Adult Swim "retires" episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Boondocks due to "cultural sensitivities"
Aux Features TV
Very little gets past Redittors. A recent example of this happened recently when a few users shared that they were having trouble finding season six episode of Adult Swim’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force from 2009, “Shake Like Me.” Others noted that they couldn’t locate season three episode of The Boondocks, “The Story Of Jimmy Rebel.” But don’t worry. According to The Daily Beast, reps from Adult Swim want to assure everyone that these episodes are “permanently retired” on a nice farm with a big, grassy lawn, where they can frolic with the other episodes of television that have been deemed culturally insensitive.
The two missing episodes in question share a common thread: They both relied on anti-Black ideology for chuckles, as is the case with a lot of past comedy (sometimes for satirical purposes, sometimes due to a lack of creativity and just being good old fashion racists). In “Shake Like Me”—a title that signals John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me, Shake is bitten by a radioactive Black man and turns “stereotypically” Black, complete with darkened skin, big lips, a chain, and an afro. Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks featured the character Uncle Ruckus, a self-hating Black man who proudly spewed gross, racist rhetoric throughout the entirety of the series. But in “The Story Of Jimmy Rebel,” he links with an equally proud racist country star who sets his overt anti-Blackness to music, which goes a smidge too far, apparently.
Both were considered perfectly acceptable when they originally aired, but now that the entertainment industry is continuing to (kind of) contend with its racist roots, they’re being quietly removed in between platform onboarding with no plans to return to the masses. “When Adult Swim transitions series to a new platform, we determine what episodes are selected through creative and cultural filters and our standards and practices policies,” an Adult Swim rep told The Daily Beast. “Oftentimes these decisions are made in collaboration with the show’s creators.”
An episode of the network’s stop animation series The Shivering Truth was also remove— sorry, “temporarily rested”—due to “current sensitivities.” In “Ogled Inklings,” a pregnant woman gives birth to a cop, who is then referred to as a “dirty pig.” It was previously available on Adult Swim’s site and, as of now, is slated to return with the series officially debuts on HBO Max.
Adult Swim joins the likes of Community, 30 Rock, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and others that wish to merely sweep their penchant for racist humor under the rug rather than examine why they found that particular well of comedy so enticing in the first place. There are definitely other ways to show support for the Black community, like hiring and commissioning Black creatives, donating regularly to community initiatives geared towards Black liberation, or, again, seriously and loudly acknowledging how this brand of humor has potentially caused some harm and sharing how you plan to improve your creative process in the future. All of that would be exponentially better than just hoping that folks forget that these episodes ever existed.
Looking for ways to advocate for Black lives? Check out this list of resources by our sister site Lifehacker for ways to get involved.
193 Comments
In the year 9595…
Ah yes, the famously anti-Black show The Boondocks.
“wish to merely sweep their penchant for racist humor under the rug rather than examine why they found that particular well of comedy so enticing in the first place” – I can see this comment applying to Aqua Teen, sure, but The Boondocks? Making racism look stupid and celebrating Black culture was, y’know, the entire gist of the show. Maybe this author never actually watched it?
I think the author opposes the censorship actually.
Yea the author is either being deliberately obtuse or is an absolute moron. He frames it as “contending with its racist roots” when the reality is they are censoring a black man’s critique on racism in america.
Eh, seems more like the author didn’t clarify the Boondocks were excluded from that comment.
It actually would be pretty funny if noted Star Wars nerd Aaron McGruder really was behind pulling the episode, finally embracing his inner George Lucas and erasing his original work.
If that was the case, he’d ensure there was an edited episode as the only version available.
And the famously oppressed minority of police officers.
I don’t understand any of these decisions—I’d much rather have some sort of content warning air before the episodes, in the hopes of promoting discussion and understanding of both the issues at play AND satire, in general—but I really don’t understand the Shivering Truth decision. Sure, “dirty pig” is not all that clever, but it’s not exactly “punching down”.
I seem to be the only one on the Internet who has actually seen the episode. I dare anyone here to try to make it through that one — the Jimmy Rebel character utters some of the most racist sentences I’ve ever heard in my life. In song. And it was banned well before this — it only aired once.
I haven’t managed to track it down…but I absolutely need to.Only piece of McGruder Boondocks content I haven’t consumed, haha!(Still remember being bummed about his “hiatus” from the strip)
Enjoy.
So we need to erase all the words that make you uncomfortable?The show was made by a black person, was vehemently anti-racist, and was proudly black. Just because words make you uncomfortable doesn’t mean the rest of us have to lose this stuff.
I can’t speak on Aqua Teen, ( never watched show) But removing the Boondocks episode is so fucking stupid. So are we getting to the point where black people can’t make fun of racism? I bet a white person made this decision.
We are past the point where nothing is satirical anymore.
Did you not read the article? The network clearly said that “Oftentimes these decisions are made in collaboration with the show’s creators.” Oftentimes! I don’t see what else you could ask from them.
“Oftentimes these decisions are made in collaboration with the show’s creators.”In other words, “Mr. McGruder, we either pull the episode or we pull the show.”
