Characters / The Boondocks - Main Characters

Index: Main | Supporting | Recurring | Minor

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Freeman Family

In General

Left to Right: Riley, Huey, and Robert

Three members of an extended African-American family, who moved from the South Side of Chicago, Illinois to the affluent suburban city of Woodcrest (implied to be located near Baltimore, Maryland).

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• Badass Family: In the TV show, the Freemans tend to get into fights with other characters rather frequently. Though how well They can fight tends to vary.
• Butt Monkeys: Life seems to enjoy messing with them. Robert hoped that he and his family would enjoy easier lives in Woodcrest, only to find that it's much less quiet and peaceful than they expected.
• Deadpan Snarkers: All of the Freemans are rather sarcastic or sardonic, though only Huey is really deadpan about it.
• Dysfunctional Family: In the TV series, Robert is rather shockingly immature and incompetent for a man his age, and uses corporal punishment rather liberally against Riley(and Huey on one occasion). Not to mention how often Huey and Riley fight each other, usually due to the latter's trouble-making tendencies. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for this.
• Fish out of Water: There's quite a bit of culture shock for a trio of inner-city blacks who now live in a mostly white suburb. Hilarity Ensues.
• Freudian Excuse: It's implied that much of Huey and Riley's behavior and issues stems from their parents dying when they were young and having to grow up in a bad urban neighborhood. Likewise, it's implied that Robert, a man who had a fairly hectic life in the Civil Rights era, had to grapple with the death of one of his kids and wasn't fully prepared to care of his grandsons when they came under his care.
• The Ghosts: It's never explained how Huey and Riley ultimately came under the care of their paternal grandfather; we never find out anything about either of their parents or their paternal grandmother, other than the fact that it's very strongly implied that they're all dead.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: All of them are unpleasant in their own ways, especially Riley. Robert is selfish towards everyone except attractive women. And while Huey cares for others and has a strong moral backbone, he's incredibly cold towards every person we see him interact with. However sometimes, we see that they really do care about each other and that they do care about other people on some level.
• N-Word Privileges: Like most black characters in the show, the Freemans, save for Huey, say "nigga" a lot. Huey only says it once in a great while.
• Weirdness Magnet: For some reason, the Freemans have met many strange enemies over the course of the series. They include, but are not limited to: Evil Old Folks, an evil little kid, a crazy lady who loves wolves, a homoerotic cult-like theater troupe, gangsters who deal candy bars, a dead old man who returned as a vengeful ghost (and later as a clone), and even a psycho phone app!

Huey Freeman

Huey Freeman

Voiced by: Regina King (English), Xóchitl Ugarte (Latin American Spanish), Reiko Kiuchi (Japanese)

A young boy (10 years old in the series) who is very intelligent yet pessimistic for his age, he is a radical left-wing activist and an alleged, retired "domestic terrorist".

