Down in the Boondocks

One of the best new shows on TV this year is on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, their late-night programming block of cartoons aimed squarely at adults. As the picture to my left indicates, it's their version of Aaron McGruder's award-winning comic-strip, Boondocks. I've been enjoying this show for a month or so now, but made me want to talk about it today was this week's episode, "The Return of the King."

The "King" of the title is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the episode, Dr. King did not die when shot in 1968, he slipped into a coma. He awakens in 2000 just in time to be denied the right to vote during the Bush presidential fraud. But that is only the beginning, the first three minutes of the show to be exact.

This is a powerful show and like most episodes speaks of Aaron's immense disappointment in his people and what has become of them since the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Eventually it all get to be too much, even for Dr. King., who at one point looks at a room full of hip-hop niggas and laments, "Is this it? Is this what I took all those beatings for?" Powerful, funny as hell and touching. McGruder's show is pure genius.

Miss it at your own peril.