Recently, "Family Guy" made the headlines as Mike Henry, who has voiced Cleveland Brown, steps down from his role. While opinions might be divided between the love of Henry's portrayal over the years and the need to address white actors portraying people of color. To quote Henry himself: "persons of color should play characters of color."
Seth McFarlane's brainchild, "Family Guy," has been on-air for twenty-one years now. Cleveland Brown is a part of it. With Henry's voice, Cleveland Brown offered some of the series' memorable music numbers - including a cover of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'."
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In its twenty-one years on-air, Family Guy has seen many celebrity guests over the years. Here are some of the actual musicians who have guested on the show:
Barry Manilow
Manilow appears as himself in Season 6, Episode 9: "Back to the Woods." At first, Peter Griffin, Cleveland Brown, Glenn Quagmire, and Joe Swanson talked badly about him and agreed to go to his concert as a joke. They gradually agree that Barry Manilow's songs are good, one after the other, before breaking down together and agree that he is the best.
The Quahog quartet sings "Ready to Take a Chance Again" before Manilow himself sings the chorus. In the concert, the four can be seen tearing up before Barry calls all of them on the stage. Manilow serenaded the four with the timeless hit "Mandy," replacing the title with "Quagmire."
A-Ha
The Norwegian pop band gave Family Guy its own sketch treatment, the same one they used in the famous 1985 music video. In the short, cut-away gag, Lois tells Chris to take a carton of milk and take it from the back. An animated hand invites Chris in and pulls him as the intro to the song starts playing. It happens in Season 4, Episode 9: "Breaking Out is Hard to Do."
Once inside the "Take on Me" animated pencil world, he dances as A-ha lead Morten Harket sings the chorus. As in the original music video, two men chase them both. As Harket and Chris start running from them, Chris pushes into the wall. He then gets out of the pencil-sketch world and back into "Family Guy," crashing from behind a tray of eggs.
KISS
The rock royalties have made several appearances in the show, including one Christmas special. As a band, they showed up all together in Season 3 Episode 20: "Road To Europe. Even better, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley voices themselves.
In the same episode, Lois reveals that she dated Gene "The Demon" Simmons. Peter, a KISS fan, is amazed. In a KISS Convention, Peter put on the iconic Demon make-up while Lois put on Criss' the Catman visual. KISS sang "Rock and Roll All Nite" in their concert.
Jason Mraz
This music prodigy is a good sport, evidenced by his willingness to guest in the show. He appeared one time, in Season 8, Episode 16: "April in Quahog," to bring one joke to life. In the episode, Peter confides in Lois that he always feels like he's "screwing up." He then recalls the story when he thought that he met Jason Mraz.
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It then cuts to the skit where Peter gushes at finding "Jason Mraz." The other guy said he's not the singer-songwriter, adding: "I'm just some guy with a hat." Peter then answers, "Yeah, that's who Jason Mraz is." Mr. A to Z himself is credited in the episode as "Some Guy with a Hat."
