The Boondocks Are Taking Over The Cartoon Network

Based on Aaron McGruder's controversial comic strip, "The Boondocks" follows the lives of Huey and Riley Freeman, African-American brothers who move with their Granddad from the inner city to the suburbs. Huey is a self-styled revolutionary forever railing at the state of society, while yougner brother Riley is a wannabe gangsta. Premieres Sunday at 11 p.m. EDT on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim with repeats at 3 a.m. EDT.

While the series won't tackle current events (the 15-episode order took 18 months to complete), it's certainly not lacking in irreverence. In one show, Granddad starts dating a younger woman, oblivious to the fact that she's a prostitute, which leads to a discussion between Huey and Riley on whether all women are "hos."

Another episode centres on the resurrection of Martin Luther King Jr., whose nonviolent message is ridiculed in a post-9/11 world by media outlets such as Time Warner's CNN and Time magazine (and yes, Cartoon Network is a division of Time Warner).

McGruder began writing the strip in 1997 while attending the University of Maryland. Now it's carried in about 350 newspapers, although some have moved it to the editorial page.

A few papers temporarily pulled the strip for its attacks against the war in Iraq in 2001. And earlier this year, several papers dropped it for a few days because of its use of the n-word - which, not coincidentally, is sprinkled throughout the TV series.

Bringing The Boondocks to television took several years. Fox made a pilot two years ago, but McGruder says the network's plethora of "rigid creative rules" made the experience a nightmare.

If the cartoon is anything like the comic strip then it's going to be the one to watch to make you laugh and get a little disturbed at the same time.