Yeah, I assume they used that noticeably vague term “oftentimes” because they couldn’t specifically state that they had collaborated with McGruder on that decision. Or maybe I’m being too cynical. (But probably not).
Aaron McGruder is one of my heroes.He is WAY too stubborn of an asshole to ever agree to any censorship, haha – even if it WERE warranted.
“Oftentimes” is corporate-speak for “Sometimes.”
A show’s creators are not necessarily competent to say what should be done with their creations.
“Oftentimes” doesn’t mean the same thing as they actually “Did”.
And Aaron Mcgruder has a history of distancing himself from previous projects, so I doubt they talked to him as well.
Its getting stupid. Its like losing the D&D Community episode because Chang black faces as a dark elf. Which is clearly shown to be wrong and that he is a terrible person for it. Context is key on this sorta thing
Yeah that one was also ridiculous. He’s called out for it, he’s established as a crazy person already, and it’s not even blackface. He’s cosplaying a fictional fantasy creature.
What, #000000 shade skin, white wig, and fake ears isn’t stereotypical blackface? It’s almost like people barely pay attention to anything beyond a surfactory glance.
In other news, this episode of Star Trek is being pulled.
Why?
Context, yes, people lose sight of that. Chang was a fucking elf, just putting on black or dark make up in itself isn’t racist. Its something with humor that people get a bug in their ass saying something is racist, but all the either shit like violence, etc is just part of entertainment and not taking as offensive. I am black and I remember that Golden Girls episode and my mother and grandmother laughed at the scene because it so ridiculous.
Yeah, the whole point was that Rose and Blanche were so clueless. And not clueless as in accidentally racist. I mean, it really fit their characters. They were always getting in situations like that and embarassing themselves.
Wait, I must not be remembering something accurately. Was the point that Chang’s decision was wrong and that he’s a terrible person? Shirley’s comment which was along the lines of, “Are we just going to ignore the hate crime?” (not the exact quote and I apologize) seemed to be a quick line to get the laugh and not the thrust of anything.My impression was that Chang was in the costume and makeup because he was a huge D&D nerd and that racial consideration was zero part of the equation in any respect to that point that he could genuinely say that he was not in black face.We may be agreeing but for somewhat different reasons.
Shirley called him out on it and how it was wrong and by that time in the shows history Chang had been long established as a mad man and terrible person in general. Was my point.
Yeah, part of the joke was the rest of the crew interpreting it as blackface because they don’t know what a drow is.
It was the same thing with Scrubs, JD gets beat up for it. And 30 Rock, the joke being it’s easier to get a white guy in blackface a show than an actual black actor.But that’s where we are.I brought this up in reference to the Unspooled podcast, if anyone listens to that. The talk was to remove Gone With The Wind from the AFI list for racist portrayal and replacing it with Titanic because it fits the same type of film.So we’d erase a film that won the first Oscar for a black actress for a film with no minorities in it at all. And that’s considered progress because it’s “not racist”.It’s so dumb. Educate people. Educate educate. Stop erasing. Erasure is directly what leads to people thinking the Civil War was about states rights (it was if you know that Slavery was the only state right difference between the US and Confederate Constitution) and people like Trump lying and saying whatever she wants because people believe it
I listen to Unspooled, but since I think Gone With the Wind is too long and boring, I wouldn’t be that miffed about it not appearing on AFI’s list. I still haven’t seen any James Cameron movies post-True Lies though.
I think GWTW is just too important and big of a film to completely remove. I just think it needs to be cited and have it’s context included. I just think the idea of removing it for a move that’s just so so white and somehow that being seen as a progressive move is just mind blowing.But, I have other problems with Unspooled at this point too. I think Paul and Amy have completely lost the thread on what the AFI list means (it’s not just quality, it’s impact) and stuck on this it has to be “good” thing. And these high school episodes aren’t helping either because I think they’re falling into some of the same traps. I really thought they’d try to fill in some gaps of the past 20 years and instead we only got Mean Girls and a bunch of films from the 70s and 80s as if the AFI list didn’t have enough
The 70s are golden years, so I say that’s understandable.I never thought Paul was a particularly good co-host. He may work on comedy podcasts, but he’s just not as knowledgeable about movies.
I disagree that the 70s are a golden era.I just think that film from the era (and prior really) has been curated so well (ie all the terrible stuff has been forgotten) that it has been sold as better than other decades.Whereas that hasn’t happened as well going forward, or at least the cheese and fluff is curated as well as the good stuff that it seems like the decades aren’t producing films as good.I think Paul being uninformed served as good purpose. The problem now is that Paul has kind of bought in on Amy’s take on film criticism. They have different tastes but he’s bought into a critics mentality instead of being an Everyman and talking about how films affected him.Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-critic. But, a big part of criticism is being able to write or talk about something. Like how is Star Wars not a top 5 film based on cultural impact alone? But a critic will downplay cultural success in order to highlight a film fewer people have seen but gives them more to say.
For as much as I like HDTGM I really can’t get into unspooled.
HDTGM just needs to be funny.Unspooled, if you don’t agree with their critical stances can be a slog. And as they go further along I find myself agreeing with their critical views less and less. Especially as they continue to ignore cultural impact to figure out what’s “good”.