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• The Ace: Huey is incredibly, often super-humanly good at just about anything that doesn't involve social interaction. He's one of the best martial artists in the series, can play kickball with wuxia super-soldiers, infiltrate military bases, appears to know just about everything, never loses his cool, is a scientific genius, and is also fluent in Chinese. This is eventually acknowledged by other characters in the series, but usually for the comedy value of them still not listening to him despite knowing he's always right.
• Acting Your Intellectual Age: Huey is very intelligent and mature for a 10 year-old child. He has demonstrated a depth of understanding topics that would seem to surpass his young age such as: politics, religion, the media, businesses and corporations, African-American culture, and American society as a whole.
• Adaptational Badass: In the comics, Huey's martial arts skills are an Informed Ability. In the cartoon, not so much.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: The negative aspects of Huey's personality are less pronounced in the show than in the comics, since the animated Huey is a mix of his comic incarnation and that of Caesar, his best and only real friend (and the more sensible of the two).
• Adorably Precocious Child:
  • Early in the comics, Huey rants at a little old white lady for thinking that he's adorable, but she ignores his points.
  • In "The Garden Party", Huey is annoyed that the rich white guests at Wuncler's party find his political rants and conspiracy theories to be cute instead of offensive.
• Afro Asskicker: He's a preteen badass variant of this trope. There's a running gag in the comic about Granddad demanding Huey get a haircut.
• All Issues Are Political Issues: Especially in the newspaper comics. Huey won't stop talking about politics, controversies, and other stressful thoughts, even at the most awkward of times. He wants to attach political or philosophical meanings to just about everything. He won't even give himself a break on holidays and vacations.
• Anti-Hero: He has a cynical and pessimistic demeanor, but he's a good person beneath it and tries his best to improve society and the world.
• Aside Glance: He has done this multiple times (especially in the first season) to get his cynicism or disapproval across.
• Author Avatar: Zig-Zagged. Huey can generally be considered the representative of Aaron McGruder's political views, social criticisms, tastes in culture and music, etc. However - especially in the comic - he's also often used by McGruder as a caricature to satirize those views. And McGruder also didn't mind lampshading how little sense a kid being the mouthpiece of adult could make sometimes.
• Badass Adorable: He can kick ass despite being a preteen kid.
• Badass Bookworm: He's very well read and has an interest in politics.
• Berserk Button:
  • In the comics, Republican politicians and annoying black celebrities bothered him to no end, to the point that they're on his mind nearly 24/7.
  • When Tom accuses him of being a traitor for endorsing Ralph Nader in the 2000 elections and calls him a sellout who would actually vote for a white man despite Huey's protestations that he's just using Nader to subvert the 2 party system, Huey loses his cool so badly that he threatens to knock Tom on his @#$.
  • In "The Red Ball", he tells the Chinese kickball team that "I do not like being laughed at", and teaches them the hard way.
• Big Brother Instinct: Huey is patient and protective of Riley, even though his brother often doesn't appreciate it. He also tries in vain to dissuade Riley from his bad ideas (which are most of them). Huey will occasionally take it upon himself to discipline his little brother. Riley, anti-authoritarian by nature, resists every step of the way.
• Birds of a Feather: Huey became best friends with Caesar because of their common political views. Or, it was more because they were the only black kids in Woodcrest (besides Riley) and could relate. While he often agrees with Huey, Caesar is generally much less interested in politics and occasionally gets annoyed that it's all Huey ever seems to talk about.
• Black and Nerdy: Besides being very intellectual for a kid his age, Huey is also a fan of Star Wars and martial arts movies. His brother even mockingly calls him a "nerd" in the comics.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: In the cartoon: there, Huey may be a genius and aware of many issues but he is mainly apathetic about it, and becomes even moreso partway through the series.
• Break the Cutie: Sometimes, we do see more of Huey’s human side and whenever it we do, it’s pretty sad.
• Brutal Honesty: Due to his cynical and pessimistic personality, Huey is not one to mince words about harsh truths, especially when it concerns the world.
  Huey: There ain't no such thing as a Tooth Fairy.
  Jazmine: Then who leaves the money?
  Huey: Probably your parents. They have both the cash and the access to your room.
  Jazmine: Why would they lie to me?
  Huey: Because the truth hurts, Jazmine. The world is a hard and lonely place, and nobody gets anything for free. And you want to know what else? One day, you and everyone you know is gonna die.
  (Jazmine runs away crying)
• Butt-Monkey: He's often ignored and ridiculed whenever he tries making a point, especially by Riley and Granddad.
• The Cassandra: Riley and Granddad often ignore his advice, frequently to their own detriment.
• Cavalier Competitor: Over the kickball game. At least until Ming makes it personal.
• Characterization Marches On: In the first season, Huey tends to be considerably angrier and perhaps more of a conspiracy theorist. In the following seasons, his politics are focused more on critical observations and critiques and he functions as a voice of reason amongst his family.
• Character Check: He starts quoting Malcolm X in Season 4, and he is not too far off from his character from the comics in some episodes, such as "Freedomland".
• Character Narrator: In various episodes, especially in the first two seasons, Huey narrates the story and provides commentary. However, some episodes are narrated by other characters; including Riley, Robert, Ruckus, and even Stinkmeaner.
• Chaste Hero: Huey doesn't get romance, nor does he want to.
• Child Prodigy: Which annoys his teacher.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: The difficulty inherent in Huey's crusade for African-American egalitarianism and enlightenment is frequently embodied by how he is unable to sway either Robert or Riley from ignorant and illegal behavior despite living with the two and knowing them fairly well.
• Color Motif: Red, which compliments his angry attitude. He seems to idolize Che Guevara and the Season 1 opening even recreates the iconic red poster with his face. Ironically, Riley's motif is blue, but he's the Red Oni to Huey's Blue.
• The Comically Serious / The Stoic: He usually keeps a neutral (yet a bit pessimistic) expression on his face, and only a few times has he shown anything else.
  • Not So Stoic: Occasionally you can see Huey look very visibly distressed, such as when his former friend Cairo rejects him. Even rarer, he can be seen in a better mood.
• Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch: In-Universe, he does this when he says that the first Soul Plane was as funny as a lynching. He justifies it by saying that he's also never seen a lynching, but he knows they're not funny. (Granddad tries to argue that he knows of a funny lynching, but that's neither here nor there.)
• The Consigliere: Played for Laughs. A running gag in the comic is that Huey's on the speed dial of several celebrities, poltiical figures and even the president once or twice, leading them to desperately call him - a child - for advice whenever they need to get out of trouble. It gets to the point where Huey himself gets annoyed that they keep calling him.
• Composite Character: The animated Huey is a combination of comic Huey's cynicism and radicalism, with Caesar's Only Sane Man attitude.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Especially in comics, and it's often lampshaded. Huey is a left-wing radical after all. He believes that racists, corporations, and governments are all scheming to keep the working classes (blacks especially) under their feet. Likewise he also fully bought into Y2K, up to believing aliens would invade.
