All Kids Out Of The Pool

Since our local paper, The Regress, doesn't carry much more than traditional comic strips (can't upset the old folks, no), I haven't really been able to get into The Boondocks all that much. Aaron McGruder's own special brand of humor has managed to escape me for too long. So, when I heard Adult Swim had signed on to develop it into an animated show, I was happy.

Long I waited in the pits of Clearfield County, stranded in a sea of conservative stagnation, for this show to come along and breathe life into relatively dull nights. And it was well worth the wait.

Warning: If the word "nigger" and its many forms offend you, too bad. It's used a lot in this show. Doesn't bother me in the least, but you try living in an area that more or less is intolerant of anyone who isn't of Eastern European descent.

I just got done watching the latest episode during the [adult swim] repeat run for the night, and man, it was hillarious. With Mos Def guest starring as a rapper who's as phoney as the music he produces, the best joke came when the animated version of MTV's Sway (voiced by Sway himself, no less) came on the TV and said "Hi, I'm Sway. And this... is my inexplicable head wrap."

Teh. Funnay.

Not the first time Sway has lampooned himself, either. He did it once on Robot Chicken as the host of a show on the fictional XSPAN network, an MTV-ish version of CSPAN. Now that I mention it, Adult Swim has been more or less hitting home runs as far as programming. You have your "classics" like Aqua Teens, Sealab, Brak, Space Ghost Coast To Coast, and Harvey Birdman, sure. But with regards to new programming, they're batting somewhere in the neighborhood of .750. Here's what I mean:

Squidbillies - I wasn't too keen on the concept in the beginning: thanks to a receeding ocean and God's misguided purpose, a clan of squids was stranded in the north Georgia mountains. Thanks to generations of inbreeding, they're pretty much as out there hillbilly as you can get. But the show has grown on me a bit. Not super funny, but it's still cool to laugh at hillbillies, squids or not.

Stroker and Hoop - A buddy PI show in the vein of Starsky and Hutch, with some Knight Rider thrown in and a whole mess of insanity besides. I think it's pretty damn funny myself, and enjoy the absurdist humor that AS originals are known for.

Tom Goes To The Mayor - The title is the long, drawn out way to say "crap." Tim and Eric, the show's creators, are simply buffoons. Whatever they're trying to parody, they suck at it tremendously. The visual style is harsh and insipid, and the toilet humor is way overused. I can't believe Jack Black and Kyle Gass (AKA Tenacious D) signed on to do their "Traps All Day" episode. The biggest blemish on AS's impecible record.

Robot Chicken - Nostalgic hillarity. It's all the action figures I ever had as a kid, along with dolls and other toys of those bygone days of yore, in situations much to hillarious to accurately describe. Seth Green and company have developed a masterpiece tha sadly only clocks in at 12 minutes per episode, but those 12 minutes are more often than not packed with laughs. Optimus Prime gets prostate cancer. Voltron gets served. Teela is involved in a sex tape scandal with Beastman. And you can't ever forget those wacky bloopers...

Super Milk Chan - I'm still on the fence on this one. It's not AS influenced, though the level of insanity is right up there with that of Williams Street. Milk is a foul-mouthed 5 year old super hero with no discernable powers, who along with Tetsuko her farting robot and pet slug Hanage, take care of problems for the President of Everything, with help from gadgets from King's Idea Laboratory's Dr. Eyepatch. She also flim-flams her gay alien landlord. Funniest moment? The episode where a counterfitter is printing up bills to satisfy his addiction to Belgian Waffles. Yeah. It's like that.

The Boondocks - Love it. Beautiful style, funny as all get out. As I said before, it's the shizzle, nizzle.

Yeah, I have too much time on my hands, and stay up way too late. But hey, it's not by choice...