Aaron McGruder is a comic genius. His famous comic strip, The Boondocks, has become somewhat of an American Institution now that it has been fashioned as an animated series on American TV.

According to The Boondocks FB Page, season 4 episodes will begin as soon as funding for a movie about Uncle Ruckus is achieved.

This popular TV series, The Boondocks, is broadcast in the United States by Adult Swim, and in Canada by Teletoon. It is additionally available and distributed by Sony Television Pictures.

The Boondocks began its life as a comic strip in the student newspaper of the University of Maryland College Park, which happens to be Mr. McGruder’s alma mater. It was 1st published in the newspaper, called The Diamondback, then being picked up and published by The Source, a monthly magazine publication about hip-hop music, politics and culture.

In April 1999, The Boondocks became a syndicated comic strip, but the TV series took quite a bit longer to come to fruition, premiering in November of the year 2005.

Season 2 premiered in October 2007, and season 3 began in May 2010, with its last episode broadcast on August 15, 2010

In May 2011, a broadcast interview with John Witherspoon, the voice of Robert Jedediah Freeman, a.k.a. Granddad insinuated that a 20 episode season for of The Boondocks would be made and broadcast starting sometime in 2013.

The Boondocks animated TV series follows the adventures of the Freeman’s, an African American family living in one of the poorest sections of the Southside of Chicago, Illinois. The main premise of the show is the fact that they moved to a fictional town of Woodcrest, a lily white suburb of Chicago, with a mixture of cultures, lifestyles and races that provide much of the comic agenda so popular in the series.

The comic strip, as well as the animated TV series has been controversy old from the start, with ABC news saying, “Fans and critics of The Boondocks loved and hated the strip for the same reasons: it is cutting-edge humor and unapologetic, sometimes unpopular, views on various issues, including race, politics, the war on terrorism and the September 11 attacks.”

More than a few media outlets have refused to broadcast the show, because of the extensive use of the “N word” as well as references to Martin Luther King Jr., and civil rights activist Rosa Parks.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, an MSNBC contributor, spoke out and protested against the season 1 episode “Return of the King,” because of the Martin Luther King Jr’s character’s use of the word “Nigga,” saying that “Cartoon Network must apologize and also commit to pulling episodes that desecrate black historic figures.”

Cartoon network replied in a statement, defending McGruder by saying, “We think Aaron McGruder came up with a thought-provoking way of not only showing Dr. King’s bravery but also of reminding us what he stood and fought for, and why even today, it is important for all of us to remember that and to continue to take action.”

Later that year that episode was awarded a Peabody Award for being an especially daring episode.

Sam Davis