  • In the comics, he often accuses his teacher Mr. Petto of intentionally brainwashing his students on behalf of higher powers. Though really, it seems that Petto is just trying to do his job.
  • Also in the comics, during one winter break, he formed a convoluted theory that Santa Claus is an agent of the Illuminati. Oddly though, he dismissed Santa as being a childish fairy tale until he incorporated him into his paranoid conspiracy fantasies.
  • At one point in the comics, Huey is reluctant to get vaccinated, as he's afraid that the government wants to inject microchips in people.
  • Huey is introduced in "The Garden Party" by claiming that "Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan is the Devil, and the government's lying about 9/11." Either he really believes all of this or he was trying to anger/troll a rich white audience. Maybe both.
  • Later in "The Real", Huey thinks that the government is spying on him, through a secret agent he calls "the White Shadow". He can't decide if the Shadow is real or an illusion.
  • In "The Block Is Hot", Huey is seen distributing fliers claiming that the government wants people to die early, so that they can't collect their Social Security benefits.
• Crazy Survivalist: A rare far-left example. As a paranoid Conspiracy Theorist, Huey hoards a lot of emergency supplies in his house, as he is expecting an epic disaster to strike the world at any moment.
  • In the comics, he totally buys into the Y2K scare to a ridiculous extent, to the point of running drills, asking his grandfather to buy a generator, and (perhaps jokingly) expecting irradiated zombies or space aliens to invade. This results in him totally freaking out when Granddad pulls a prank on him by cutting the lights just as the New Year hits.
  • Later in the comics, he was certain that the bird flu epidemic would destroy America, and stockpiled 18 months' worth of food to prepare, saying he wouldn't even share with his brother when it happened. (Given that the bird flu had no cases outside of Asia, you can only find this rather absurd now along with much of his paranoia.)
  • In the episode "The Fried Chicken Flu", he hoards a lot of supplies to prepare for a great disaster, such as the fried chicken flu epidemic. Though it all goes to waste, as the so-called "fried chicken flu" is really an outbreak of salmonella that was exaggerated by the media to be far deadlier than it actually was.
• Creepy Child: Even though Huey is a little boy, he never smiles or laughs, and he's also a (wannabe) militant political activist / "domestic terrorist" (and he fully expects to be imprisoned for it some day).
• Cunning Linguist: In the episode "The Red Ball", he has shown to understand and speak fluent Mandarin Chinese.
• Cute Bruiser: Despite Huey's arguably adorable appearance, he possesses formidable skills and should not be underestimated. He surpasses the average abilities of children his age when it comes to physical combat.
• The Cynic: He's the master of negative thinking. No matter the occasion, he will express his unpleasant thoughts about it.
• Deadpan Snarker: It helps that Huey does in fact have a deadpan personality, and has a penchant for both sarcasm and bluntness.
• The Determinator: This applies to the first season only, as later seasons show him to be much more apathetic.
• Did You Think I Can't Feel?: “Wingmen” and “The Passion of Reverend Ruckus” are the only times where we actually see Huey crying.
• Dirty Communist: Huey Freeman seems to be some kind of anarcho-communist / black nationalist / vegetarian. This has gotten him some negative media attention from right-wing politicians, and he's under constant surveillance by federal government agencies.
• Disapproving Look: The boy is famous for it. Just look at his character image. Particularly noticeable in the show, which is less dialogue-heavy and has more moments of Huey just looking at people to get his skepticism or disapproval across, but even in the comic, the Beat Panels of Huey just looking at someone who is being ignorant or foolish are common.
• The Eeyore: He sometimes crosses over with being grumpy. His endless war against "The Man" has left him without the ability to take much enjoyment from things. Naturally, his being a constant downer causes Caesar no shortage of annoyance◊, ostracizes him from what friends he has at times◊, and every once in a while results in him being called out on it.
• Enemy Mine: Thrice in Season 3, Huey has reluctantly worked alongside some personal enemies (twice with Uncle Ruckus, and once with Ed Wuncler I).
  • In "It's a Black President, Huey Freeman", Huey's apathy and Ruckus' hatred for Barack Obama provokes an angry reaction from a crowd of Obama supporters. As they no longer feel like they belong in America, the two decide to drive up north to Canada together, but this plan is aborted when Ruckus is arrested by the Secret Service due to Ruckus wanting to throw a brick at Obama on his inauguration day.
  • In "The Red Ball", Huey has no choice but to accept Wuncler's offer to become the captain of the Woodcrest kickball team and recruit other players, as Wuncler betted most of the real estate in Woodcrest (including the Freeman house) to his business rival Long-Dou from Wushung, China.
  • In "It's Goin' Down", after a confused counter-terrorism operation gone wrong (Jack Flowers mistakenly believed that Huey and Ruckus were terrorists), Jack convinces Huey and Ruckus to help him out by evacuating Dan Stuckey from the Wuncler Tower before a bomb destroys it.
• Establishing Character Moment: Our first introduction to him is a glimpse at his biggest fantasy, where he goes onstage, tells a group of rich white people at a dinner party "Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the devil, and the government did 9/11" and relishes in the chaos, illustrating his combative political personality.
• Flanderization: In the comics, Huey is a dedicated rights activist but it wasn't uncommon to see him act immaturely or irrationally. While Huey in the cartoon isn't incapable of acting childish, the show greatly enhances his more serious, straight man traits.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: He's much more level-headed, intelligent and responsible than Riley.
• Good Is Not Nice: He dreams of a better society, but is not very tactful about it.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Huey seems to hate everyone and everything. In the comics, he once tried to write a book about people he hated, seeing as he was so good at hating. But he didn't include Osama bin Laden, because as he explains, "He's so EASY to hate. I'm trying to challenge the reader to expand his or her hate horizons." He did however, include Lucy from Peanuts, because of "the whole pulling-the-football-away thing."
• Hypocritical Humor: In the comic. Caesar is usually responsible for calling him on it.
  Huey: Most people don't have the time or the energy to follow politics, and the government takes advantage of that. This country needs to keep a closer eye on Washington! We need to start holding our elected officials responsible for this mess!
  Caesar: Wow... So who is our Congressman, Huey?
  Huey: Who knows... Some punk...
• Ignored Expert: Yes. He uses his knowledge of the actions and the personalities of the people involved to know roughly of what is going to happen in the future. Not that anyone listens to his warnings.
  • For example, in "The Fundraiser", Huey accurately predicts what will become of Riley's candy-selling racket, going so far as to give him a bulletproof vest, which eventually turned out to save his life.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: No explanation is given for how Huey learned martial arts.
• Insufferable Genius: Particularly in the comic. For example, one year for Christmas, he gave everyone he knew free coupons for hour-long lectures from him on a flaw of theirs of his choice. His aspirations for inspiring change are often thwarted by his own rhetoric, which consists of either acidic jabs or dull, long-winded monologues.
  "Nigga, did you just say what I was tryin' to say, but smarter?!"
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Huey has very few friends. He scares everyone off except for Caesar and Jazmine (especially in the cartoon, due to Caesar's absence).
