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The Boondocks Season 1 Episode 14

The Block is Hot

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8.9

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Episode Summary

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AIRED: 3/12/06

It's February and there are record temperatures of 90 degrees outside. Luckily, Jazmine has her lemonade stand open, and does pretty well. Her success catches the eye of corporate tycoon Ed Wuncler. Despite several warnings from Huey, Jazmine then learns the true meaning of "capitalism" when Wuncler decides to buy the stand.moreless

Fan Episode Reviews (10)

Send-up of "Do The Right Thing".

7.5

By jpdowlin, Jul 20, 2010

For me, the episode was mainly filler. I liked the send-up of Spike Lee's joint and the debate between Jazmine and Huey about the ways to reach people. I did laugh heartily, though, when Huey's fellow "revolutionaries" were just wuss hippies, the opposite of Huey's "by any means necessary" approach. They were just as mindless to marketing as those who were exploiting Jazmine. Not a lot of ground broken by the episode: the white folks of Woodcrest are still unknowingly racist, Huey is still mad at everybody, Wuncler still cons people to push his own agenda (replace the lemonade stand with "The Itis"), and Riley is still ghetto. Not a bad episode, but not their best.moreless
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Jazmine and Wuncler, what an odd pair.

6.5

By michi_g, Jul 20, 2010

I thought this was another amusing episode, but it didn't have enough of the Freeman boys, for my tastes. Which is not necessarily a bad thing because you do get to see more of the evil side of Ed Wuncler. We already know he's a pretty ruthless businessman with his dealing with the Itis restaurant, but in this episode, I don't think we've seen him be quite so the antagonist. When Granddad and he went into business together and the bottom fell out, Grandpa was still okay. Jazmine and Wuncler get together and he screws her over royally. I did enjoy that because one, Huey told her not to trust him and two, Jazmine needed to be taught a valuable lesson. This is a girl who has Jesus and Santa Claus confused, which may be just a good indication that the commercialization of Christmas does have this sort of consequence, but at the same time it makes her character appear incredibly stupid even for a child. It's hard not to expect her to be a bit brighter when you have people like Huey and Riley around who often have such a mature view of life that I forget how young they really are. So it was very enjoyable watching Wuncler exploit her for the classic pony that every girl wants. However, I just had too much of Jazmine in this particular episode. By the end I was hoping that she'd be seriously in the hole due to Wuncler's contract, just because I was too angry with her lack of sense. The ending was very nice, I thought, with it snowing and everyone coming back to their senses. Finally, Huey wearing that coat didn't seem to be so stupid after all. Despite having to help an ungrateful and naive friend, Huey hands her his scarf, which I thought showed good on his character. Even in the comic strip I wonder why he tries so hard for people and a society that don't seem to want his help. But that's Huey. He's not in it for "the props," you could say. That moment at the end was probably my favorite part, and most likely saved this episode for me. It didn't seem enough to enjoy the humor of Wuncler taking advantage of Jazmine, without coming back to something that could reveal more or deepen my understanding of some member of the Freeman family. It was a good episode, but I wouldn't call it one of my favorites.moreless
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This is a funny as heck episode

10

By Shadowhand18, Jul 20, 2010

This is a funny as heck episode. I laughed like H. E. double hockey sticks my A. Double rattle snakes at this episode, Jasmine finally gets an episode about herself and she has long time deserved one I liked how riley was tryin to play the news crew and they was actually startin to beleive him. And when huey tried to get the lemonade stand broken down with the hippys they just stood theare and sang. but when the people asked for the lemonade the the Hippys got all annoyed and stared fighting , So yeah thats this episode in a nutshellmoreless
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Spike Lee would be proud of this one. well... not too proud.

