Michael Giltz: DVDs: What Happened To The Boondocks? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-giltz/dvds-what-happened-to-emt_b_106535.html [4/5/2009 2:14:58 PM] APRIL 5, 2009 HOME POLITICS MEDIA BUSINESS ENTERTAINMENT LIVING STYLE GREEN WORLD CHICAGO COMEDY 23/6 VIDEO BLOGGER INDEX ARCHIVE Make HuffPost Your HomePage Get Email Alerts Twitter: Follow Us BIG NEWS : Angelina Jolie | Madonna | Chris Brown & Rihanna | Paul McCartney | More...</p><p> LOG IN | SIGN UP Michael Giltz BIO Become a Fan Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index DVDs: What Happened To The Boondocks ? Posted June 11, 2008 | 01:35 PM (EST) Read More: Aaron McGruder, Boondocks , Cartoon Network , Cartoons , Comic Strips , Doonesbury , Entertainment News Aaron McGruder is the most intriguing, funny and frustrating talent to emerge from the worldof comic strips since Garry Trudeau andDoonesbury.</p><p> McGruder is a comic strip artist who grew bored with comic strips, a TVanimation innovator who took so long to deliverhis shows people forgot about them and a savvymedia presence who didn't want to waste his timebeing a talking head.</p><p> His strip The Boondockswill always be a landmark.</p><p> Incisive, intelligent, bold and most important of all hilarious, it told the story of two brothers -- the informed Huey andthe hip hop obsessed Riley -- living with their grandfather.</p><p> McGruder refused to play by the idiotic rules of the industry, which typically gives artists no rest in churning out new strips every day for the first five years of their contract. (After that, you might gettwo weeks off.) Like Trudeau, who retired Doonesbury for a year and now takes vacations to recharge and keep the hours he works somewhat sane, McGruder took care with his strips andrefused to stick to crazy deadlines.</p><p> Then he launched the TV version, which has a tremendous voicecast (led by the marvelous Regina King) and it captured his mindset perfectly.</p><p> And then all hell broke loose.</p><p> McGruder started to hand over the drawing of his strips to other people, delivering only the text.</p><p> He made clear he felt the TV series was a better outlet for what he wanted to accomplish.Eventually, the strip would go on hiatus with no determined return date.</p><p> Finally, it stoppedaltogether.</p><p> But the TV show had its own problems.</p><p> Season Two just never seemed to appear.</p><p> I mean, never.</p><p> Was McGruder pushing the boundaries, freaking out the cable channel with his provocative work,which had created a stir the first time around? A process that should have taken 9 months ended Be the First to Submit This Story to Digg Like this story? Get Alerts of big news events.</p><p> Enter your email address Popular Stories on HuffPost Fashion Face-Off! Michelle Obama And Carla Bruni-Sarkozy Finally Meet In France (VIDEO, PHOTOS, POLL) *Video, poll and slideshow Levi Johnston TalksSafe Sex With Tyra Banks (VIDEO) ***UPDATE*** 8:30pm: People.com is reporting that Sarah Palin has issued...</p><p> Oscar de la Renta Slams Michelle Obama's Buckingham Outfit As Major Designers FeelIgnored While Michelle Obamahas made lesser...</p><p> Verena von Pfetten 7 Lessons To BeLearned From Carla Bruni So here's the thing.There's no shortage of articles dedicated to thatcertain je ne...</p><p> Huff TV Arianna Discusses MichelleObama's "Fantastic" Style On CBS' Madonna Jets Out Of Malawi More in Entertainment: Farrah Hospitalized...</p><p> Madonna Tot's Dad Found...</p><p> Choreographer: Rapist?...</p><p> WATCH: SNL: Madonna And Angelina In Weekend Update Adoption-Off Michael Giltz: DVDs: What Happened To The Boondocks? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-giltz/dvds-what-happened-to-emt_b_106535.html [4/5/2009 2:14:58 PM]up taking two years -- an eternity in TV terms.</p><p> Or, if you prefer, similar to the gaps in The Sopranos.</p><p> Yet when he finally delivered the shows, there was no drumbeat of excitement leadingup to the new episodes -- despite the fact that the show had critical acclaim and a burgeoningaudience.</p><p> Instead, new episodes just started to appear, almost as if Cartoon Network wereashamed of them.