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Tom, and also with the White Shadow to an extent.
• I Warned You: Writer of "I Told You So: Emergency Household Protocols For Catastrophic Scenario".
• Jerkass Has a Point: In "Guess Hoe's Coming to Dinner", he makes a good argument that most young women would never date men around Granddad's age unless they had a hidden motive. This is why he and Riley disliked Cristal.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In the comics, Huey is very arrogant and condescending to just about everyone. Downplayed on the "Jerk" part in the show, where he's just simply cold and aloof towards others. But underneath his cynical elitism and detached stoicism, he does care about the well-being of his family and friends.
• Katanas Are Just Better: He plays it straight and also subverts it when he gets in a fight with Riley.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Is often bitter and cynical about how little effect his work actually has on the world, and the small chance of him making any sort of difference whatsoever, but still does what he feels needs to be done.
• Lack of Empathy: In the comics, he can sometimes be a rare heroic example. Though he does care about people, he often has little tolerance for other peoples' feelings, emotions, and problems, especially in comparison to what he thinks their feelings, emotions, and problems ought to be.
• Meaningful Name: Named after Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party.
• Mundane Utility: In the comics, he often tries to use his skills at revolutionary rhetoric and great berth of knowledge of black history to, among other things, get out of mowing the grass. It always fails.
• Nerves of Steel: He didn't even flinch at the end of the "Attack of the Killer Kung-Fu Wolf Bitch" episode when Luna killed herself with a grenade or when he and Riley pointed the airsoft's at each other's faces. Riley's hand shook and trembled; Huey's was still as stone.
  • Subverted at the end of "Stinkmeaner 3: The Hateocracy". When Bushido Brown's head gets cut off, Huey winces just like everyone else; His reaction is just more subtle than the others.
• Never My Fault: When the subject of Stinkmeaner's death comes up Huey isn't shy to point the finger at at Robert for killing him, despite the fact Robert only took the fight seriously and fought as hard as he did because Huey convinced him Stinkmeaner was a skilled fighter with a Disability Superpower, when he was instead a blind old man who got lucky.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: A relatively noble one.
• No-Respect Guy: To pretty much everyone in the TV show, increasingly as the series goes on. Jazmine is the sole consistent exception, being the only character (outside the comics, at least) shown to genuinely listen to and care about what he has to say.
• No Sense of Humor: Beyond his sarcasm, he really doesn't seem to have an interest in comedy. A Running Gag in the comic has Caesar either pointing it out, failing to tell him a joke, or trying and failing to get him to say something funny. One mini-arc even has him trying to teach Huey to tell "yo momma" jokes, with disastrous results.
• No Social Skills: Sometimes, not that he cares. He doesn't really have time for tact, hates most things, doesn’t get people at all, and is especially hard on ignorance, which everyone around him has in spades. He doesn't have many friends, but then that doesn't matter to him either. Because of this, characters rarely approach him in a social setting, so this only comes out occasionally. Poor Jazmine...◊
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Huey, like all the other children, isn't shown to be aging. This is especially confusing in the comics, as he regularly discussed then-current events; this was lampshaded when Caesar commented how the previous US presidential election (four years before that particular strip) felt just like yesterday.
  • The show runs for a total of 9 years (including the awkward hiatuses in-between the 4 seasons). Although the only events that could be dated down was the election and inauguration of Barack Obama in 2008-2009.
• Not So Above It All: In the comics, Huey thinks he's an Only Sane Man, but he doesn't realize how extreme his viewpoints are, or that in the end he's still just a little kid who can't change much about the world. Downplayed in the show though.
• Not So Stoic: Despite his usually detached demeanor, Huey does display emotion at times, especially in the TV show.
  • He's notably upset when Jazmine snaps at him to leave her alone.
  • He can occasionally get angry with others in more openly, such as with Stinkmeaner or Cristal.
  • While it's uncertain if the art displays either young Robert his late wife (Huey's grandmother) or Huey and Riley's parents, he shows shock and sadness when he sees Riley's portrait on the house.
  • Openly cries and prays to God when he believes he won't be able to save Shabazz.
  • Huey does smile occasionally, mostly when he's with Jazmine or something good happens with his family.
• N-Word Privileges: He says "nigga", but not as much as Riley or Robert do.
• Oblivious to Love: Sometimes. Jazmine occasionally implies that she has some kind of crush on him, to which he's usually as brusque as ever, sometimes even more so than usual. For instance, at one point in the comic, Jazmine gives him a Valentine. When she asks if he has one for her, he tells her he does and that that he'll be right back with it. He then shuts the door in her face and leaves her waiting outside. For two hours, until someone shouts at her to go home.
• Occidental Otaku: Huey knows karate, owns a katana sword, and watches samurai movies.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: For a while in the comics, he's unable to live down the extreme extent to which he bought into Y2K.
• Only Sane Man: In the TV show, due to the exaggerated and flanderized stupidity of many characters, especially compared to Riley (not surprisingly), and even his Granddad (who is much dumber than his comic counterpart).
• Out of Focus: In the first season, Huey was a lot more outspoken and would actively try to prevent whatever disaster is happening due to the actions of the other characters. In the later seasons, Huey is a lot more apathetic, and his role in many episodes is to offer a few pointed comments and warn the other characters that whatever they're doing is going to blow up in their face, and he mostly lets them deal with the consequences when they don't listen to him.
• Parental Abandonment: It's implied that his parents are deceased.
• Perpetual Frowner: Almost always seen with a frown to emphasize his cynical and pessimistic personality. According to Aaron McGruder, the animators are contractually obligated never to depict Huey smiling or laughing, ever.
  • When He Smiles: Rarely though, you can see Huey in a better mood. And it's actually quite nice◊. Although it has been stated that those instances of him being happy are animation errors, it works for his character as those particular moments of uncharacteristic happiness have something to do with what's happening or who he is speaking to.
    • He smiles when he set up a soapbox and sees Jazmine across the street with her lemonade stand.
    • He smiles when he asks Jazmine to go and assist him on his plan to bust out a wrongfully convicted prisoner. Although this was temporary when Jazmine stated that she could not go.
    • He smiles twice when Riley starts having success during the basketball game.
    • He seems genuinely happy to see Granddad return from his Costa Rica trip.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Downplayed; while Huey can mop the floor with other children and untrained adults, against trained adult opponents he can just barely hold his own.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Particularly in the comics, at least at first. Huey is a black nationalist, so he tended to treat white people with some disdain.
  • Huey seems to be dismissive about Jazmine's racial identity confusion, insisting that she's black (never mind that she also qualifies as white).
  • At one point Huey is convinced that there may be a Ku Klux Klan presence in Woodcrest, and he even suspects the very liberal and black-loving Sarah DuBois of being affiliated (he tries arguing about it with Tom).