I’ve been watching Community on Netflix and the D&D episode got yanked before I could see it. Interestingly not yanked: An episode a few seasons later where Chevy Chase’s plot is to purposefully be as racist as possible, he creates a somehow more racist Senor Wences by dyeing his hand brown. Technically not blackface I suppose! All of this is so damn stupid and arbitrary.
I would seek out the D&D episode. Its really one of the best of the show. Shame it got pulled
The D&D episode was basically an episode about suicide intervention! And it got pulled. That’s how mindless the whole thing is.
If Community really wanted to be honest, nearly every episode with Pierce in it would have to be removed. A TON of that character’s “jokes” were just regurgitated racism, straight up.
In the first season, long before the D&D episode, Pierce and Jeff don afro wigs, wear white gloves, and do a minstrel show in front of the Spanish class. Pierce also wears brown makeup to do a racist swami character in season 3’s finale. Actually, almost every episode with Pierce should’ve been pulled for racial insensitivity. Matt Walsh’s character was a Nazi with a full-on swastika tattooed over his heart in the hidden trampoline episode. Dani Pudi does steroetypically “black” impersonations a handful of times throughout the run. Britta wins the title of “Tranny Queen” in one episode. There are many, many jokes and bits that wouldn’t work now, and shouldn’t have worked then, but are still streaming.If you’re gonna pull episodes, then pull episodes, but don’t half-ass it and call it a day.
I watched the series for the first time a few months ago, and iirc in another episode Pierce does full-on brownface to play a stereotypical Indian caricature. Pierce in general, and the tolerance for his racism that the show constantly advocated, was a real problem that can’t just be excised from their history.
Context, sure. Everyone’s hungry for it! That, and subtlety.
Honestly, I’m sure they looked at the risk/reward graph and promptly yanked it. I’m not sure they’re wrong.
“Its like losing the D&D Community episode because Chang black faces as a dark elf.”A touch dramatic, no? These episodes are not lost, it’s just not as available as it used to be.
You just have to buy a DVD of a certain age to get it!(Or, y’know, steal it)
They should have hired a drow-elf actor to portray the role. Shameful.
Would they “retire” the old episode of “Gimme a Break” where Sam dresses in blackface to sing an Al Jolson song and gets a full education by Nel Carter on blackface and Al Jolson? Simply because a person in the episode is wearing blackface? I still remember that episode and I watched it as a kid.
I loved that show. Nell Carter was awesome. In my early 20s, I found my mom’s album of the original cast recording of Hair. Imagine my surprise seeing Nell Carter was in that. My introduction to her was Gimme A Break, so the idea that she not only sang, but was a hippie in Hair was just mindblowing to me.She was awesome.
Yeah, removing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons felt like some executive decision from someone who has never actually seen the show, let alone that episode.
Context is key on this sorta thingRight, but we’re talking about Reddit here.
Absolutely. This reeks of that time Cartoon Network pulled all Speedy Gonzalez cartoons for being offensive to Mexicans without asking any Mexicans. We like him.
Look I’m half Filipino and raised around that culture. I wish somebody would make a funny cartoon of Filipinos. Cuz they can be ridiculous as hell! I’d laugh at that stereotype cuz it’s funny and true! Like for example, the whole dog eating thing. Yes Filipinos do eat dogs. I mean it’s not like that country in certain areas have access to a Wal-Mart and get decent food. They gotta do what they gotta do to survive. I mean not every Filipino eats dog, but they shouldn’t act like that shit does not happen.
Yes, this is a moronic decision as it pertains to Boondocks. Does Cartoon Network not realize that series as nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Comedy Series? Yes, that NAACP.
And the only Boondocks episode that was banned before, was when Tyler Perry and the head of BET didn’t like them being mad fun of and it was only available on DVD and I think never aired or aired once.
It aired, I saw it on TV. Shame it’s been buried.
Pause and The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show are on HBO Max!Jimmy Rebel…is not.
That’s a couple different eps. The Tyler Perry one (“Pause”) aired, then a furious Perry complained and threatened to take his ball and go home from Turner (since he was making very successful shows for fellow Turner-channel TBS at the time) if they aired it again. They pulled the repeats, but put it on DVD. They may have put it back in circulation now on TV, as it was not on Hulu but showed up again on HBO Max when Boondocks moved there.There were TWO episodes (“Hunger Strike” and “Uncle Ruckus Reality Show”) insulting the head of BET and Reggie Hudlin that were pulled before airing, but I believe aired outside the US and were definitely on the DVD set (which is where I saw them). These two have also re-appeared now that the show is on HBO Max, so maybe they air in repeats now?The Ballad of Johnny Rebel probably has the most instances of the N-word in the whole show, and many of them are gleefully sung by a white country singer and Uncle Ruckus, so it was probably just too much. I don’t remember seeing that one in repeats after the first time they played it, but I still have a copy on my old PS3 at least.
Regardless of the NAACP nomination, the entire character of Uncle Ruckus was created and used to make a very specific point about self-hating black people of a certain age, as mentioned in this article. To delete a single episode featuring him, while leaving all the rest, is moronic and shows that whomever made this decision doesn’t understand the point of the character.