</p><p> Were they too toxic? Indeed, there was concern about content: BET network threatened to sue over two episodes lampooning the channel and its content.</p><p> Those never aired but can be found on thenew DVD set The Boondocks The Complete Second Season ($49.95; Sony).</p><p> I'd love to say that the new episodes were so out there, so scathing and fierce that the Cartoon Network lost its nerve.</p><p> I'd love to say it was worth the wait.</p><p> But in fact, like the scraps we saw of the final season from Dave Chappelle's sketch show, season two of The Boondocks already seems exhausted of ideas.</p><p> One or two episodes are so similar to ideas from Season One that for a minute I thought they were repeats.</p><p> Don't get me wrong -- the show still has much to recommend.</p><p> The episodes on snitching and a white teacher who uses the "n" word (hilarious, really, since Riley uses it so much the teacherbecomes innured to it) are highlights.</p><p> And the voice cast is exceptional.</p><p> You get a glimpse of theircamaraderie and the challenges of creating the show with some fine extras, as well as four audiocommentary tracks.</p><p> But despite being a huge fan, I have to admit the level of quality dipped.</p><p> Thatdoesn't excuse the utter lack of publicity for the show (curious, really), but it does explain why TheBoondocks hasn't built on the success of season one.</p><p> McGruder delivered a brilliant comic strip and then moved on.</p><p> He collaborated on a very goodgraphic novel -- Birth Of A Nation -- and then moved on.</p><p> He's delivered two seasons of a TV series that had flashes of brilliance and I imagine he's moved on from that as well.</p><p> Maybe the next stageis a Boondocks movie.</p><p> I hope so.</p><p> Because his talent deserves as wide a canvas as he wants.</p><p> Let's just hope McGruder finds the right storyline to fire his imagination and the right studio to give itthe mainstream push his work deserves.</p><p> Also out this week: Heavy Metal In Baghdad ($19.95; Hart Sharp), a fascinating documentary about Acrassicauda, the only heavy metal band in Iraq, and the travails of being a band when Scud missiles blow up your van and there's no dependable power for your electric guitar.</p><p> Jack Nicholson has built up an almost endless supply of good will over his career, but that still makes dreck like The Bucket List ($28.99; Warner Bros.) a little hard to take -- on the other hand, has a bad movie ever entered an idea into the popular lexicon so quickly? One of the coolest martial arts movies ever made comes to DVD with Come Drink With Me ($$19.97; Weinstein), which stars Cheng Pei-pei as The Golden Swallow, one of the great actionheroines.</p><p> A fun series of books is bungled in the movie Jumper ($28.99; Fox), which makes the mistake of turning the barely teenage hero into a college age student, though they did make the right move of casting the magnetic Jamie Bell in a supporting role and somehow the movie grossed $100 millionoverseas so maybe they'll get it right in a sequel.</p><p> Woody Harrelson delivers one of his most acclaimed performances as a gay escort for mature women in The Walker ($27.98; ThinkFilm).</p><p> Army Wives Complete First Season ($39.99; Buena Vista) in a boxed set just as season two of thepopular drama/soap begins, with the best extra being a look at real army wives.</p><p> High Noon Ultimate Collector's Edition ($19.98; Lionsgate), the Gary Cooper Western that must hold the record for the most versions of a movie released on DVD not called Terminator 2 and if you don't own it, this edition is as good as any.</p><p> The Rock: The Most Electrifying Man In Sports Entertainment ($34.95; WWE), a three disc set look at the Rock before he went all soft and started making family films, including 19 complete matches -- really, most sports leagues could take a lesson from the thorough, satisfying packagesdelivered by the WWE.</p><p> Catherine Deneuve 5 Film Collection and Sophia Loren 4 Film Collection ($39.98 each; Lionsgate), "Washington Unplugged" Arianna was on CBS' "Washington...</p><p> Alex Leo The "Real Housewives Of New York City" Flowchart Of Hate I'm a little embarrassed tolove this show as much as... 