  • Although Huey doesn't seem to hate white people as a whole, and also has just as much vitriol for black people, so maybe he's just more of a misanthrope.
• Poster-Gallery Bedroom: His (half of the) room is neat with a full bookshelf, a computer and posters of Che Guevara and Malcolm X.
• Power Fist: He made his own electric shock glove that he calls the "Black Power Fist", built with instructions from the Internet.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Played with. While Huey is typically an Author Avatar for McGruder, in the comics the viewer is not always intended to think that the things he believes are right, and often he will be the intended Jerkass of a situation: this is why Caesar exists - as a character who points out more reasonable conclusions to contrast him. In the show, however, he's more generally intended to be right but he's also Out of Focus.
• The Quiet One: He's generally very calm and reserved, especially after Season 1.
• Rage Breaking Point: Not prone to overt anger (his rage is usually more calm), but after Bush gets re-elected he spends two weeks holding it in and then explodes pretty much at random. Caesar has to physically restrain him from ranting himself off of a cliff.
  Huey: It's like middle America called a meeting and said, 'what's the best way to crush Huey's hope for the future?' ...MISSION ACCOMPLISHED B***CHES!
  Caesar: "Healthy... getting it out is healthy..."
• Raised by Grandparents: He and Riley are raised by their grandfather Robert.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to Riley's red. Red to Tom and Caesar's blue.
• Retired Badass: As early as Season 3, he claimed to be retired from revolutionary activism (or "domestic terrorism" depending on one's views).
• Revolutionaries Who Don't Do Anything: Huey is a far-left-wing activist who dreams of becoming a militant revolutionary, although he never actually gets to commit any crimes (there was an attempted prison breakout and an attempted assassination of Ed Wuncler II, although both of these plans failed before Huey could even execute them). Nevertheless Huey gets a lot of media and government attention, and he's been branded as a domestic terrorist.
  • He did manage to (somewhat accidentally) successfully blackmail a politician in the course of a separate hail-mary attempt at the aforementioned prison breakout.
• Ridiculous Procrastinator: Huey gets an entire comic arc about how he can't get himself to just mow the grass. Even afterward, him doing absolutely anything he can to avoid doing it becomes a Running Gag.
• Serious Business: The nerd in him will quote Obi-Wan Kenobi and he's repeatedly overreacted when he's given news of bad black movies etc. by Caesar.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: He's often at the receiving end of this. Granddad outright him asks him how making himself miserable will help bring any real social change.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Played with. While Huey isn't so concerned with self-image like Riley is, he does have some traits of this due to being a self-described revolutionary activist, believing he could change the world (despite not doing much besides complaining all the time). Whether he's far less significant than he thinks, or whether he really is a well-known revolutionary, depend on the joke the strip or episode is trying to tell, though the show did skew more to the latter more often.
• Soapbox Sadie: In the episode, "The Block is Hot". However, that is still a natural element to his character.
• The Spock: He's smart yet stoic.
• Straight Man: Especially towards Riley. In the TV show, he serves this role to his Granddad as well.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Huey is the more serious-minded Straight Man to Caesar's comical Wise Guy.
• Straw Character: Huey is a far-left radical who preaches socialism and black nationalism. It varies greatly whether he's a strawman of a fringe extremist.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Huey is stoic and often blunt, but when the chips are down, so is his personal barrier.
• Supporting Protagonist: He's the main character and Straight Man to his brother and granddad. Most of the show focuses on the schemes of his brother and his granddad though.
• Strong and Skilled: Compared to his brother, and quite possibly his grandfather, Huey is a much better fighter with his knowledge of martial arts he has the technique to match many other skilled martial artists and has enough strength to beat down many untrained people. However he is still only a child and has been outclassed by many adult martial artists who can match him albeit Huey getting atleast a few hits in before going down.
• Stopped Caring: Eventually, he just doesn’t give a shit about what goes on in town after failing for so long.
• Tranquil Fury: Whenever he gets angry this is usually intake on it where he ends up being extremely quiet. One could say he's in a permanent state of this.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: He's a self proclaimed revolutionary at ten years old, where do we begin? Huey owns a real sword and an electric shock glove, has planned a prison breakout, brought nunchaku to a cinema, kidnapped Ruckus and hijacked his school bus, he wishes he had the power to Force Choke people, and he created a bomb with the intent to assassinate Ed Wuncler II (although in Huey's defense, Ed II is a loan shark who isn't above murdering people). As always, played for laughs rather than drama.
• Übermensch: Deconstructed. Initially, he was something of a milder case. But as the series progresses, he has his faith challenged in ways that force him to accept there are forces he can't understand and sometimes he can't make a difference. As the series progresses, Huey starts to become more and more hopeless to the point of eventually giving up on society and accepting that his outlook is not enough.
• Ungrateful Bastard: No matter what Jazmine does for him, he just keeps mistreating her. In one comic strip, when she gives him a card to cheer him up, he yells at her just because the card she gave him had a white angel on it (he does feel a bit bad about this and try to apologize, however).
• The Unreveal: We never get to find out who his parents were.
• Unreliable Narrator: In "Attack of the Killer Kung-Fu Wolf Bitch", though he corrects himself. Huey thinks that Luna has finally moved on from her personal troubles — until she commits suicide with a hand grenade, which he then points out.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: He does care, just in an aloof, depressing, cynical way.
• Violence Really Is the Answer: He strongly believes this.
• Vocal Evolution: Originally he and Riley's voices were nearly identical, with the defining difference being that Riley swears much more frequently. As the series progressed, his voice grew substantially deeper and more masculine to offset him from his younger brother.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: In a one-sided way with Jazmine, who is much nicer to him.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Though Robert is Huey's grandfather, they otherwise fit the trope with how much more mature Huey is than his grandfather.
• Weak, but Skilled: Huey is an extremely skilled fighter, but often comes up short against adult opponents with a similar level of training because he's still just a half-grown kid. He's still more than a match for untrained opponents.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Huey, who is known to be a far-left radical, is actually on the federal government's watchlist of suspected "domestic terrorists". While Huey is sometimes shown to be engaging in illegal activities, he never actually (has the chance to) do anything terroristic.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: In the cartoon he certainly acts like this, but the reality is that it's just that: an act. In truth, he just has more common sense than Robert or Riley. He certainly is very mature for his age and he has plenty of knowledge, but he doesn't have all of the intelligence to back it up.
• The Worf Effect: While a skilled martial artist, he is often the one kissing concrete when he gets into fights, though to be fair, a lot of his opponents are adults and elite badasses. The only fights he has won or at least, had the advantage in, were against either those in his own age group, or just Mooks.

