While I am home for Thanksgiving, I have been watching more tv than I did in Kentucky. I've seen "My Name is Earl" and "How I Met Your Mother", both new sitcoms that I'd been looking foward to. (My household in Kentucky didn't have television, so all I got was juicy bits from Entertainment Weekly.)

I also saw one episode of "The Boondocks," the new cartoon show on Adult Swim that's based on Aaron MacGruder's comic.

I've always loved the comic. It's smart, it tackles controversial subjects, it's radical, funny, and the cultural references are targetted at my generation.

But the show really sucks. As the EW reviewer wrote several weeks ago, the show just stretches the comic out, and there really isn't enough quality material to fill the time. The comic format forces one-liners and concise commentary; the longer show is just a different kind of media, and it begs for a different kind of humor.

Also, the anime/manga-style animiation style really bugged me. Yeah, the comic's always been a little geeky, sprinkled with references to Star Wars and open source software, but that doesn't mean the art has to suck. Most of the non-anime shows on Adult Swim have cheap-looking art, too, but that's what they're going for when Sealab and Space Ghost use old 70s Hanna-Barbara cartoons. In the Boondocks, it just looks bad.

Another gripe I have is that both Huey and Riley are voiced by an adult woman. This is a normal phenomenon, as Nancy Cartwright has made a career out of voicing Bart Simpson. But in the Boondocks, it just sounds really fake and cheap.

I guess the main reason I'm so disappointed is that I have faith in Aaron MacGruder. He's hilarious, his art is good, and he seems very genuine and cool in interviews. He's the kind of guy that I would love to sit down and have a beer with. But it just seems that Cartoon Network or whoever is producing this show didn't put the money into it that The Boondocks deserves. It's just very disappointing.

(cross-posted at buzzwords)

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