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More in Entertainment...</p><p> HuffPost Stories Surging Right Now Fox News Cars Women's Rights Michelle Obama Europe Newspapers Bank Of America War Wire Video MORE BIG NEWS PAGES » Books by this author A cabin of one's own: New England's MacDowellColony celebrates 100years of artistic utopia.And the gay and lesbianartists who prosperedthere celebrate ... (Thenational gay & lesbiannewsmagazine) by Michael Giltz Affairs to remember:Farley Granger beddedAva Gardner, ShelleyWinters, and LeonardBernstein.</p><p> In hisautobiography, IncludeMe Out, Hitchcock's muse... (The national gay &lesbian newsmagazine) by Michael Giltzlove it for a reason like being green! 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Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to View Comments: Newest First Expand All shawshank See Profile I'm a Fan of shawshank permalink What a shame that McGruder finds it hard or irrelevant to develop a large body of work at the different stages of his creative evolution.</p><p> The Boondocks (with Pearls before swine) was the reason i checkedthe comic pages.</p><p> The season 1 on tv was a blow out, it was served right, i played it for every one whocame to my house (no one knew about the comic show, a point well observed by Mr Glitz).</p><p> I felt itneeded to be seen by a whole lot more people.</p><p> Heard a few grumblings about Regina King voicing theboys, here's where i differ cos i believe she was superb in her delivery.</p><p> And to answer Mr Glitz's question about season 2 being disappointing, yes it is.</p><p> But the show started losing its bite at the tail end of the 1st season.</p><p> Social See Profile I'm a Fan of Social permalink "The Boondocks" comic was utterly brilliant, evidenced by the fact that it intrigued and yet aliented just about every demographic imaginable at one time or another (or constantly...).</p><p> During the height of itsrun, I found myself (like many other white surbanites, I'm sure) hitting Okayplayer.com daily for not onlya taste of the comic, but also the culture that helped create it.</p><p> As ironic as it may seem, clearly nobody can eviscerate notable Africian-Americans such as Condi Rice, Oprah and Robert Johnson quite like McGruder (or Dave Chappelle, for that matter).</p><p> A world without his commentary would be one of pure bigotry.</p><p> Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 01:39 PM on 06/14/2008 Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 03:02 PM on 06/13/2008Michael Giltz: DVDs: What Happened To The Boondocks? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-giltz/dvds-what-happened-to-emt_b_106535.html [4/5/2009 2:14:58 PM] HOME POLITICS MEDIA BUSINESS ENTERTAINMENT LIVING GREEN STYLE WORLD CHICAGO COMEDY FUNDRACE ARCHIVE Advertise | Login | Make HuffPost your Home Page | RSS | Jobs | FAQ: Comments & Moderation | FAQ: Huffpost Accounts | Contact Us Copyright © 2009 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. | Archive | User Agreement | Privacy | Comment Policy | About Us | Powered by Movable Type Comments are closed for this entry JScott See Profile I'm a Fan of JScott permalink Sometimes you still catch it on Cartoon Network, usually late on Adult Swim.</p><p> Disturbing and uncomfortable in some respects but brillant.</p><p> Too bad it's hard to find regularly even onCN.</p><p> Michael Giltz See Profile I'm a Fan of Michael Giltz permalink Thanks for reading.</p><p> Yep, "The Boondocks" has always had a late-night slot because of itsadult content.</p><p> It's not quite the boonies, however, since their late-night block called Adult Swim has been one of Cartoon Network's best blocks of programming.</p><p> Still the new season just sort of appeared, rather than being ballyhooed.</p><p> You must be logged in to reply to this comment.</p><p> Log in or Ads by Google The Boondocks at Urban73 Hip-Hop style Boondocks T-shirts and much more - Huge Selection www.Urban73.com Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 02:00 PM on 06/11/2008 Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 03:20 AM on 06/12/2008