Riley Freeman

Riley "Escobar" Freeman

Voiced by: Regina King (English), Karina Altamirano (Latin American Spanish), Keiko Nemoto (Japanese)

Huey's younger brother (eight years old in the series), a wannabe gangster and juvenile delinquent with an eye for trouble. He's determined to do anything to build up his "reputation," no matter how stupid or dangerous it might be.

---

• Adaptational Hairstyle Change: Downplayed. Riley starts the strip with natural hair and doesn’t fix it into cornrows up until the very end, as opposed to the series, where he has them from the get-go. Ironically, Robert forbade him from ever getting them in the comic, but never says a word on the subject in the animated show, suggesting some Adaptational Personality Change on his part.
• Adaptational Jerkass: To a degree. Riley in the comic started out as a more violent, explosive delinquent, but eventually his characterization moved on to him - while still occasionally mischeivous - being more benignly ignorant and materialistic. In the show, Riley begins the series amoral but somewhat rational, but becomes increasingly more malevolent and self-destructive as the series goes on - with only the occasional exception.
• Aesop Amnesia: Riley has a certain mindset of how the world should work, so any lessons that don't line up with it are immediately discarded.
  • Lampshaded at the end of "The Fundraiser", when Riley is offered an opportunity back into the candy business, and recalls all the crap he went through near the end of the episode (such as barely escaping a shootout between two rival gangs and the FBI). He then smiles and snickers deviously, before the credits roll.
  • Lampshaded again at the end of "A Date with the Booty Warrior". Riley has just went on a field trip to a local prison, which was intended to scare him away from a life of crime. Even after being taken as a hostage during a prison riot, Riley declares that he's not scared of jail, because it was filled with "bitch-ass niggas".
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Huey certainly views him as this, given their opposing personalities and Riley's penchant for troublemaking and adoration of thugs and gangsters.
• Ascended Fanboy: He's a huge fan of gangsta rappers and is friends with a few of his idols, including Thugnificent and Gangstalicious.
• Attention Whore: Riley is always itching to prove himself and gain the notoriety he wants.
• Badass Adorable: Sometimes, see the trope below.
• Berserk Button: Getting his Lethal Interjection chain necklace stolen by Butch Magnus.
  • Another one is underestimating him and thinking he's not worthy of doing anything will certainly piss him off.
• Blatant Lies: Riley is fond of lying.
• Blood Knight: Even though he loses half of them Riley always seems to enjoy a good brawl. However he draws the line at life threatening situations that involve guns even though he's responsible for getting himself in those problems.
• Boisterous Weakling: Riley is a pretty good fighter for his age, but he's eight years old and most of his opponents are either adults, or children far older and taller than him (like Huey and Butch). As such, Riley always talks big but is frequently curbstomped whenever he attempts to take part in a fight.
• Book Dumb: Depending on the Writer; In the comics, he uses Obfuscating Stupidity. But in the cartoon, he really is that stupid.
  • In the comics, he is exceptionally bright when he wants to be. He does poorly in school to protect his "rep".
  • In the first season of the show, Riley was more on the fence when it came to obfuscating stupidity.
    • For all the dumb things he did, the boy was a surprisingly good debater.
    • And he showed remarkable cunning in "Let's Nab Oprah", by misdirecting Oprah's bodyguards which included Bushido Brown, certainly more cunning than Ed III & Gin Rummy have ever shown.
• Bratty Half-Pint: He frequently gets on the nerves of his big brother and granddad.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • In the cartoon. Ed III and Gin Rummy stole his pimped out bike he worked really hard on (though he completely deserved it).
  • He got his ass handed to him by the local bully, who stole his chain on top of it.
  • Huey absolutely dominated him in the "Home Alone" episode, binding his hands together with duct tape and dressing him in an orange jumpsuit, then forcing him to do chores and never taking his eyes off him while enforcing his "supreme authority" with a BB gun.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "Nigga, you gay."
  • "Pause."
  • "Ain't this a bitch!"
  • "This is some old bullshit!"
  • "This is crazy!" Usually when he gets excited about something.
• Character Exaggeration: Becomes more of a Small Name, Big Ego in the animated series, and even moreso after the first season. Somewhat justified in that Riley is supposed to represent black youth stirred in the wrong direction, imitating rappers. During the time of the strip most rappers were known for how "hard" or "gangster" they were. Currently most rappers are known for their flash and braggadocio.
• Color Motif: Blue, which is ironic considering Huey, whose motif is red, is the Blue Oni to Riley's Red. Blue is also commonly seen as a masculine color, to which Riley emulates the toxic masculinity of gangsta culture.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Despite not having any actual training and just being a kid, Riley has little sense of fear, and will take on ANY opponent, adult or not, that he thinks have wronged him. He usually won't win, but he puts up a hell of a fight.
• Cuteness Proximity: One of Granddad's crazy ex-girlfriends tried to kidnap Riley because of how adorable he was.
• Deadpan Snarker: Riley is a total smart-ass, but he's generally more obscene than deadpan.
• Delinquent: Well, he is a wannabe gangster, after all. He really believes that getting into trouble with the law will make him cool.
• Determinator: He's not a very good fighter, but good luck on getting him to stay down.
• Embarrassing Damp Sheets: While Riley is arguing with Tom about fighting against R. Kelly, he makes up a fake scenario where Riley is urinating and accidentally pees on Huey due to them being in the bathroom at the same time. When Huey questions why he would be in the bathroom the same time as him, he tries to get his point across by mentioning when they used to share the same bed and at times he would have a “little accident”, to which Huey replies “You still do” much to his embarrassment.
• Enemies Equals Greatness: He's a firm believer in this trope, but unfortunately, this led Butch Magnus to steal his chain.
• Entitled Bastard: Jealous, possessive, and rationalizes every horrible thing he does as him just getting his due or righteously getting even. Tellingly, when Obama was voted president in universe, Riley assumed that meant he could get away with any future misdeeds by virtue of also being African American.
• Everyone Has Standards: Riley is thoroughly creeped out by Lamilton, and is often appalled at how extreme Ed and Rummy can be (not that it stops him from calling them).
• Evil Laugh: His sadistic snicker. When he and Huey come to blows in "Home Alone," it's practically all his dialogue for the whole fight.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: He's much less intelligent and responsible than Huey.
• Freudian Trio: The Id to Robert's Ego and Huey's Superego
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Riley is a loud mouthed Jerkass who insults everyone, making him the least popular of the Freeman clan.
• Fully Automatic Clip Show: Him calling things gay In "The Story Of Gangstalicious, Part 2".
• Genre Savvy: He can predict the outcome of his Granddad's Catcher Freeman story, which sounds an awful lot like a cliched action/romance movie.
• Girls Have Cooties
  (After Riley complains that he might never be able to have money and girls like the rappers on TV)
  Huey: Riley, you don't even LIKE girls!
  Riley: I DO SO! (Beat) Just as long as they don't touch me...
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Riley's fighting style is very much a dirty version of this trope... and yet it's inverted in every instance he uses it, as he is usually brutally beaten. Usually by Huey.
• The Grinch: While Riley doesn't hate Christmas itself, he does hold a grudge against Santa Claus, as he blames him for not giving him any gifts he wanted. So what does he do about it? He assaults a Mall Santa at a department store.
• Guilty Pleasures: He feels great shame when it's revealed he's a Lauryn Hill fan. This isn't because Hill is a regular guilty pleasure, as Huey explains; he doesn't see Hill's positive messages as compatible with his chosen "gangsta" lifestyle. He has an image and mindset to maintain.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: When he is introduced to something or someone that is or he considers to be gay, he will either criticize, state, or mention that he is straight.
