The Boondocks is known for its clever ability to satirize Black American pop culture, but it seems the creators were also targets in the show’s crosshairs.
During a recent interview with Effective Immediately, one of The Boondock’s producers, Carl Jones, detailed how much of his and Aaron McGruder‘s life was injected into the acclaimed project. Jones detailed how the Usher episode from season 2, titled “Tom, Sarah, Usher,” was based on an incident that happened to him as they celebrated getting renewed for another season on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. Carl described how he was the Tom in the situation, and that it was quite humbling for him. It also stemmed from his ex-wife being upset at the infamous R. Kelly episode from season 1.
“We were celebrating the pickup of season two,” Carl Jones told DJ Hed and Gina Views during the interview. “The R. Kelly episode came up and my ex-wife, she hated that episode…She got like really mad and was kind of like protesting at the table.”
Her attitude changed, though, when she noticed Usher sitting behind Carl. Jones remembers the woman becoming fixated on getting the singer’s attention, “turning around at Usher, making goo-goo eyes and stuff.”
“We get up, and we get to the front of the restaurant, and I look back and she’s at the [Usher’s] table…She starts introducing everybody… She’s like ‘um—so Usher, this is Aaron and this is his fiancé, this is my— Carl.’”
The embarrassing incident led to what Carl described as “a long ride home” and eventually the second episode of season 2.
Elsewhere in the interview, Carl Jones detailed why the beloved cartoon disappeared seemingly when Black America needed it most in June 2014. The Peabody Award-winning producer spoke about the beginning of the end of the show and what led to a rift between himself and McGruder.
“My last season was the third season…there are two things that contribute to this. I started developing Black Dynamite at the time and I don’t think Aaron was too happy about it because I think he was trying to keep me under his wing for as long as he could. But I was at the point where I was starting to grow and expand…and do my own thing. That didn’t mean I was walking away from The Boondocks…but I was also producing other things…and that really rubbed [Aaron] the wrong way,” Jones recalls.
As he continued, Carl remembered how animating DJ Vlad for the series wound up being a major turning point, leading to his departure from the cartoon. Jones recalled how he shared his illustration of Vlad with the internet personality, leading to Aaron McGruder blowing up on him about it. The executive opined that it wasn’t the fact that he shared the design with the controversial figure, but that Jones “was starting to do my own thing” and it “kind of unraveled from there.”
Watch the interview above.
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