Just when opponents became comfortable ignoring “The Boondocks” on the comics pages of newspapers across the country, it lands on your TV next month.
The sometimes controversial, often reviled but generally funny cartoon strip (which runs Sundays only in The Herald) makes its television debut at 11 p.m. Nov. 6 on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.
Check your listings for channel information.
The TV version of the show starts with the arrival of the Freemans, a black family, in the suburban haven of Woodcrest. Granddad bought a nice house in the ‘burbs when he took custody of his grandsons.
Huey, 10, is a burgeoning leftist revolutionary and his little brother, 8-year-old Riley, is a burgeoning criminal – or so he likes to think.
Creator Aaron McGruder tries to keep it real from the get-go and the results will probably shock you.
The first hits come right out of the gate, when Huey fulfills his dream of inciting white people to riot at a garden party by announcing, “Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the devil and the government is lying about 9/11. Thank you for your time, and goodnight.”
The statement earns Huey a smack to the head from Granddad and we’re introduced to life in “The Boondocks.”
“Will it be misinterpreted? Absolutely,” McGruder said in a conference call Tuesday. “Will people take away terrible things and wrong things? Sure.
“There’s nothing I can do about it other than not make the show, and I’d rather make the show for the people who get it.”
The half-hour show will run for 15 episodes and is sure to hit some nerves. One plot ponders what might have happened had the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. not died when he was shot, but rather slipped into a coma and woke up in 2000.
In that episode, McGruder says, “Kingmania” runs wild as the reverend gets a book deal and reaches his height of popularity until the terrorists attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, take place and King makes an appearance on Bill Maher’s HBO talk show.
“Bill Maher asks him about what our response should be and Martin Luther King says, ‘Turn the other cheek and love thy enemy,’” McGruder said.
King’s reputation is ruined, he’s deemed a traitor to the nation, no one goes to see his movie and he loses his book deal. Years later, after a small, independent company finally publishes his book, King is on a book signing tour through Woodcrest, where only Huey and Granddad show up.
“It’s a story where Huey and MLK try and figure out where MLK fits in the modern day,” McGruder said.
It’s also a storyline that McGruder says couldn’t have been done in his comic strip and an example of the creative freedom that the television series offers.
“This is 15 episodes and no one’s promising anymore than that, so any stories I want to tell, I’m telling them now,” McGruder said. “The MLK episode is one of those things. There’s no other place to tell it other than this show. It’s a really interesting idea. It’s not done for the sake of controversy.”
McGruder’s words ring true, especially when he talks about the use of “the ‘N’ word” by Granddad and the kids. It’s a topic that’s no stranger to controversy, and that, he says, is the problem.
“I would look forward to the day where racial discourse has somehow evolved past the same conversation we’ve been having for 30 years,” McGruder said. “I just kind of wish that at a certain point the conversation will move forward and become more sophisticated, instead of being stuck in a rut where we talk about the same thing and nothing ever changes.”
McGruder doesn’t claim his cartoon can make those changes, but perhaps it can serve as a Granddad-like smack that will shake things up just a little.
Victor Balta’s column runs Mondays and Thursdays on the A&E page. Reach him at 425-339-3455 or vbalta@ heraldnet.com.
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