"Gee, I don't know, no one's asked me..."
Posted on 10/30/2005 1:19:13 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
FANS fearing that "The Boondocks," the wildly scathing, racially charged comic strip, will lose its bite when it appears on television next week need not worry. Within the first 10 seconds of the new show of the same name, viewers will be offered the following Molotov cocktail of social criticism: "Jesus is black, Ronald Reagan is the devil and the government is lying about 9/11."
Since its national debut six years ago, the strip, about two black children living in white suburbia, has slaughtered its share of sacred cows, eviscerating everyone from Condoleezza Rice and Strom Thurmond to 50 Cent and Ralph Nader. President Bush has been a frequent target. As a result, the strip has been suspended, banished to editorial pages and dropped from some newspapers (it currently appears in more than 300).
Trying to translate that incendiary spirit into great television will be a challenge, an expensive challenge at that. Cartoon Network pays Sony Pictures Television, producer of the series, an estimated license fee of $400,000 per episode. Add to that the millions the network has spent on marketing, including many billboards in New York and Los Angeles trumpeting the show's premiere on Nov. 6 in the late-night "Adult Swim" block, and "The Boondocks" becomes the most expensive show the network has made.
"We don't have a lot of money, so we decided that for this year, we're going to put every dime we have into 'Boondocks,' " said Mike Lazzo, senior vice president of programming and production at Cartoon Network.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I like Jonny Hart. I like Dilbert. The rest are political and make no attempt at humor, as far as I can see.
Saw the creator, MacGruder, interviewed this morning on the CBS Sunday Morning show. Says he is not the "angriest black man" but is probably among the top 5.
What a gig!! Stickin' it to the "man" while they pay you for the privilege of being skewered on a daily basis...
Basically, the guy is a caricature of everything he criticizes.
And you, sir, are an idiot.
Let me get this straight; Cartoon Network refuses to air Speedy Gonzales but they're going to air a cartoon version of Boondocks. And they think they are going to make money?
Um, sure. Ok.
And the thing is---Aqua Teen and a couple of those other shows are much funnier than Boondocks could ever be.
Liberals (shaking my head) are like children! Pure and simple. Thumbing your nose at the system is what a juvenile mind resorts to since they lack the maturity to rationalizse the worl around them.
Yeah, I wanted to puke when Adult Swim started using that line to advertise Boondocks.
Macgruder is a prime example of why Affirmative Action doesn't work.
No-talent hack.
Life is great without television--blood pressure is down, health is better, and I can read all about everything I need to know right here on FR.
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Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Home Movies, Harvey Birdman, Squidbillies, Sea Lab 2021 and The Venture Bros. are some of the most cutting edge, brilliant TV shows I can think of.
However, the smug advertising for The Boondocks is it for us, statements along the lines of, "Its funny because it's true..."
I guess we'll have to find something else to do on Sunday nights once the Boondocks airs.
Racist garbage will probably sell good on the Cartoon Network. That's where it belongs.
"The Boondoggles"
Could you guys freep this poll please.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1512005/posts
IMO, Aaron MacGruder represents perfectly what is most stupid and paranoid among African-Americans.
This cartoon features an angry, cynical, young, black child, written by someone who jokingly calls himself in the top 5 of angry blacks.
I have no problem seeing why they put this in the Boston Globe...they have a minority ombudsman who takes part in all decisions there, including what is printed and how it is printed. I'm sure that covers the unfortunate cartoon page as well.
Humor is in a sorry state. The Globe (and some others) have seen fit to print "Ziggy" for all these years. With apologies to Ziggy fans, I am either not sophisticated enough, or have not had enough bong hits to appreciate it. I can appreciate Dilbert, Calvin and Hobbes, and For Better or Worse and so on. But things are grim with respect to funny cartoons.
Of course, My all time favorites are the Far Side, and some people do not find them humorous at all...I guess it is that personal taste thing.
Gotta love a pig that eats BLTs!
Yeah I saw that too. Came to one conclusion; The Boondocks is probably the only strip today were blatant racism is "acceptable". Acceptable because it`s shoved right in your face and if you don`t like it tough. Let`s see how long a strip would last that says everthing MacGruder says but with the words black and white replaced with each other.. "Jesus was white"..ho ho ho. Yeah OK. Probably using even the word "white" would be enough to get a white cartoonist banned for life. This MacGruder is a douche just like his buddy Shelton "Spike" Lee, and the media is either terrified or pushing the racism of both. Terrified because they don`t want to get tagged with the "R" word or accepting because they want that racism promoted. Me, I don`t care, I`ll say it... MacGruder is a racist just as extreme as any KKK punk azz out there and he needs a good swift kick in his cojones. "Angry black man" yeah ok, bulls**t.. the guy is a racist, plain and simple.
