Boondocks (NRR)

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  • noznoz 3,625 Posts
    for those keeping score - the boondocks cartoon is still awful. i think worse than anyone could've anticipated.

    from the New Yorker via another message board, and on point:
    Aaron McGruder has ridden a long way on the coattails of controversy. His comic strip ???The Boondocks,??? about two black boys who started life on the South Side of Chicago but now live with their grandfather in a middle-class suburb, has a lot of anger in it???at any rate, more anger than the usual comic strip, or even the unusual comic strip. The older boy, Huey Freeman, who is ten, is named after Huey Newton, the Black Panther, and he???s angry at stupid white people and stupid black people. He wears a perpetual scowl. Since the strip began syndication, in 1999, it has been pulled by newspaper editors a number of times, which is almost like being given the Pulitzer Prize. McGruder has spent several years working with a friend, the movie director Reginald Hudlin, to turn the strip into an animated cartoon show, and it has now d??buted, on the Cartoon Network. (It can be seen at eleven on Sunday nights.) The show, like the strip, has been called controversial, mainly because its characters say the word ???nigga.??? (They do in the strip, too, but it???s written ???n***a.???) There is not a single fresh moment in the three episodes that have run so far; it turns out you can be controversial without being the least bit interesting. The show refuses to come alive, no matter how much hot air McGruder blows into it. [/b]

    in other words

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    for those keeping score - the boondocks cartoon is still awful. i think worse than anyone could've anticipated.

    from the New Yorker via another message board, and on point:
    Aaron McGruder has ridden a long way on the coattails of controversy. His comic strip ???The Boondocks,??? about two black boys who started life on the South Side of Chicago but now live with their grandfather in a middle-class suburb, has a lot of anger in it???at any rate, more anger than the usual comic strip, or even the unusual comic strip. The older boy, Huey Freeman, who is ten, is named after Huey Newton, the Black Panther, and he???s angry at stupid white people and stupid black people. He wears a perpetual scowl. Since the strip began syndication, in 1999, it has been pulled by newspaper editors a number of times, which is almost like being given the Pulitzer Prize. McGruder has spent several years working with a friend, the movie director Reginald Hudlin, to turn the strip into an animated cartoon show, and it has now d??buted, on the Cartoon Network. (It can be seen at eleven on Sunday nights.) The show, like the strip, has been called controversial, mainly because its characters say the word ???nigga.??? (They do in the strip, too, but it???s written ???n***a.???) There is not a single fresh moment in the three episodes that have run so far; it turns out you can be controversial without being the least bit interesting. The show refuses to come alive, no matter how much hot air McGruder blows into it. [/b]

    in other words

    I respect all of your opinions and look forward to seeing the show someday to see how it hits me. But letting the New Yorker shape your views is

  • drewnicedrewnice 5,465 Posts
    I actully believe the show has gotten better since the first episode.

  • noznoz 3,625 Posts
    But letting the New Yorker shape your views is

    don't get it twited, i shape my own opinion. i just need the new yorker to articulate it.

  • I actully believe the show has gotten better since the first episode.

    I agree.

  • The_NonThe_Non 5,691 Posts
    I didn't see the first episode. The ones I've caught though have been solid. I don't think the extreme criticism this show gets is deserved. There are tons of AWFUL[/b] shows on TV.

    *cough War At Home *cough cough

    Dan, catch it. Let's get some more opinions in here. Less hatting.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    But letting the New Yorker shape your views is

    don't get it twited, i shape my own opinion. i just need the new yorker to articulate it.

    Articulat the New Yorker is. Respect.

    Dan

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    I didn't see the first episode. The ones I've caught though have been solid. I don't think the extreme criticism this show gets is deserved. There are tons of AWFUL[/b] shows on TV.

    *cough War At Home *cough cough

    Dan, catch it. Let's get some more opinions in here. Less hatting.

    I don't have cable.

    Did War At Home replace Arrested Development? Someone should be shot.

    I don't get Boondocks daily but I have the book and think it's tops. Sometimes I am in DC or Baltimore and get to see it each morning.

    Dan

  • Haven't seen the show, but some of you might be interested in his interview with The Onion AV Club this week.

  • I watched the one about the rich white people party. Call me white, but it just seemed really mean spirited and ridiculously racist. There were a couple amusing things but it just seemed like a really sick and twisted commentary. I see what they were getting at but... i dunno. So depressing. It was like reverse-racism throwback to the 30's type stuff.

  • noznoz 3,625 Posts
    I didn't see the first episode. The ones I've caught though have been solid. I don't think the extreme criticism this show gets is deserved. There are tons of AWFUL[/b] shows on TV.

    *cough War At Home *cough cough

    Dan, catch it. Let's get some more opinions in here. Less hatting.

    well i hardly think across the board low standards on television should encourage us to lower the bar for taste. attitudes like that are what are keeping television mediocre, we should expect more of our entertainment. especially in regards to someone like mcgruder who has built his reputation on being "groundbreaking".

    honestly, i'm not hatting, i really wanted this show to succeed. but it's just too bad to let slide. i've still got a season pass on my tivo, hoping that somewhere a light switch is going to go off and it will live up to it's potential. but i really don't see that happening at this point.

    here are but a few of the flaws: jokes are few and far between, and usually built around some played out pop culture reference (i mean we're way past r. kelly peeing on someone jokes). excessive use of the word n*gga for the sake/shock of it. pandering pseudo social commentary ("why do black folks always do this...?"). the worst voice acting in the history of cartoons courtesy of regina king. under or undeveloped characters (which especially comes as a surprise because i always thought the characters shined in the strip, even at it's lowest points). bland, almost non existant plots. and so on...

    as much as mcgruder and the adult swim faction want it to be, this is not groundbreaking television. it's barely competent.

    and yeah, war at home is pretty miserable and confoundingly a (moderate) hit.

  • noznoz 3,625 Posts
    mean spirited

    that too.

  • TSGTSG 274 Posts
    disappointing- yet i never really liked this shit anyway. i do see some glimmers of potential for the future somehow...i actually laughed a couple of times during the last episode.

  • edpowersedpowers 4,437 Posts
    i watched for the first time ................this show is absolute horse shit

    very awkward ,not intriguing, not funny,extremely forced,self righteous bullshit

  • edpowersedpowers 4,437 Posts
    horse shit

  • edpowersedpowers 4,437 Posts
    doo doo

  • The_NonThe_Non 5,691 Posts
    as much as mcgruder and the adult swim faction want it to be, this is not groundbreaking television. it's barely competent.

    Agreed. It's not groundbreaking. It is mediocre, but ok. TV in our society seems to be a dying medium. So much garbage, so when something is , perhaps I'll stick up for it too much.
    1
    T.N.

  • well i hardly think across the board low standards on television should encourage us to lower the bar for taste. attitudes like that are what are keeping television mediocre, we should expect more of our entertainment. especially in regards to someone like mcgruder who has built his reputation on being "groundbreaking".

    Truth...
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