TV Diary
The Boondocks
The comic strip's always been hit or miss with me, so I wasn't sure what to expect from the animated series, and so far I'm not crazy about it. What bugs me mostly is Regina King's voices for Huey and Riley, which are neither realistic nor particularly funny or used to good effect. It doesn't even sound like her, even. I can appreciate the logic behind using an adult woman to voice prepubescent boys in a cartoon, Bart Simpson-style, especially if the series does well and has a long run. It just doesn't work, in this case. The rest of the voices are better though, especially John Witherspoon (who tones down his usual schtick to the point that I didn't recognize him) as the grandfather, and the guest spots by Charlie Murphy and Ed Asner in the first episode. And I was pretty impressed with what they managed to get on the air. There were a couple bleeped curses and pixelated middle fingers and, disturbingly, full frontal grandpa, but they let the n-word fly along with guns and a lot of other stuff that would never get by in the comic strip (or probably on most other networks). I just hope the show turns out to be consistently funny and doesn't just trade on the shock value of statements that aren't actually that shocking to much of its audience.
The comic strip's always been hit or miss with me, so I wasn't sure what to expect from the animated series, and so far I'm not crazy about it. What bugs me mostly is Regina King's voices for Huey and Riley, which are neither realistic nor particularly funny or used to good effect. It doesn't even sound like her, even. I can appreciate the logic behind using an adult woman to voice prepubescent boys in a cartoon, Bart Simpson-style, especially if the series does well and has a long run. It just doesn't work, in this case. The rest of the voices are better though, especially John Witherspoon (who tones down his usual schtick to the point that I didn't recognize him) as the grandfather, and the guest spots by Charlie Murphy and Ed Asner in the first episode. And I was pretty impressed with what they managed to get on the air. There were a couple bleeped curses and pixelated middle fingers and, disturbingly, full frontal grandpa, but they let the n-word fly along with guns and a lot of other stuff that would never get by in the comic strip (or probably on most other networks). I just hope the show turns out to be consistently funny and doesn't just trade on the shock value of statements that aren't actually that shocking to much of its audience.
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on Wednesday, November 09, 2005 at 8:06 PM.
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