a phenomenal success, so to be frank, we had a pretty big leg up because of that. I'm the most critical person in the world when it comes to the creative, and I think through season one we were really kind of finding our way. Thus far in season two — and we're actually in production of season three — I'm really happy with what we've become. The musical numbers that we're doing, I think, are my favorite things."

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