They never would have done it without McGruder’s permission.
Considering McGruder didn’t respond to Daily Beast’s request for comment and Adult Swim and Sony made season four completely without his involvement, I would not take for granted that he had to be involved in this decision.
I think the joke was also lampshading how problematic the imagery of a drow was by having the oblivious Chang be incongruously deep into D&D and cosplaying as one of the creatures that probably should not be cosplayed
I don’t know if this was intended or not, but I think there’s also a message that “evil elves are black” may not be D&D’s finest moment.
I don’t know if this was intended or not, but I think there’s also a
message that “evil elves are black” may not be D&D’s finest moment.
You can’t completely blame D&D or TSR for this, i think Lolth making her devotees in her own night-black-carapace’d form was also responsible.* Of course, as she is a Chaotic Evil super-genius Demon Queen, she probably counted on the confusion it would sow when, millenia later and several Prime Material Planes to the side, the makers of Community decided to spoof the Drow. She knew the Underdark offered too rich a plunder for satire, as she was and is a monster.
* I know what you’re thinking, TSR could’ve said that Lolth was a red or brown spider
i just saw an ad for a commercially made drizzt costume that is sure going to be a real shitshow for someone this year.
What a lot of people might not realize is that the racist singer is based off a real guy. I won’t post his name, but it’s not even like they came up with the idea. So satirizing reality is now off limits.
im sure.
For those unacquainted, the “Aqua Teen” episode in question is at once one of the most offensive and most hilarious things I’ve ever seen.What this article fails to note is that Master Shake, having been bitten by a radioactive Black man, is bestowed the name of “Mocha Shake-a Khan” by a sentient 70s Blaxploitation hero cardboard box, the imaginary best friend of Shake’s roommate — who, it should be noted, is an anthropomorphic meatball whose favorite foods are hot dog smoothies and spaghetti.
Jimmy Rebel has been blacklisted on streaming services for over a decade, haha!That said, this article literally consists of masturbatory self-congratulation that a white-run corporation has successfully censored a black voice, because that creator’s tone made them uncomfortable.Great job, Shannon! You and yours have played a key role in the erasure of black voices!
I always loved this show because of the fun they made of white people. ( why yes I am white). This was a vehicle to poke fun at America, without every Karen calling 911. I loved those kids.
“like hiring and commissioning Black creatives”This is an ironic statement given that McGruder is Black. Is the author aware of this?Are we saying sending up racism is now the same thing as racism?
Just seeing that one of the episodes was from Boondocks threw me. I didn’t even have to know what it was about. I have never watched it, although I have read about it a lot, so I knew what it was about. And I saw this and thought, “But, isn’t the guy who created this black?” And then I looked it up because I thought the guy who wrote Lovecraft Country (the book) was black, too, but it turns out he was white.So, yeah, that is just crazy.
This is nothing new. There was all kinds of stuff that we never saw as kids growing up in the 70s. A lot of cartoons from the 40s. There will be Forbidden Adult Swim collections available in 10 years
Giant company doesn’t actually care about racism but only the appearance of racism ..pretends to be shocked face..Said this when the blackface episode issues started that this is exactly what would happen, hide and sweep under the rug instead of using it as a chance to educate by putting disclaimers in front of episodes.
I find your use of shockedface to be offensive and derogatory. It insults the very being of shocked peoples and shows a lack of understanding or compassion. I must admit that I never read your post or know the context in which it was used, but I have been told that I should be angry about it and demand that you remove it immediately with no conversation on the matter.
It’s pretty clear the people behind Adult Swim specifically do actually care about racism, even if their bosses don’t.
Educating their audience through pre-episode disclaimers explaining why something can be offensive now and wasn’t considered offensive when originally aired would do far more to help the fight against racism then just burying something that people might find offensive.Even if only 1 person gets it, that’s one more person than those that don’t see it.
Yea…Adult Swim’s main demographic wouldn’t care about that. Toonami can get away with it because it’s treated more seriously by its fans (and even then, the staff got a LOT of abuse for that video once it got viral), but regular Adult Swim is WAY too juvenile to effectively do that.
This is my opinion too.
Some people are just too dumb or too unwilling to understand racism. Point blank. There’s a reason that nerd culture at large rebels against any sort of diversity and it’s not because they have the more rational/logical brains to see we are all the human race or some bullshit. It’s bigots who don’t know/understand the outside world and don’t care to.
The legit reason was “to cater to current cultural sensitivities”, but at the end of the day these networks are dying and no amount of pandering will help that
Satisfied that they had gotten to the bottom of this mystery, the Redditors than returned to their main quest: Finally catching the Boston Marathon bomber.
Wait, so it wasn’t the guy that killed himself a month earlier?
When was the last time you actually used Reddit? Its not like that anymore and hasn’t been for years.
True. It’s worse.
??
I had to get off Reddit because just about every bigoted thread in r/AskReddit or r/unpopularopinion made it to the front page.
For every nifty invention or cool video, there was a rant that essentially boiled down to, “Why can’t society cater to white men?”