• Idiot Hero: Whenever there is an episode about him, it mainly involves Riley making stupid decisions.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: He's the definition of a "wannabe gangster".
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Gangstalicious and Thugnificient's Lethal Interjection Crew. Also friends with Ed III and Gin Rummy, except for that one time when they stole his bicycle.
• Insane Troll Logic: Believes that being black makes him a star basketball player.
• Insufferable Imbecile: Riley holds sexist and homophobic views, wantonly makes fun of others, and commits crimes without regard for the harm they have on others. He also thinks ridiculous things such as that he's automatically a star basketball player simply because he's black, and makes poorly-thought out decisions such as spending he and Huey's only food money on an expensive outfit.
• Jerkass: Riley loves committing mischief and mayhem, and usually doesn't care about how his actions affect others (or himself).
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In spite of his callous attitude and being a spoiled brat, we sometimes see that Riley does care about his brother and grandfather.
• Kids Are Cruel: He's (usually) not really that bad, but he plays up the "schoolyard tough" act in school in order to build up his "rep". Though some strips imply that he doesn't really have to try that hard...
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Most prominent in the episode "Ballin' " where Riley arrogantly believes himself to be an expert basketball player just because he is black and can dribble, even going as far as to demand payment for his "services" when Tom tried to recruit him for his peewee basketball team and purposely skips out on practice thinking he doesn't need it and out of sheer laziness. On his first game, however, Riley has shown to be an incompetent player as he has no concept of teamwork and, as the announcer quoted, "can't shoot worth shit".
• Large Ham: Definitely in contrast to his more reserved brother.
• Laser-Guided Karma: While Riley never learns any lessons, he doesn't always escape consequences. He usually serves to be his own downfall, and often gets beaten by his grandfather if he pisses him off.
• Lazy Bum: Riley never does any work at all either because he thinks it’s gay or just because he thinks he’s too cool for it.
• Mistaken for Gay:
  • In the comics, Cindy finds out that Riley likes Lauryn Hill, so then she assumes that he has other effeminate interests.
  • In the show, Riley unwittingly copies the behavior of gay rapper Gangstalicious, up to and including wearing Gangstalicious' new clothes (Riley unknowingly looks like he's cross-dressing), so Robert and Ruckus are worried that he's also a homosexual.
• Never My Fault: Whenever Riley does something that causes the problem of the episode (such as spending his and Huey’s food money on useless stuff), he always blames either Huey or Robert.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: The roguish one to Huey's noble one.
• N-Word Privileges: Riley says "nigga" very casually and calls literally everyone that, regardless of race or color. Lampshaded in "The S-Word", when Riley says the word to his white teacher Mr. Petto, who then copies him. Riley and Robert pretended to be offended so they could sue the school district.
• Only Sane Man: Played for Laughs between him, Ed and Rummy. In any other situation, Riley is an idiot or at least foolish in comparison, but between him and two adult criminals it's he - the eight year old delinquent - who is the only one with a brain. Best shown in "Let's Nab Oprah," where he spends the whole time groaning at their screwups and eventually abandons them for being too incompetent. In fact, most of the people he associates with are either more evil or more idiotic than he is, allowing him to look surprisingly sane when it's funny.
• Parental Abandonment: It's implied that his parents are deceased.
• Pint-Sized Kid: If the height chart in "Smokin' with Cigarettes" is to be believed, Riley is only 3'4; that's about a foot shorter than you'd expect a real 8 year old to be.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Due to his desire to be a macho manly man and tough guy, Riley is very sexist and chauvinistic (he believes that all girls are hoes and sluts), homophobic ("gay" is his preferred insult for just about anything he dislikes), and even ableist (he has no qualms about calling mentally disabled people "retarded" to their faces).
• Raised by Grandparents: He and his brother are living with their grandfather Robert.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Huey's blue.
• Schemer: His schemes never go right, usually because they don’t make sense or are just plain dumb.
• Shaking the Rump: Does this in "The S-Word" where Huey lampshades he's doing the "Celebratory Booty Dance".
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: He will insult anyone and will not care for whatever the response is.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Oh so much, Riley is very obsessed with proving himself to be an awesome gangster.
• Spoiled Brat: What other kid plots to kill Santa Claus after not getting everything on his list? Only Riley!
• Take That!: He's a culmination of every negative stereotype about young African-American men, a misogynistic, homophobic, overly macho anti-intellectual who admires violent criminals, and every last aspect of him is made fun of and taken apart, as he is consistently portrayed as a bumbling buffoon and malevolent, reckless, oaf that is an object of ridicule and meant to be laughed at.
• This Loser Is You: Riley embraces every negative stereotype about black youth; he's an anti-intellectual and self-absorbed trouble-maker.
• Token Evil Teammate: Riley finds a criminal lifestyle to be very appealing. He's already assisted local crooks such as Ed, Rummy, Lamilton, etc.
• Too Dumb to Live: At times, such as "The Fundraiser" where he's too cocky and arrogant to realize that dangerous criminals are threatening his life and safety to stop his ways until he nearly dies.
• Took a Level in Badass: In Season 3, Riley performs badass feats, such as winning his first fight against Lamilton Taeshawn, who is a bigger kid. It is also notable that he is able to dominate Lando with wrestling moves, such as the moonsault and Boston crab. Keep in mind that Lando is a grown man. In Season 4, Riley is shown to be far more agile and spry such as doing impressive aerial flips.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Riley likes to associate with known criminals such as Ed Wuncler III and Gin Rummy, which Huey rightly chastises him for. Riley also starts to hang out with another juvenile delinquent named Lamilton Taeshawn, but he then regrets it later on.
  • And to a lesser extent, Riley's friendships with gangsta rappers such as Gangstalicious and Thugnificent's Lethal Interjection Crew. While they're all a bunch of dim-witted hedonists, they're also decent guys at heart.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Besides being very rude and foul-mouthed, he's also a willing accomplice to some of Ed III's and Gin Rummy's crimes.
• Ungrateful Bastard: He seldom ever shows gratitude for Huey or Robert doing anything good for him.
• The Unreveal: We never get to find out who his parents were.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Riley at least has shown that he has the ability and the potential to be as skilled as his brother or his grandfather with certain movements that show he is talented but proves to be far too undisciplined and prefers straight brawling over practicing any martial arts skills. However it should be mentioned that he isn't that strong to begin with as shown against his fight against Butch Magnus or Stinkmeaner possessing Tom that he is still a child without any muscle.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Due to being the biggest Jerkass of the main trio.
• Verbal Tic: He seems to have picked up a new one lately whenever he mentions something gay, no homo.
• Vocal Evolution: His voice gets deeper post season 1, although it’s still higher pitched than Huey’s voice.
• The Worf Effect: Even worse than Huey as he has no muscles, isn't trained, and his style is just straight up brawling. At the very least, he has some high stamina and can take a lot of punishment. But that just means he get tossed around like a ragdoll.
• Would Hit a Girl: Riley twice tested out a toy lightsaber by smashing it over Jazmine's and Cindy's heads, disappointed that it wasn't real.

