Look out, Republicans, it’s The Boondocks!
- The Boondocks
- Huey, Riley and Granddad move to a small town. White people live there. Huey says things they find offensive. Funny/controversial stuff ensues.
- Sundays @ 11 p.m. on Cartoon Network
In case you’re not familiar with the daily comic strip, or you haven’t seen Adult Swim any time in the last four months, you might not be familiar with The Boondocks.
If you fit into this small segment of society, I’ll fill you in. The Boondocks is a political, yet consistently pretty funny daily strip focusing on the struggles of two black youths in a white man’s world.
With a decidedly lefty slant and no fear of taking on on hot political and cultural topics, the strip has found itself moved off the funny pages and into the editorial section of more than a few newspapers in the U.S.
The series starts out with Huey, Riley and Granddad transitioning to life in a quiet little town. In other words, a white town. Soon after settling in, Granddad is invited to a garden party by the owner of the bank that owns the mortgage on the family’s house.
Riley is enamored by the banker’s wannabe thug life grandson, voiced by Charlie Murphy, in full Charlie Murphy mode, while Huey can’t seem to get any disrespect. His rants about Ronald Reagan being the only seem to earn comments about how well-spoken he is.
I can just see the Drudge headlines about Huey and Riley eyeing people through the scope of a rifle. If that’s not asking for trouble, I don’t know what is. But it’s a good kind of trouble. Seven years from now, some kid is going to shoot somebody and you can bet your country club membership that they’re going to call Aaron McGruder as a witness at the trial. The show definitely lives up to the expectations set by the comic strip, and does a lot of things that just aren’t possible in three panels, but it seems like it could be problematic trying to stretch it out to 22 minutes every week. You could never get away with the rifle scope bit without the wider context of the TV show, but it’s not exactly biting commentary.
One of the benefits of running daily in newspapers is that McGruder can keep the strip timely. The turnaround time of an animated TV show is more like six months than six days, so it seems like a given that the show will deal with more general topics.
The show makes liberal use of bleeped curses and the word “nigga,” and it seems possible that they could just start dropping more of the same in order to keep it edgy. I think both are necessary elements of the show, as long as the topicality and sharp commentary are left intact. Otherwise, the show risks becoming a caricature of itself.
The show itself has a great, quasi-anime look to it, even down to the mouths and facial expressions that don’t quite match up with the voices. The style is the right complement to the comic strip, but I can see the anime style being distracting to a lot of viewers. It’s an acquired taste, and they probably could have made the show without it and not sacrificed anything.
This episode served mostly as an introduction to the characters and the underlying ideas of the show itself. I was expecting a little more, but most animated shows need a few episodes to mature. The Simpsons was considered extremely edgy for its day when it debuted, but when you look back at the first two seasons, it’s hard to believe anybody really thought it was controversial, never mind very funny.
The Boondocks is starting off with a great back catalogue of possible storylines, and great voice talent, including Jilly Talley, Cedric Yarbrough, Billy West and Maurice Lamarche. I’ve got to take issue with Regina King’s voice work for Huey and Riley, however. They just sound a little too forced, like an obvious adult trying to sound like a little kid.
The Boondocks has a lot of potential, and it’s unreasonable to expect any new animated show to start off fully formed. Give it a few months and I think it’s safe to say it’ll be the must-see feature every Sunday on Adult Swim.
