Adult Swim quietly removes "offensive" episodes of popular shows, including The Boondocks

The Daily Beast

Episodes of Adult Swim shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Boondocks and The Shivering Truth are unavailable to stream due to "sensitivities," The Daily Beast has learned. Adult Swim's yanking of episodes comes after a summer in which several high-profile shows saw episodes pulled over offensive content,  including blackface. "Eagle-eyed Redditors first noted the absence of Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Season 6 episode 'Shake Like Me' from the series’ page on HBO Max in June," reports The Daily Beast's Sean L. Malin. "In the 2009 episode, titled in homage to John Howard Griffin’s seminal race text Black Like Me, a Black man irradiated by toxic waste bites Shake, turning him 'stereotypically' Black in manner and appearance." Malin adds: "Additionally, some noted that the Season 3 The Boondocks episode 'The Story of Jimmy Rebel'—one of several so-called 'banned' episodes of the provocative series, was not available to stream on either HBO Max or Adult Swim while other controversial episodes, including 'The Hunger Strike' and 'Pause,' were. 'The Story of Jimmy Rebel' centers on Uncle Ruckus’ relationship with an aggressively racist country & western singer, whose albums include white-supremacist titles like Real N****** Never Die, They Just Smell That Way. The omissions of 'Jimmy Rebel' and 'Shake Like Me' from HBO Max came after the streamer previously announced it had ordered a two-season reboot of The Boondocks for fall 2020, as well as licensing the entire 55-episode back catalog for its May 2020 launch. Reached for comment, a representative from HBO Max told The Daily Beast that neither episode was available on the streamer because 'neither of those episodes are part of our streaming deals' with Adult Swim." A rep for Adult Swim tells Malin that both episodes have been “permanently retired due to cultural sensitivities,” with no date planned for their return to streaming. “When Adult Swim transitions series to a new platform,” the representative clarifies, “we determine what episodes are selected through creative and cultural filters and our standards and practices policies. Oftentimes these decisions are made in collaboration with the show’s creators.” The Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder has declined comment on the pulled episodes.