‘Cleveland Show’ co-creator leads animated life in Santa Monica

It’s a new year, and Mike Henry, lead voice, co-creator and an executive producer on “The Cleveland Show,” is celebrating with a new episode Sunday night on Fox.

Last year was pretty good for Henry, who lives on the beach in Santa Monica with wife Sara and their 2-year-old daughter Josie. His animated show, a September spinoff from Seth MacFarlane’s mega-hit “Family Guy,” quickly found its own following.

“At first I was a little nervous,” admitted Henry, “but once that first table read was under my belt, we were rolling right along. We’re doing extremely well with teens and males 18 to 34, but the best thing is we’re making the show we want to make. We’re not consciously tailoring it to any group.”

His weekends, however, are aimed squarely at fun.

Just the two of us

Fridays are usually Date Night, so we’ll get a sitter and head to Mastro’s in Beverly Hills for dinner. Every time we go somewhere else for a steak, we always end up saying, “Why didn’t we go to Mastro’s?” If we want to stay closer to home for some seafood, though, we’ll just walk over to the Galley on Main Street or Enterprise Fish Company. Maybe for a nightcap, we might duck into the Library, Rick’s Tavern or even World Cafe. Then we’ll come home and catch up on our “Mad Men” or “Friday Night Lights” on TiVo.

On the move

On Saturday morning, we might take a run on the beach with Josie in the jogger stroller and go to the pier and back to get our hearts going. Then we’ll hit Shoops, a little deli on Main, for some banana pancakes that are just sickly good. Nice friendly service, too. Then we’ll stop off at the playground at Ocean Park. Later, we’ll do some shopping on Main Street, maybe pick up some nice threads at Fred Segal.

At sunset, we’ll hit Shutters for a drink, but we also like Houston’s on the Promenade. We might meet my brother there, Patrick, who’s also a producer on the show. Yeah, Patrick Henry. From Virginia, no less.

Outdoors at Cora’s

A great breakfast place on a Sunday morning is Cora’s, right next to Capo and just down from the Loews hotel. Cora’s has a tree-shaded outdoor patio with great ambience. Nice omelets and orange pancakes that our daughter loves.

Then we’ll do a video chat with my 6-year-old son, Jack, in Virginia on the weekends when I’m not visiting with him. Then we’ll go to the Santa Monica farmers market or take a bike ride through Venice to Playa del Rey.

If we don’t have the energy for that, we’ll drive up to Malibu and get some coffee and look around the Country Mart, then drive up the coast some more. Just turn on some music and air it out a little bit.

mark.sachs@latimes.com