At this year’s Dream Con 2025, we had the incredible opportunity to meet with staff from The Boondocks along with other members of the press for an exciting Q&A about the legendary series and its 20th anniversary celebration. While the series isn’t an anime per se (at least not to most people) it’s absolutely anime-adjacent, with plenty of art being inspired by anime and some scenes being subcontracted to and animated by the same studios used for plenty of anime. In any case, anime or anime adjacent, the series is a one of kind gem. Combining comedy, realness, and Black expression into a beautiful mixture of satire and seriousness, the series is one that those who’ve watched it remember fondly and one countless people desperately want to return since its end in 2014.
Taking part in the conversation were Cedric Yarbrough, voice of Tom DuBois and Colonel H. Stinkmeaner, Gary Anthony Williams, voice of Uncle Ruckus, Rodney Barnes, writer and producer, and Yamara Taylor, writer and producer.
Executing the Series
The first thing asked of the guests was a question many likely have about the writing of the series: how did it always predict the future? Whether it was split reactions to things like the trial of R. Kelly or the natural dissonance in opinion between Riley and Huey, The Boondocks tended to be ahead of its time and showcased a lot of interactions that would reliably happen in real life just years later. Taylor was the first to respond, explaining how the show stayed on point.
“I think that because we were doing the strip, which was very topical, and I believe that because Aaron McGruder was just always up on everything. I think that a part of it is that we kind of got lucky with some stuff, and a part of it was just us seeing what was happening in the world and wanting to talk about it. And just kind of being on top of anything topical, we were just following the news and following what was happening culturally, and we had stuff to say about it.”
“I think sometimes, too, it was the subject matter” added Barnes. I remember the R. Kelly episode where one of the ideas behind it was Riley would look at it one way, Huey would look at it one way, and they both represented two polarized ideas of how the community would look at an R. Kelly situation. So if you think about it, at some point R. Kelly was going to be — it’s according to how you feel about it — the chickens were going to come home to roost for R. Kelly, and we just happened to be on the right side of history, I think, in situations like that, but in other ones as well.”
Yarbrough commented from the perspective of a voice actor on the show, saying “I also thought the show’s writing was — you guys did such a good job of writing evergreen topics that will always be in fashion, always be in style, always be up front in the news. Racism is always going to be here. I think — to your question — that a lot of the things that were around in 2005, when we first started the show, are relevant today is because they always will be.”
When it came to a current event or historical moment that would fit neatly into an episode of The Boondocks, Barnes was quick to point to a recent one.
“I think Shannon Sharp [referring to Sharp accidentally starting an Instagram live stream of himself audibly engaging in a sexual act]. I think the three that stand out: January 6th — I always say that January 6th, led by Ruckus, would be comedy gold. He’d keep getting shot. They’d shoot you for it and wouldn’t know what side you were on. And I think the Puffy trial, if R. Kelly was his attorney. That would be the three that stand out for me. Because R. Kelly has expertise in a lot of what Puffy’s going through right now. He could represent him well.”
As one could imagine, some ideas like those tended to be too much for some networks when the show was first circulating its pilot to different networks. The guests explained that for Fox, for example, the show was just too far.
“It was too much for them,” said Barnes. “Certain words. I can think of one of ’em.”
Taylor added, “I watched [the original series pilot] before, I think when I met with Sony for staffing, that’s what I watched to get the job. And then we got in the room [with Fox] and he was like, ‘Yeah, we’re not doing that.’ It’s like, oh, okay. Good to know.”
Ultimately though, it was the willingness to push things that made The Boondocks what it was. The staff also pointed to how some of the shows most iconic characters came to be. Taylor started by breaking down the origins of one of the series’ most iconic characters, Colonel H. Stinkmeaner.
“I can speak for Stinkmeaner. We knew we wanted to do an episode where Granddad was going to get into a fight. That episode is called Granddad’s Fight. We knew we wanted him to get into a fight with an old man. At the time, I would write these quirky little bios about characters that would be fun. They would have weird names and idiosyncrasies. I just went off and wrote a little bio about who I thought this guy would be. In the bio, his whole sh*tty life was leading up to the moment where he smelt new shoes and got to step on Granddad’s brand new sneakers. He was happy. That was the only thing that ever made him happy. Before that, he hated everything. He would never be happy again, but just that one moment, that one n*gga moment, he was excited about. Then life was breathed into Stinkmeaner.”