They already found him. Some dude named Carl Brutananadilewski. Fled the scene in a shitty American sports car with the words “2 Wycked” painted on the side…
I suppose the people who make the shows could do a YouTube get together where they go through the blackface or racist bits and explain, otherwise hard for a show that is off the air to really reconcile. I don’t think hiding the evidence is the answer, perhaps putting a disclaimer at the start and making it so it won’t autoplay.I never could do Boondocks. I recognize Regina King is a hell of an actress but it always just sounded like a woman doing the same voice for both boys. For some reason Justin Roiland doing both Rick and Morty doesn’t bother me as much because he manages to get them to basically talk over each other, but I just couldn’t stop imagining King in a room by herself just reading both sets of lines.
I don’t if you’ve only seen parts of the first season but King’s voices for both Huey and Riley change pretty drastically from season 2 onwards.
But you could really feel the emotion in her roles, especially with Huey. Some of her internal monologues as Huey had me struggling not to ball up.
I legitimately didn’t know Regina was also Riley’s VA until a couple of years ago.Also, John Witherspoon.
Adult Swim joins the likes of Community, 30 Rock, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and others that wish to merely sweep their penchant for racist humor under the rug rather than examine why they found that particular well of comedy so enticing in the first place.Fuck you. Fuck you.
Based on the headline, I tried to imagine which episode of “The Boondocks” was deemed to be so culturally insensitive that it required removal, and the “Jimmy Rebel” episode didn’t even crack the top 5 that I thought it might be. I figured for sure it was one of the episodes with Stinkmeaner.
Well, thank Satan for torrents then.
Eh, no big loss with that ATHF episode.
Yeah, honestly that everything from that point in time (season 6) onward could be erased and I would probably never notice, because I never have any desire to re-watch them. I loved the first couple seasons enough that I taped them when they were airing and then later bought the DVDs when they released and watched the hell out of them, but the last one I bought was season 5 (volume 6 on DVD), and I ended up not re-watching that or the previous season very much (except when we have to break out volume 5 for the “Hand Banana” episode to explain my wife’s Hand Banana tattoo to people).
I’m surprised you got that far. The first 2 seasons were really good, but I thought the show went off the rails pretty quickly after that.Also, bonus points for using the verb “taped”. Always nice to meet a fellow old.
The first two seasons were consistently great in a way even 3 and 4 were not, I will admit. Aqua Teen is one of the shows my wife and I quote the most in daily life, and most of those quotes are from those first two seasons. Some of our favorite episodes still came along later though, like Video Ouija, Robositter, Boost Mobile, and as mentioned, my wife has a Hand Banana tattoo.
Accurate.
Oh, “Hand Banana.” It shouldn’t work, but it does.
I swear I pulled up the ATHF marathon a couple months ago on the AS website and have a vague recollection of that particular episode coming up and thinking, Huh, how has this not been pulled yet? I also swear I saw it when it first aired and was literally stonefaced the entire time. Their brand of humor was all over the place sometimes, and this was easily the worst of it.
I’m pretty sure a show like It’s Always Sunny would rather keep those episodes up than sweep them under the rug, so that people can watch them and understand that they are very clearly making fun of ignorant racists. And if people watched those episodes and formed their own opinion, the show wouldn’t have to explain why they found the well of “racist humor” so enticing since people would already understand that that wasn’t what the humor was about.
The thing is the characters don’t even know it’s racist. They honestly think they’re honoring Glover. And I think people have forgotten why blackface was considered racist in the first place and there’s this sacred cow mentality attached to the concept in all its forms (like satire).
The Sunny episodes are definitely not just lazy jokes or clueless writers. In most of the episodes the Gang have long conversations about the ethics of white people either playing nonwhite people or even just telling the stories of nonwhite people, including nuanced acknowledgement that what is acceptable or celebrated in one time is not in another, and that in some instances intent matters and sometimes doesn’t. Yes, inevitably the Gang almost always makes the wrong choice, but that is the entirety of the series; we often acknowledge how what we are doing is foolish or immoral, but then we do it anyway. They almost always face the consequences at the end.
The other thing is that the creators of Sunny have acknowledged that some of the earlier episodes used problematic terms and apologized and stopped using them. Hell, there’s an entire episode about Frank using a slur and how it’s repeatedly called out as a terrible thing.
I mean, there are a lot of reasons why someone with a weak heart, stomach or mind might want It’s Always Sunny… pulled but racial insensitivity would be at the bottom of the list.
What baffles me is Family Guy somehow skates on all of this. That’s a prime time show and it just throws out straight-up racist jokes and tropes like you’d hear from frat boys and older uncles “from a different time.”
At one point they may have been able to claim they’re “satirizing racism” (which I think, South Park can still claim) but that hasn’t been the case since the 00s.
Family Guy has a surprisingly diverse writing staff but yeah it’s still unfunny garbage.
i heard they’re taking down “Charlie Goes America All Over Everybody’s Ass” for being excessively nationalistic
I was reading recently about concerns over Archi Bunker back in the day. They found that half the audience were in on the joke that Archie was an old behind the times bigot and that that was funny because it was bad to be an old behind the times bigot
. The other half of the audience thought it was funny to be an old behind the times bigot.