6.6

By nobie05, Jul 20, 2010

The Block is Hot waz pretty good and a good example of some of the events that happened in Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing", yet it's still not one of the best that I've seen, and I think D.T.R.T. was a really good movie. Why did Huey have on a trenchcoat knowin damn well it was too hot. That was grimey for what they did to Jasmine, even though she should've seen this coming. I feel sorry for Ruckus too. Don't worry Ruckus, it could happen to anybody these days (haha). I wanted Riley to have more of a dialogue in this episode because it'd just be funnier. I guess we can say The Block is Hot wasn't that "Hot".moreless
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good epsiode

9.8

By Blind_Legend, Jul 20, 2010

Two elements in this episode: the first is a hard-hitting parody of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing", with shades of the Rodney King beating, with the always-entertaining "black white supremacist" Uncle Ruckus at the center. As simplistic and predictable as they are lively and hilarious, these scenes are very typical of the comedy plots we have come to expect from The Boondocks series. The second element is a much more ambitious social parable, and easily transcends the former. Ed Wuncler's exploitation of Jazmine and her lemonade stand gives us further confirmation that he is an exceptionally ruthless businessman: having signed a contract with Jazmine to take control of the lemonade stand in exchange for a pony, he jumpstarts a chaotic chain of events that in the end leaves Wuncler richer and with another addition to his local business empire, whereas Jazmine ends up exhausted, in debt to Wuncler, and still without a pony. This show's overriding theme being race relations, we must ask ourselves whether this story is a departure from the racial theme, or in fact a deeper examination of it. To be sure, Wuncler never displays any racism on a personal or literal level (as his friendship with Robert Freeman showed us in previous episodes). He does not only exploit the colored Jazmine but also the white liberals who show up to protest on the girl's behalf, by presenting them with his own "exploitation-free&q uot;, commercialized lemonade, thereby taking away the heat from his enterprise. Wuncler's actions can be summed up with the old adage of "making the rich richer, and the poor poorer". In short, whether or not the parable of the lemonade stand is about race depends on how much it matters to you that in America as a general rule, the rich tend to be disproportionally white, and the poor tend to be disproportionally black. (It should be noted that Wuncler's own thoughts on this remain shrouded. Is he deliberately targeting the African-Americans in his neighbourhood for exploitation, as his restaurant venture with Freeman might suggest? Maybe, but once the opportunity arose, he exploited the white liberals just as willingly.) This is the issue Boondocks invites us to think about here, in a manner less direct than the bluntly satirical approach this series often takes. This episode is worth the attention of any viewer who looks for something more than jokes with the N-word and the show's usual idiosyncratic humor, and places it above the series' averagemoreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Cedric Yarbrough	Tom Dubois
Gabby Soleil	Jazmine Dubois
Gary Anthony Williams	Uncle Ruckus
John Witherspoon	Robert "Granddad" Freeman
Regina King	Huey and Riley Freeman

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Edward Asner

Ed Wuncler

Guest Star

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (1)
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- Nitpick: Since Jazmine's father is a lawyer, it is unlikely that he would let his daughter sign a contract without reading it thoroughly.
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QUOTES (4)
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- Wuncler: What the hell is up with this sign? What's this crude drawing suppose to be?
  Jazmine: It's the Magical Pony Carriage.
  Wuncler: This looks like a kid drew it. Look at this, why are all the "e"'s backwards?
  Jazmine: It's suppose to be cute.
  Wuncler: You think ignorance is cute? Well, I suppose you think you think mental retardation is down right adorable. Lemonade, now! (Jazmine starts to cry and tries to pour a glass) How is anyone suppose to believe you can make lemonade without you can't even spell it? How old are you?
  Jazmine: (crying) T-T-T-Ten.
  Wencler: Too damn old to be righting your "e"'s backwards, damn it!
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- News Reporter: The officers apparently mistook the suspect's safety orange wallet for a gun and shot at him 118 times and beat him.
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- Huey: Maybe the heat does make people crazy, and before you know it, crazy becomes normal.
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- Huey: (to Riley, whose spraying the water out of a hydrent) Riley!
  (Riley looks up)
  White people have pools!
  Riley: Nigga, what's with the coat?
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NOTES (1)
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- Adult Swim Video: March 10, 2006
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ALLUSIONS (1)
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- The title of this episode refers to Lil Wayne's hit song/album: Tha Block is Hot.
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