Yarbrough described his process for creating the voice of the character, explaining, “I just remember we were going to have a table read. I was kind of a placeholder for someone more famous and bigger. They had a placeholder for someone else to do the role, but they wanted me to just read that day for it. I saw the description, and it just made me laugh. I was telling the story earlier about how I loved Schoolhouse Rock! as a kid. (as Jack Sheldon) I’m just a bill. This guy who just kind of had this really cool voice. A jazz musician named Jack Sheldon. He was just really cool with it. (as Stinkmeaner) I just turned mine up and made him this. (in normal voice) That’s how at least that character came. Then the great direction of Andre Romano, along with Carl Jones and Aaron McGruder, of course, directing what they thought they could get out of me to make him more cantankerous, more hateful, throw out some really bad lines of, ‘You got bad credit, Robert.’ That kind of stuff. Just made him more hateful.”
Jack Sheldon being the inspiration for Stinkmeaner’s voice was news even to other members of the cast, as Williams expressed that him having gotten the voice from Schoolhouse Rock! was “the best thing in the world.” Williams’ character Uncle Ruckus is one that couldn’t go without mention in a conversation like this one, and Barnes explained that the character’s inspiration came from Black men he was around growing up.
“For me, it was always Ruckus, I think, from the beginning — channeling all the old Black men in my neighborhood that hated Black people. It was that energy, I think. There was a period between the Fox pilot where there were all of these things that we wanted to say but couldn’t because it’s on Fox. Then going to Adult Swim, now you can say anything that you want. I remember the first riff of sitting down and counting how many times you’re going to say n*gga throughout and punctuating every sentence.
A little bit of pushback along the way, but it was necessary for Ruckus to be able to express himself.”
Impact and Culture
Conventions like Dream Con are special in that they bring together lots of fans of a series like The Boondocks. The members of staff talked about the impact they’ve had on the Black community’s culture writ large as well as how it felt to be present at conventions like this one over the many years since The Boondocks first aired.
“It’s still very unbelievable to me that something we did 20 years ago is still relevant,” started Williams. “You know what I’m saying? It’s not like you’ve got to try to make it relevant. I can’t go on YouTube or Insta or TikTok or something without somebody doing something from [The Boondocks], because like was said earlier, it’s the evergreen stuff or stuff that still has the same energy of like an R. Kelly. It still has that same energy, and the writers tapped into that stuff with some really out there characters. It was a Peabody Award winning show, even at the time, it wasn’t just a nothing show, so it had some social conscience to it then. But it’s still hard for me to understand what’s going on. I’m not lying to you, it still is.”
Yarbrough added to this, explaining “And doing these cons — I was talking to Gary about this before, about doing these cons — as an actor you are always trying to move forward and keep going and trying to find another job and keep it moving, and you guys live in a past for us that is relevant, but we did it already, and being able to visit y’all, see y’all, talk to you and touch you, and you guys can interact with us and tell us how much it works for you, is a kind of a like, ‘Oh wow, I didn’t know that really affected you that way.’ . . . These are the hits, with RENO, with Boondocks, with our shows that you guys live in, and it’s still ongoing, and it’s crazy.”
Barnes spoke to how surprising such a short series had such an impact, saying “But it’s great to be able to celebrate the past. Because, as Cedric was saying, you get into this career where you’re always moving forward. Something ends, you move to the next thing. And then to have people come back and celebrate, and the show was only, I think, 55 episodes. It wasn’t like it went on like The Simpsons for a thousand years. But the impact that it has made, especially the first two seasons, I think is something that I’m most proud of, just that period of time when everything was clicking and moving in a certain way. It was as much idealism as I think I’ve ever seen in a comedic process.”
Midway through the conversation, one of the members of the press brought up the idea of imposter syndrome, or the concept of feeling as though one doesn’t belong or doesn’t have a legitimate claim to success. The guests gave a mix of responses about whether they’d experienced it, with all of them eventually concluding that they became confident in their positions once they had them.