I think the issue is that some people don’t understand nuance or layers. How many Sci-Fi fans say they hate their franchises being made “woke” when popular franchises like Star Trek have always been about acceptance of others?
I swear, a bunch of white executives trying to determine what is and isn’t “racially appropriate” is like a blind person describing the difference between “mauve” and “violet”.
Has that Seinfeld episode where Kramer tans too much been retired yet?
No but they’re working hard to digitally remove Kramer from every episode
Christopher Plummer is getting SO much work these days.
And yet Jerry Seinfeld manages to stay in.
“Seinfeld Without Kramer” would be an interesting show for sure. Still keep the entire length of individual shows, but remove the physical and audio. Doors flying open for no reason yet Jerry, Elaine, and George still reacting and having conversations with their imaginary, silent friend.You might be onto something there.
Someone already did that by removing the laugh track to The Big Bang Theory, although Seinfeld would still prove surreal entertainment.
I can only imagine how much dead air there would be in BBT with no laugh track. Maybe do the reverse and remove the characters and audio but still have the laugh track…to nothing.
Wow. To think I didn’t like Chuck Lorre productions before now, this just upped the hatred. If you like Seinfeld or not, at least the characters gave reactions to what was going on around them (most of the time). I.e. actually laughing at the absurdity of the story or situation, ya know, like how real life works.
Seinfeld is really about a friendly ghost.
-snipDr Bob beat me to it.
Well, he did get called a “damned fool.”
No, but I think the episode where Kramer (accidentally?) burns the Puerto Rican flag was taken out of rotation a long time ago.Not that it’s necessarily in their control, but I think Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David are too rich and too grumpy to worry about clueless idiots on social media who are too stupid to understand satire.ETA: That last part wasn’t directed at you, I apologize if it sounded like it was.
I could’ve sworn the last few times this happened that the AVC was all for shuffling the offensive stuff away. Am I crazy or did the company line change?
Varies between writers. Particularly in this case, where a) Shannon is black herself and b) Boondocks is made by a black dude.
Can’t say I blame them. That ATHF episode was some serious yikes when I watched it about a year ago, and it wasn’t even that funny.
The Aqua Teen episode is no big loss, as the episode was pretty bad.
Though still better than Minoriteam or World Peace:
I was at the Adult Swim panel at DragonCon either right after or right before Minoriteam debuted (can’t recall at this point), and during the Q & A an audience member asked if there were any actual minorities on the staff who made Minoriteam. This lead to an uncomfortable bit of hemming and hawing, some audience laughter, and much embarrassment. I can’t believe that show got as far along as it did.
Same. Like, I could rationalize it as a one-off on, like, Robot Chicken or whatever, but as an actual full fledged show? Oy.
Minoriteam was sooooooooo bad. I -kinda- got the concept, but the execution was beyond reprehensible. I honestly can’t believe I remember giving it at least a try when it first aired. I was also usually shitfaced every night during that period of my life, so go figure about my lack of judgement.
Yeah, I mainly watched ATHF for Carl. Shake had his moments but pretty much everything out of Carl’s mouth is comedic, white Jersey trash gold.
“It’s a song I wrote. It’s called ‘I Want To Rock Your Body’, then in parentheses it says, ‘Until The Break Of Dawn’.”
World Peace is the only TV show I’ve ever seen that genuinely felt hateful.
“Minoriteam” was Hy-larious! You pink-toes mess things up, even when you mean well! Good lord and butter!
My grandfather was a Broodwich and my family and I have been waiting over a decade for an apology from ATHF. I DEMAND that Adult Swim pulls the episode.
Hilarious that Adult Swim’s self-examination consists of erasing content from a show about black people made by a black person and not, say, addressing the fact they saw nothing wrong with platforming fuckin’ Sam Hyde. Yeah, I know his show was quietly run off off their online platforms this year – quietly is the key word here.The suits care nothing about the actual issue, just quickly rubbering it out so they don’t have to address shit when someone points at them.
I had honestly never heard of Hyde before. What a piece of trash.
Love the censorship apologists. Whether you thought it was funny or not isn’t the point and it’s pretty sad to have people applaud censorship of artists and media….
This is some fucking peak bullshit equivocating. The fucking Boondocks! I do vaguely remember that Aqua Teen episode. It only took a few seasons for that show to decide being weird and off putting was more important than being funny, making sense, or even producing anything anyone would comfortably be able to sit through for ten minutes at a time. That episode is from that side of things. Regardless, pretending these things didn’t happen is fucking stupid and dishonest, especially when it’s being done so FUCKING insincerely. (Context? What’s that?) I really dislike that the last paragraph of this article appears to be legitimizing this bullshit. That Community episode wasn’t racist- it REFERENCED racism. This Boondocks episode wasn’t racist. It DISCUSSED racism. Oh shit, I better not acknowledge gay jokes exist, don’t want to be homophobic! Oh no, a woman in a show is passed up for a promotion in favor of a less qualified man. Better yank that episode since it’s misogynistic!That’s not how any of this works. Fucking grow at least one goddamned brain cell.