Never watched adult swim (yet)... what kind of advertisers do they have?
Is Harvey Birdman the defense lawyer that defended the Scooby Doo gang for marijuana use? And Dr. Benton Quest with child neglect? I stumbled across that one night- it was hilarious.
Dilbert is just wonderful, even if it's declined as Scott Adams has moved further from the workplace (for the first half-decade or so, he was working and writing the comic).
My favorite set is where Dogbert becomes a radio talk show host to promote his, "unique conservative viewpoint that people are basically idiots who deserve to be mocked" which, I think, just about sums it all up.
The good thing about this is that ratings are hard to gin up, and advertizers won't pay for no ratings.
"Gee, I don't know, no one's asked me..."
'Boondocks' is a sacred cow.
I TiVo a few Adult Swim shows (Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Space Ghost, Brak Show, Harvey Birdman.) TiVo will know my "appreciation" for Boondocks, with 3 or 4 thumbs down.
Just another Time-Warner company "get out the vote" effort for the Democrats.
let me get this straight... these young rats are pissed off because they DON'T get shot at in drive bye's, have to deal with drug dealers and junkies leaving needles all over the place, pimps/hookers and johns on the corners or is the lack of street gangs wanting to kick their ignorant young asses on their way to school that bothers them so much that they have to piss whine and moan like little girls all the time???
As if readers needed one more reason NOT to buy the New York Times ...
Adult Swim is definitely on it's decline. It's kind of sad, but it's not what it was a couple of years ago.
It started with Tom Goes to the Mayor. It was so unfunny that I stopped watching Adult Swim as regularly because I just couldn't sit through the show. Shows like Stroker & Hoop and Squidbillies are too mediocre to be worth the effort to turn on the TV, and Harvey Birdman has worn thin.
Family Guy and Futurama have been re-run over and over for too long now, and need to be replaced (Unless they have a new Family Guy episode to show).
The latest is 12oz. Mouse, which not only looks like it was drawn by a 5-year old, but appears to have been written by one as well.
Aqua Teen Hunger force and Sealab 2021 are still the best original shows Adult Swim had, but I haven't seen a new episode of either in a long time. Robot Chicken and Venture Bros are the lone holdouts right now.
...so when we go belly up after the colossal failure this will be, we can paint America as inherently racist for 'causing' our bankruptcy over a comic geared toward African-Americans. Then since we don't have a lot of money, our debts will be forgiven and we'll go in a completely new direction.
BTW Jesus is Arabic, Ronald Reagan is dead and further from the devil than Hillary Clinton, and, for the most part, the government has no clue about 9/11.
Mending fences with M-80s and masking tape.
Best episode is a take off of the Glenn Close film, Jagged Edge, and deals with a mad bomber, the Unibooboo. Harvey Birdman defends BooBoo the bear, wins the trial--and then finds out he's really the bomber--warped, demented, brilliant.
I guess it makes sense to put on the Boondocks then... I'll have to take Cartoon Network off channel skip and check out adult swim one of these days... or maybe not!
I haven't watched Adult Swim regularly in about 9 months. I love Aqua Teen and Sealab, but Sealab's off the air and ATHF has lost some of its spunk. I used to kinda like Family Guy, but I'm boycotting MacFarlane after "Christians don't believe in science" new episode and Anti-American Dad. Tom Goes to the Mayor was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I don't understand why people think men wearing makeup is funny. It's painful.
Adult Swim is going to tank further w/ this Boondocks. They underestimate the size of their right of center viewers, and for the most part those who would watch something like Adult Swim, already know about it. They aren't going to increase their market share, they will shrink it, and these Boondock episodes are supposed to be about half a million per episode. Stupid stupid stupid business decision.
Cartoon Network is really going downhill.
We all just want our Brak and Home Movies, but they can no longer be found. Instead they are intent on offending us with crap like this, the Oblongs, Tom Goes to the Mayor, and American Dad.
Oh boy, you ain't kidding.
I had high hopes for the show from the ads--the show looked really quirky and funny. It just tried too hard to be irreverent and outrageous, and practically screamed: "We're an irreverent cult cartoon!"
Worst of all, it was boring.
I'll give "Boondocks" less than a season before it's yanked from Cartoon Network. And any other group that tries to pick the show up.
This could occur due to indiference, boycott or large E-Mail and/or Letter Campaign.
Jack.
I predict the show will last 1/3 of the episodes as the Dilbert cartoon did.
I would recommend giving squidbillies another chance. I think its hillarious.
Oh, and McGruder doesn't even illustrate the Boondocks cartoon strip. Why doesn't the actual artist receive the credit? Sounds like yet another millionaire exploiting the working man.
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