Aaron
McGruder’s politically charged comic strip “The Boondocks” has drawn
all sorts of acclaim as well as criticism, so intent is it on pushing
the envelope on race relations and political activism in its depictions
of a pair of boisterous African-American boys who get shipped to the
suburbs to live with their grandfather. Two-dimensionality gets a
subversive upgrade, though, in The Boondocks: The Complete First Season, the DVD release of the Cartoon Network’s small screen adaptation of the panel.
Nominated for a 2006 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, The Boondocks
centers on Robert Freeman (voiced by John Witherspoon), irascible
grandfather and legal guardian to his two grandsons — Huey, a
10-year-old leftist revolutionary determined not to enjoy the newfound
affluence surrounding him, and 8-year-old misfit Riley, a proud product
of contemporary rap culture. Race relations, tabloid media, hip-hop
mores, graffiti art and the angst of to-scale capitalism are all
touched upon in these outrageous half-hour narratives.
“The Garden Party” centers on Granddad’s perpetual paranoia that
Huey and Riley will embarrass him in front of their new neighbors,
while “Guess Hoe’s Coming to Dinner” finds Granddad scoring a date with
a beautiful young woman, only to find out she’s a prostitute. In “Let’s
Nab Oprah,” Huey angles to stop Riley and a gang of ne’er-do-well
idiots from kidnapping the titular talk-show queen. The coup-de-grace,
though, may be “The Trial of R. Kelly,” in which Huey rants of the
R&B singer’s underage accuser of sexual molestation, “She saw piss
coming and stayed. I saw piss coming and moved. So why should I miss
out on the new R. Kelly album?”
Staying mostly true to the panel, the series’ animation style is
best described as a sort of minimalist collision of Japanimation and
spiky, urbanized attitude — with big, expressive eyes, sparsely
rendered backgrounds, angular forms and an abundance of forced
perspective. The juxtaposition of this style with this content is
initially jarring, but, visually speaking, it’s rather hypnotic.
It’s undeniable, too, that while a bit of it is shock for shock’s
sake, McGruder’s writing touches a nerve and explores topics and arenas
left wholly un-tread by most modern comedy. Like Chappelle’s Show, The Boondocks
turns a sharp and sometimes critical eye on minority culture, as in
“The Return of the King,” which finds Martin Luther King, Jr. returning
to the present day, shocked at what’s become of the civil rights
struggle. In what may be uncomfortable for some, the series also gets
much mileage from the word N-word, exploring the unnecessary escalation
of conflict in what it terms “nigga moments.” (McGruder notes that “six
out of 10 ‘nigga moments’ involves a sneaker,” and he rates them as the
third-leading cause of death among black males, behind pork chops and
FEMA.) Some of this is quite funny in its skillful level of honed
satire, but also delivered tellingly at a specific audience subset,
which thus makes McGruder’s claims that the show “isn’t about trying to
change people’s minds politically or socially” a bit disingenuous.
Packaged in three slimline cases in turn housed in a cardboard slipcase, The Boondocks: The Complete First Season
runs approximately 300 minutes in sum total, and is presented in a
crisp, 1.78:1 widescreen transfer with an English language stereo track
and optional English subtitles. Special features include a variety of
both audio and video episodic commentaries by McGruder and the show’s
creative team, and a superb 21-minute behind-the-scenes featurette that
delves into the strip’s leap to the small screen. If we unfortunately
don’t get an extremely clear sense of the writing collaboration here,
everything else is illuminated, though I certainly would have liked
more material with Regina King, who voices both Huey and Riley. Other
supplemental extras include a collection of three deleted scenes, 10
minutes worth of cobbled together animatics, four minutes of unaired
television promos and five printable storyboards. While I’m not buying
McGruder’s strategy of under-the-radar analysis avoidance, the show is
provocative and engaging while not sacrificing its comedic instincts. The Boondocks definitely isn’t for all tastes, but this is a finely produced set for anyone inclined to give it a look. B (Show) A- (Disc)