11/26/08

REVIEW

The Boondocks

I’m the stone that the builder refused’, if you hear these line you are sure to be watching The Boondocks.

I was recently inspired to watch at least 26 episodes of The Boondocks because I have been a fan of creator Aaron McGruder from the time when he was a young intern at SOURCE Magazine introducing his cartoon strip. That was back in the mid 1990s. The video series is co-scripted with Rodney Barnes and is it wow!

The Boondocks reminds me a lot of The Bafanas which used to be serialised in the now-unpopular BONA magazine and was carried inside the last back page. The cartoon strip died when its founder Sydney Chama passed away. How sad, given that Peanuts is outliving creator Brad Schultz.

I draw a similarity between the two strips based on the topics they tackle which indicate the background of the cartoonists. In The Boondocks for example, on an episode titled My Date with Health Inspector they look at the issue of sodomy in prisons. The characters, criminal prosecutor father of Jasmine, Huey and funny Riley refer to its as anal rape.

The originator, McGruder is a ghetto made super hustler who has finally epitomised statements like, ‘it’s so good now/ my niggas we out the ‘hood now’. He moved from SOURCE to having a deal with SONY Pictures for the funny screenplay.

However irrespective of the multimillion dollar deal he still manages to capture projects-living with Butterfield freshness. He’ll touch on issues of the high rate of black men who end up in prison simply because they are black and he even has two dumb (white) Iraq War veterans who like to attempt intelligence with a statement, ‘absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence’.

If you thought R.Kelly’s acquittal for giving a minor a golden shower three months ago was unbecoming you should see an episode titled The Trial of R.Kelly where that outcome was humourously predicted.

Interesting enough the cartoon provides commentary instead of leaving the viewer hanging – it’s activism at its humourous best. Now, I’m not a cartoon fan even though I grew up on Sad Sack, Dagwood in Blondier, Dennis the Menace in Peanuts and also have videos of Popeye and Little Red Riding Hood, however I found the voices of Regina King and John Witherspoon intoxicating on this series.

I found The Boondocks quite topical and timeous which means it deserves a 8/10, Kasietalk for go get it, you’ll be laughing everytime you watch it.

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