“I’d say for the first decade of my career, to me, there was a massive sense of insecurity,” said Barnes. “I came from working class people in a working class world, and all of a sudden, I’m sitting in writer’s rooms with some of the funniest people around, and it took a long time to feel comfortable. I still don’t know if I feel completely comfortable in that space . . . For me, it was like every day, somebody’s going to figure out I shouldn’t be here. And just being able, after, like I said, a decade of doing it, getting more and more and more comfortable with that idea.”
Yarbrough had a different perspective, saying “I don’t have that. but here’s the thing. As many things as you’ve seen me in or do, I’ve gotten three more million no’s. And so when I get something, I know I’ve earned it . . . I get to work with amazing people that have also earned their spot as well. No one’s an imposter here. No, not one bit. We’ve earned our spot.”
Williams offered a third perspective, explaining “I do feel like there’s been a couple of times in my life where I’ve looked around and been like, ‘What am I doing here?’ Not that I don’t deserve to be here.
First of all, that ‘deserve to be something’ to me is always bullsh*t. Everybody does their thing. To me, Hollywood is always a game. It’s always a game. It’s always bullsh*t, it’s sometimes fruitful. Nobody knows what they’re doing . . . Nobody really knows. You don’t know what’s going to happen. So no, I’ve never felt like I didn’t belong. I’m just going to do it.”
What if The Boondocks Came Back?
Two last things coming from the staff’s conversation with the press was what changes they would make to the show if it were still airing now, and what some of the more underappreciated aspects of the series are. On the matter of whether they would change anything about the show, they gave a somewhat surprising answer that made sense once it was delivered. Barnes was the first to respond to the question of whether he would change anything.
“I wouldn’t. You get asked that question of if the show were to come back, what would you like it to be? I would love it to be what it always was when it was at its best, but I don’t know if the industry would let the show be that today. And I say that only because there was no social media at the time in the same way that it was in 2003 versus today. And I just don’t know if a corporation would allow a show to be like that. I could be wrong because Chappelle are still doing it. You have pockets of things where people can say and do things satirically and survive. I’ve never seen it with a show like Boondocks in that way. It’s like Family Guy, they do what they do, but they didn’t go as far as we went or they did it with innuendo. So I would love to do it the way it’s always been. I think that’s the best. I’ve heard people say and have conversations about Huey and Riley being older and this and different things, but I love the original thing the way that it was.”
Williams agreed, adding “Yeah, it lived in the moment. It lived in the current. So let it live in the current of whatever time it is. Yeah, I wouldn’t go, well, I want Ruckus to be more blah, blah. No, he’s going to deal with his environment the way he’s going to deal with his environment the way he dealt with his environment then. I’m with Rodney on that.”
Closing our conversation with a final question, I had the opportunity to ask one. We had talked a lot at that point about what the most appreciated parts of the Boondocks were. I asked what they all felt one of the more underappreciated parts of The Boondocks is.
Barnes gave an answer I appreciated quite a bit, saying “I think the character design and the art.
You know, shout out to Seung Kim. I think the look of the show, it’s homage to anime. I think the detail and the beauty of just how it looked. It’s a pretty show. And I think that just the aesthetics of that, I don’t know if people give it the credit. And in the pantheon of anime and other things, I think it deserves its own distinction.”
Williams answered, “As a voice actor, I always thought, did people like Rodney, who created the character I do, and put those words in my mouth — they let us improv a lot on the show, too — but to make sure that people, like, because it’s funny when you said that. Yeah, but that was somebody else. Just to make sure that the writing truly, truly, truly got its due. You know, it was just a playground we got to play in. But I always wanted to make sure of that. When we’re doing the booth and stuff, I always make sure that people realize that the stuff that they enjoy that came out of my mouth came from (gesturing toward Barnes) this dude’s head first.”
Finally, closing us out, Yarbrough said “I think the music. I think the music needs to have more love. Because those beats, the music is so damn Black and so much full of soul that it just really sets the foundation for what that show was.”
© 2006 Adelaide Productions, Inc
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