Removing episodes isn’t “the entertainment industry contending with its racist past” it’s “the entertainment industry hiding its racist past while paying lip service to changing.” This doesn’t do anything but piss everyone off. Just put damn warnings in front of episodes about how it contains offensive material and is a product of its time. Jesus.
To be fair to Shannon, that’s exactly the point she was making; this is sweeping the problem under the rug (putting aside whether or not said episode of television is actually representative of “the problem), while doing little to nothing in terms of concrete and substantive change. I think she was quite clear on that.
Throwing money at a problem has never solved the problem. It just makes the money tosser feel less guilty.
An episode of the network’s stop animation series The Shivering Truth was also remove— sorry, “temporarily rested”—due to “current sensitivities.” In “Ogled Inklings,” a pregnant woman gives birth to a cop, who is then referred to as a “dirty pig.”LOL
stop blaming tv shows for real life harmyou sound like jack thompson blaming video games for school shootings
Lol. The Community episode pull didn’t make sense in either the context of the episode or the context of racial sensitivity. There are way more examples throughout the run, including honest-to-god brownface, that were ignored. If either Netflix or NBC actually gave a shit about this kind of thing, they’d give it more thought than they did.
https://youtu.be/anGkl_ef8FQ
Lol that the Boondocks is somehow “anti black” in Shannon Millers telling of this. This has gone so far past the point of parody.
Why this, specific episode of The Boondocks, and only this episode? How is this episode significantly different than any other episode which deals with racism, questions of blackness, anti-blackness, self-hating anti-blackness, and the meaning of language (i.e. every single episode of The Boondocks)? It’s almost as though there is something inherently illogical and insincere about turning specific words and images into taboos, devoid of context, meaning, and intent.
Another useful reminder for why we should make sure physical media never disappears. Unless you can hold it, you don’t have it.
And also another reason to be thankful for torrent and media sharing. It’s a pirate’s life for me.
So the cultural sensitivies shit led them to actively censor a prominent black political artist?Good look.
I never would have thought that my ATHF DVDs would become cultural artifacts of a different time, but here we are.
All this is accomplishing is adding a lot more content to torrent packs of Song of the South, Coal Black and Warner Bros WWII shorts.
Any takers on what will be next? ‘Cause there’s this one character on Dragon Ball…
I can only imagine if Kinnikuman had aired in the United States… It’s got blackface, every racial stereotype under the sun and even a “good” Nazi!
Anime stereotypes are an entirely different can of worms that is probably going to be a lot harder to break. It’s gotten a little better
The problem begins when people miss the point and are influenced. The joke is intended to be “that guys is an idiot and didn’t realize his insensitivity is offending someone.” but when someone doesn’t get that nuance it just turns into “Isn’t it funny that character is acting like a black man.” People that don’t get the distinction just think it’s okay to make racist jokes and even for those that do get it, they aren’t likely joke telling machines and think they are making a very nuanced joke among friends but are in reality making a racist joke and being hurtful to people close to them.
Regardless of what side of the issue you’re on, the important thing is to watch the episodes and judge for yourself. Oh, wait, I guess you can’t.
“Both were considered perfectly acceptable when they originally aired,”That’s an interesting interpretation of history, because both were considered off colour and taboo/offensive kinds of jokes at the time, that was the point. They were meant to be uncomfortable and going places others wouldn’t. I mean the entire Boodocks is one long run of a series saying shit people were not supposed to say, in part to point out the real reasons weren’t supposed to say it. I mean you start “retiring” episodes of the Boodocks for being offensive, you’re gonna run out of material pretty quick. It’s almost like offending the sensibilities of the masses, often to point out hypocrisy, is the point of an entire genre of satirical humour. And also being offended that the talking milkshake in the absurdist and often surrealist show about psychic food items is taking on stereotypical Black culture characteristics is dumb. It was very likely done with the point that acting like you can be infected with “Blackness” is stupid, cause Shake is stupid, like offensively so (as opposed to Meatball who is charmingly stupid).
If they pull genius classics like ‘The Return of the King’ or ‘The Trial of R. Kelly’, they might as well just pull the show entirely.
*****s LOVE R Kelly.
As opposed to pulling them for being overlong, boring, incoherent, and with an ultimately disappointing ending?Oh, sorry, you meant the Boondocks episodes with those names?
Nice.
Huey’s Christmas special with the Adventures of Black Jesus.
whether you agree with the removals or not (i don’t) i think the real crazy thing is that anti-cop jokes are now in the same category as what are considered insensitive racial jokes.
*checks Netflix to see if ‘Maniac Cop’ is still available**breathes sigh of relief*
It isn’t exactly the same, but this reminds me of when AMPAS (i.e. the Oscars) expelled Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski at the same time.They had to expel Bill Cosby after he got convicted of raping multiple women, but then there are some both sides identity politics that require a white rapist be expelled as well.The question being: why wasn’t Roman Polanski expelled 40 years ago?
Both were considered perfectly acceptable when they originally airedWere they? Boondocks, the show, drew the ire of many critics for a number of choices that were made way back in 2006. The comic strip received criticism going back to 1999. Adult Swim even pulled episodes in the second season if I remember correctly. And, frankly, with Aqua Teen, I suspect it largely went unnoticed because the people who watched the show and people who would care didn’t have a huge cross-section.
