Picked up Season 2, Disk 1 from Blockbuster Video (a $1.99 special, thought it might be entertaining). Remembered seeing maybe 3 or 4 episodes on cable beforehand.
My thoughts:
Until you see the episodes uncensored, uncut, and undoctored, totally raw (and that’s definitely an appropriate word for this series), you have no idea just how much foul (and questionable) language there is. It flies at you almost nonstop; Huey is the only one who shows any degree of restraint. The only characters who refrain completely are the DuBois family, and I’m almost certain that this was intentional. (Strangely enough, Tom has some of the funniest lines in the show precisely because of his self-censorship. Guess Matt and Mike Chapman knew what they were doing.) The effect on me? My head felt heavy, and at the end I got mild nausea. It’s like being slammed by a big wave at the beach. The first time, it’s shocking. After a few times, it’s no big deal. Then, after the 80th wave or so, you have a dull ache all over and just wish it would stop. At any rate, this is definitely not an easy show to watch 5 episodes back-to-back for me.
On top of that, the level of vitrol was just astounding. There’s absolutely no such thing as “annoyed” or “mildly upset”. It’s always white-hot, raging, and colorful, and it only ever takes a few seconds to reach that state (if that). These are the kind of people you’d expect to see in anger management counsling at least and a straitjacket and padded cell at most. Sadness is another emotion that’s never the least bit subtle, although that’s mostly a Jasmine thing. The weird thing is that this is supposed to be a quiet gentrified community, and only the DuBoises and Huey (and sometimes Riley) are the only ones not regularly “acting a fool”, as Ludacris eloquenty put it.
The violence. Did I mention the violence? And not just cheesy stuff like Huey and the token lunatic’s chop-socky duel. There’s some serious hurt happening in nearly every episode (with plenty of blood), and some of it gets downright nasty. In particular, I’m amazed Tom is still alive. That poor guy’s taken more abuse than Strong Sad*.
This show reeks of hardcore, down and dirty hip-hop culture. Like emotions, it’s always cranked to 11, with the underdressed, er, dancers, strong alcohol, bling, crankin’ stereos, and anything else big and ostentatious. The language, even the non-swears, is ghetto, constant, relentless. I’ve never heard anyone other than the Very Special 4 and the occasional guest star say one sentence in anything remotely resembling clear English. (There’s one character in the “Thugnificent” story that’s actually pretty funny in this regard.) Frankly, I think most of these people would be shocked if they learned about M.C. Hammer’s career. “Waitaminit, waitaminit, he did poppy hip-hop? With no swearing whatsoever? Not even ‘damn’? And he became a runaway mainstream success story? And he never got into a fight or dissed a rival on an album or put lots of skanks in his videos or nuthin’? And when it was over, he became a preacher???”
Aaaaand…there’s nudity. Occasional, but it’s there. Including at least two penis shots that I know of, something too extreme for even South Park. I was surprised, to say the least.
In all, it’s a very radical departure from the original comic strip. Swear words were only occasional (I think Huey was more pottymouthed than Riley) and always covered up. The community was very white and bland, and Huey and Riley were outsiders (that was the whole point). There was no nudity, least of all male nudity, and in fact there was an entire series where Robert (the granddad) decried seeing nude Gitmo prisoners on the news. Jasmine’s mixed race was a very big deal and integral to her character, not just an excuse for occasional “high yellow” snarks. And there was LOTS of political commentary which took up entire storylines (even Riley sometimes got into the deal), and it directly mentioned issues involving important figures like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, not hashed together some ham-handed satire with cameo surrogates.
If all this comes off soudning like I didn’t like the cartoon, well…I didn’t like the cartoon. Just so relentlessly ugly and angry and vicious and snarky. A lot of episodes don’t even have proper conclusions, they just cut out with a beatdown in progress or a shaky truce called. And then there’s the shaky-to-horrendous writing, the most blatant example being “Tom Sarah and Usher”, where Sarah displays the intelligence of a brick at least three times (there is no better example of an “Idiot Plot”). Add it all up, and I gotta ask, what’s the point of this show? How is this funny? Informative? Edgy? Creative? Compelling?
Eh…if I were to rate it on IMDB, probably 3/10. Some really good gags, and the drawing style is really nice. About on par with Baby Blues. Major letdown from the comic (which was brilliant and always underrated).
Seriously, though, I’d like to have opposing viewpoints, analyses, explanations, even critiques. Go ahead, be brutal. (Not as brutal as Grandpa, though.)
- Yeah, well, maybe I did put two Homestar Runner references in this OP on purpose! What of it?
