Huey Freeman is an intellectual who isn't afraid to comment on racism and hypocrites or make snide remarks about political figures. He's also the 10-year-old star of "The Boondocks."
The animated version of Aaron McGruder's controversial comic strip begins at 11 p.m. Sunday on Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim." The show has an interesting slew of characters including Riley, Huey's delinquent gangsta brother; Granddad, an eccentric crotchety old man; and Uncle Ruckus, who hates black people even though he is one himself.
McGruder said the show is almost exactly the same as the comic strip, with the addition of character depth and expanded story lines.
"It ultimately comes back to storytelling," he said. "It's difficult to tell stories with the strip because people don't read it every day. I've always wanted to tell
half-hour stories about the characters. I can now tackle the world."
Fans of the strip will appreciate the show, but reading it is not necessary for understanding show plots or characters, McGruder said.
Because the show is on "Adult Swim," McGruder is able to create the show with "virtually no restrictions." He said "Adult Swim" understood the premise of the show and put forth the most aggressive offer to acquire the show, whereas other cable networks weren't as enthusiastic.
"It's been a long ride," McGruder said. "I've been attempting to sell it to one place or another for five to six years."
The TV show will be funnier than the comic strip, he said.
"I don't think anyone cares about a message or the truth if you're not funny. The show has to be funny," McGruder said.
"You can obviously make the smart points and get that kind of thing across while being funny. It's an entertaining show."
Even though McGruder has many people helping to create each episode, he said he still ends up doing the majority of the writing and has the final say on everything related to the show.
He also directly supervises the artists and the animation process.
With the amount of success "The Boondocks" comic strip has had, the show could flop or become popular, but McGruder said everyone is hoping for the best.
"If the prospects weren't good, 'Adult Swim' wouldn't have invested in it as much as they have," he said. "I do think that even though comic-strip-to-TV properties have had hits and misses, this show falls into a bunch of different categories.
"It's a late-night show about race and pop culture and things like that. There's a lot of stuff nobody knows and we're just hoping it will take off."
McGruder said even though his strip has brought him plenty of hate, he doesn't need people to disagree with him to get motivated to tackle even more controversial issues.
"I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it," he said. "You can't control who looks at it and how they feel about it. I find it easier to just shut it all out — hate mail, criticism, praise — I don't get too close to any of that stuff."
He said he doesn't have the ability to perceive his own work well because he's too close to it and said he is better at commenting on pop culture than his own work.
"I do the show so I don't have to talk to people about political issues myself," McGruder said. "I let the work speak for itself."
His comic strip has been infamous for attacking celebrities like Will Smith, Diddy and Condoleezza Rice, but McGruder said he won't have as many celebrity attacks on the TV show. He does blatantly poke fun at R. Kelly in one of the show's early episodes. In "The Trial of R. Kelly," Huey and Riley are on opposing sides of an "underage peeing" issue when the trial of R&B star R. Kelly comes to their town.
But when it comes to criticism that will arise from people new to "The Boondocks" via the TV show, McGruder's philosophy is "let them think what they want to think."
Benita Mehta can be reached at mehtaben@msu.edu.