By this metric, ANY Boondocks episode with Uncle Ruckus should be banned. …especially “The Story of Catcher Freeman.” I’d post my favorite clip (featuring Uncle Ruckus), but anybody who’s seen it knows why I’m not doing that here.
Early 2000s was when comics thought they could mock bigots by aping their positions for comic effect. Only problem with that, though, the right wing doesn’t process satire. They take a comic holding a funhouse mirror up to their believes as confirmation of their own prejudices. Going back 30 years before that, I recall one particularly nasty South Boston bigot who thought Archie Bunker was an American hero.
A lot of people thought Archie Bunker was an American hero.
This is probably one of the best comments in this whole thread. Increasingly its becoming very obvious that bigots are incapable of reading satire/parody (and their attempts at it are hilarious for the wrong reasons). We’ve reached the point where there is a pipeline from ‘Edgy tween assholes yelling the N-word in any game with a chat function’ to ‘Legit neo-nazi’. And it’s not a very long journey.
SHANNON MILLER YOU ARE A SAINT. THANK YOU
They should probably also remove the Dickesode from Aqua Teen considering that episode had an extremely bad asian Stereotype.
This article is insanely fucking dishonest. You can’t just say that Uncle Ruckus “ proudly spewed gross, racist rhetoric” and not explain what the point of the character (and the show in general) is.
Oh no! Goodbye Chappelle show.
F all of TV. Now we’re cancelling cancelled shows from ADULT SWIM over a decade removed??? This is not progressive, progressives.
So, everyone in these comments seems to be talking about the ban but no one seems to be talking about why, specifically, this episode of the Boondocks was banned. Doesn’t seem like the episode has been seen by these people decrying that it has been pulled from streaming….the (satirical) moral of the story of Jonny Rebel is that even the most virulent racist could love black people if they only took the time to interact with black people (imagine David Duke transforming at the end of the episode to saying “well, now I love black people”). And Uncle Rukus hates black people so much that he can’t be friends with a white person that doesn’t hate black people anymore.The episode was … uncomfortable to watch … because it didn’t make sense … and seems to normalize that if white people met “the right kind of black person,” they wouldn’t be racist anymore… which is problematic and devoid of a lot of the satirical value offered by Uncle Rukus as a character.Don’t be upset that this episode is gone from streaming. Honestly, it wasn’t a good one to begin with.
You just have this meeting of the minds where people do things like this, in an attempt to show how bad it is to do black face, or any other racist callback. Even when they’re in the process of constantly telling you it’s bad, just the fact they’re doing it is the bridge too far. The Boondocks did two kickstarter commercials to try to get that live action movie made. One for white folks, one for black people, with uncle ruckus and holy fuck… I felt legit bad for laughing at it. Tropic Thunder too, the whole point of the character was he was an asshole for doing it, they were constantly pointing out he was being racist as fuck even if he didn’t hate black people. We’re not in a time where the nuance will be universally appreciated. The say way if you watch the old All in the Family (and later Jeffersons) shows… Archie was a monster, but he was always shown to be wrong at the end. There was a lesson, a take away. Today, people get too angry and we’re too raw. I mean, some of the removals are trash, but some were teaching moments. When you show bad people doing bad things and highlight they are horrible, it’s not racist. It doesn’t mean it won’t bother people.
Tonight you…Talk about an episode that could never be made again.
Before long, any form of Comedy will be deemed socially unacceptable.
but now that the entertainment industry is continuing to (kind of) contend with its racist roots,Nah, all of these industry types are just scrambling to find anything that might get comments against them, or might be used to show how sensitive they are. None of them are actually trying to address anything for better reasons.
Banning The Boondocks for racism feels like pandering to the perpetually outraged. Some suit opting to pull the episode rather than risk bad press from people who have no idea what the show is about. Although… I can see that series crossing the line. That show took no prisoners.
I tried watching it for a time and it was far too black for me. I felt like an intruder. Like I was spying on a culture that wasn’t mine like some pervert peeping through a hole into a shower. Like just by viewing the program I was committing cultural appropriation.
Gross. Context/intent/nuance mean something, and if we forget that then all artistic expression is doomed to a slow death by committee.
i’m surprised it took this long for people to notice. they pulled the ATHF ep from HBO Max a long time ago
This is fucking retarded.
“Chang was playing a dark elf!” is “It’s actually ephebophilia” for Community stans: it’s technically correct, but boy are you revealing a lot about yourself by saying it.
Thus ensuring these episodes will be sought after and canonized much more than any others… *sigh*
It’s been pointed out that Frylock’s voice actor (who is black) lost his home for a while and had to live off GoFundMe because he doesn’t earn any residuals for the show.
It’s good to reevaluate your older shows and to make a Black Lives Matter statement, but support your black actors as well. Hire more black creators and don’t make Aaron McGruder the only well-known black creator on an AS show. They’re narrowing the gap when it comes to gender diversity (they didn’t have female writers on anything until recently), some racial diversity would be good too.