Richardson stated that he describes voicing Cleveland Jr. as "a character he did on ER named Patrick, who was mentally impaired and wore a football helmet."[3] Before the show aired in 2009, the show's panel appeared at the 2009 Comic Con International, and held a discussion about the show. When describing Junior's change in physical appearance and age, Mike Henry said "Cleveland Jr. really didn't have much to him and so he didn't appear for a while and so we sort of aged him up and made room for Rallo to be the younger one for a while."[4] The show's creators later gave an explanation of Junior's altered look in "A Rodent Like This".