Robert Freeman

Robert Jebediah "Granddad" Freeman

Voiced by: John Witherspoon (English, old), Aaron McGruder (English, young), Jorge Santos (Latin American Spanish), Yuzuru Fujimoto (Japanese)

The grandfather of Huey and Riley. He was a World War II fighter pilot and a Civil Rights Movement activist. He wants to live out his last days comfortably, but has to contend with his grandsons' antics, while his own pursuit of money and women get him into trouble.

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• Abusive Parents: Being an old-fashioned parental figure, Robert believes that beatings are a great way to discipline a bad child. He mostly beats up Riley who's much more of a troublemaker, and rarely Huey.
• Ace Pilot: He was a skilled fighter pilot in the Tuskegee Airmen, an all-black unit of the US Army Air Forces, and fought in the European theater of World War II.
• Actor Allusion: During "The Ballad of Thugnificent," Robert refers to his look-alike in the 'Eff Granddad' music video as "that nigga from Friday dressed as me." Robert himself is voiced by John Witherspoon, said "nigga from Friday."
• Adaptational Jerkass: Compared to his role in the comics, Robert tends to act a lot more self-centered in the show (though on those case he deserves it). He also hits Riley even more frequently. He gets even worse in later seasons of the show, to the point he literally sold himself and his grandchildren to be slaves under Ed Wuncler II to keep his house; and he tried to sell Huey's explosive compound as hair gel to pay off his debts to the Wunclers, despite Huey's complaints that the gel would be lethal for whoever used it.
• Aesop Amnesia: Much like Riley, Robert has trouble learning from his mistakes.
  • This is lampshaded (or perhaps exaggerated) by Granddad at the end of "It's Goin' Down":
  "Wow, Huey. You were totally right this time. Just imagine all the problems we could avoid if we just listened to you. Oh well."
  • This is again lampshaded at the beginning of "Good Times", when Huey remarks that his Granddad never learns any lessons. This is demonstrated not only by how Granddad's foolish decisions have bankrupted his family, but also how he repeatedly keeps falling for Ed Wuncler II's scams.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: For starters, Robert sometimes walks around the house with little to no clothes.
• Been There, Shaped History: Robert Freeman is known to have been a war veteran and participant in the Civil Rights Movement, though the exact details of his stories tend to vary.
  • In "Wingmen", it was established that he served as a Tuskegee Airman during World War II, a fact that is corroborated by how he attends the funeral of a fellow pilot. However, a throwaway line in "Breaking Granddad" implies that he fought in the Korean War as well.
  • Robert has claimed to have worked alongside Civil Rights figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Jesse Jackson, etc., though we mostly have just his word for those claims. In "Freedom Ride or Die", a documentary interview seems to confirm that he did join the Freedom Riders... albeit against his will.
• Berserk Button:
  • Riley's disobedience in general.
  • He doesn't take being told to butter his own popcorn very well.
  • Jimmy Rebel and his racist country music.
• Blatant Lies: "I'm gonna go find myself a white man and lie to 'im right now."
• Bumbling Dad: As Robert isn't very mature himself, he seems quite incompetent at raising his grandkids. Also see Manchild down below.
• Butt-Monkey: Usually due to whatever stupid mistakes he makes, he often brings down a lot of bad luck upon himself.
• Bystander Syndrome: Prone to this attitude, especially in the comics.
• Casanova Wannabe: Despite his old age and fat belly, Robert never stops chasing after younger women. Although his dates tend to go horribly wrong.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "Yeeeaaah, boy!"
  • "Oh, lordy lord!"
  • "Boy, where's my belt?!"
  • Not really a phrase, but Granddad has that little tune he sings constantly with the words being just about anything on his mind at the time.
    "New shoes, New shoo-oo-oo-oo-ooo-oes!"
    "Good food, Good foo-oo-oo-oo-ooo-ood!"
    "Soul Plane, Soul Pla-aa-aa-aa-aaa-ane!"
  • "Boy, watch your mouth!" Typically after Riley uses a swear word.
  • "Oh, hush boy."
  • "[Wait], what was the question?" For when he tries to offer advice but rambles onto something completely irrelevant.
  • "Nigga hush!"
  • "Why me?", which is sometimes followed with, "What did I do to deserve this?!"
• Chivalrous Pervert: Robert may be a Dirty Old Man, but he would not allow his prostitute girlfriend to be smacked by her pimp.
• Color Motif: Green, symbolizing his desire for peace in his final days, but also his lust for wealth and jealousy of others, usually prominent figures in the Civil Rights Movement or people who live the glamorous lifestyle he wants. It also alludes to his military service in World War II, as supported by the lyrics during his part of the opening.
  "and I will remain a soldier 'til the war is won"
• Confirmed Bachelor: Of the Casanova Wannabe variety. Even on the rare occasion when he finds himself in a relationship with a woman who seems into him, he shows no desire to marry. In the first episode of the animated series, he tells Ed Wuncler Sr. that he believes "all marriage is wrong", although he may have been joking or avoiding the question of his stance on gay marriage or both. However, he did confirm in Good Times that he planned on eventually finding an attractive financially desperate or sexually frustrated mother to settle down with.
  • Although there is passing reference about his (probably deceased) wife of many years.
• Consummate Liar: One interpretation of his tall tales is that he's a pathological liar.
• Cool Old Guy: More so in the comics.
• Cowardly Lion: Robert has a bit of a cowardly streak, but he can stand up for himself and others when the situation calls for it.
• Deadpan Snarker: Granddad often makes dismissive replies to whatever Huey or Riley are yapping on about.
• Deep South: He seems to have lived in this region in his early life. He got himself (in)voluntarily tangled in the political strife there during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
• Dirty Coward: This is at least implied when he has a nightmare about being chased by an army of Stinkmeaner clones. He abandoned and sacrificed all of his friends and family so he could save his own skin! Who knows if he would do the same in real life?
• Dirty Old Man: Constantly tries to meet much younger women, which usually never gets past the first date.
• Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Granddad often pulls off his belt to whip Riley whenever he's out of line.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Thugnifficent refers to him as "Old Nigga".
• Enlightened Self-Interest: The more that's learnt of Robert's involvement with the Civil Rights movement, the more apparent it becomes that he only participated because he was sick of bigotry impeding on his own rights rather than those of his fellow African-Americans.
• Fan Disservice: We frequently see him (semi-)naked.
• Freudian Trio: The Ego to Huey's Superego and Riley's Id. His more seen following Riley's crazy plans for self-gratification while being brought back to reason by Huey when things go too far.
• Got Volunteered: In "Freedom Ride or Die", an unwilling Robert Freeman was basically forced by Sturdy Harris to join the latter's risky and life-threatening crusade against segregation.
• Grumpy Old Man: Well, he can be rather impatient and short-tempered at times.
• He Who Fights Monsters: During Robert's conflict with Stinkmeaner's clone, he slowly turns into another copy of Stinkmeaner (figuratively speaking) by embracing the hatred. Huey only manages to turn Robert back to normal, just before he could kill Stinkmeaner again.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Robert has a bad habit of dating women with low morals or sanity. His girlfriends have included a Lazy Bum who's a gold-digging prostitute, several ugly women who pretended to be sexy online, a crazy and homicidal Dark Action Girl who nearly killed him, a Dominican drug boss who brought one of her armed henchmen to the dinner table, a crazy woman who kidnapped Riley because of his cuteness, a shady doctor who almost harvested his organs, a narcissistic reality TV star, etc.
  Huey: Your dating habits have been a serious threat to the safety of you, the people of this house...
  Riley: ...And really the entire neighborhood.
• Hypocritical Humor: A true master.
• Hypocrisy Nod: Especially in the comics - a common gag is for Huey to point out how he's acting foolish or hypocritical, only for Granddad to agree, but reply that since he's in his golden years he doesn't care.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: In the comics, where he simply desires to live his golden years in relaxation.
• I Just Want to Be Special: In the show, where he's big on appearances and often wants to live the high life.
• Improbable Weapon User: Robert also frequently uses his belt for self-defense during fights, using it not only as a whip, but also as a lasso to bind an enemy's limbs.
• Indentured Servitude: In Season 4, he signs a contract that forces him to work for Ed Wuncler Jr until he pays off the debt on the house.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Tom and Sarah. Eventually he also befriends Thugnificent.
• I Was Quite a Looker: As seen during some flashbacks to his youth, he was a handsome fella in his day.
• Jerkass: Robert usually places his own interests before everyone else, and is quick to avoid responsibility for whatever goes wrong.
• Jerkass Ball: In "Stinkmeaner: Begun the Clone War Has", after a new Nigga Moment begins between Robert and Stinkmeaner's clone, Robert starts copying Stinkmeaner's behavior and becomes a full-blown bastard. Fortunately, he snaps back to normal in the end.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He’s a cantankerous, shallow, lecherous old man, but he loves his grandsons, no matter how much of a pain in the ass they are.
• Kavorka Man: Despite being an old, grumpy, balding easily-annoyed spendthrift with a notable gut, he still manages to convince attractive young ladies to go on dates and sometimes sleep with him, even if the relationships end up failing soon.
• Large Ham: He's a master at overreacting to everything, whether it's justified or not.
• Manchild: Especially in the TV series. You know that something's wrong with the Freemans' family dynamic, when preteen Huey acts far more adult-like than his old man.
• Meaningful Name: His surname Freeman, which Ed Wuncler II acknowledges, albeit ironically when Robert loses his freedom to Wuncler.
• Mentor: Of a sort to Huey in the comics, where his characterization is that he is Older and Wiser, but because he's retired he really doesn't want to have to care. Huey occasionally comes to him for deep conversation, though it's never guaranteed that Granddad will want to get into the situation.
• Naked People Are Funny: At least when they're censored.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In "Stinkmeaner: Begun the Clone War Has", during the final fight against the Stinkmeaner clone, Robert decides to spare his life and make peace with him. The Stinkmeaner clone just reduces his harassment to just yelling at Robert from outside his house.
  Robert: This is what I get for doing the right thing? [...] I knew I should've killed your ass again!
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: He does not even have as much as a welt on him in his final battle with the clone of Stinkmeaner.
• Nutritional Nightmare: While his cooking is exceptionally delicious, it is also so absurdly unhealthy that anyone who eats it falls into a Food Coma immediately afterwards.
• N-Word Privileges: Lampshaded as far back as "The Garden Party", when Robert tells his boys that they shouldn't use the N-word, even though he says it all the time.
  Huey: Grandad, you said the word 'nigga' 46 times yesterday. I counted.
  Robert: Nigga hush.
• Pyrrhic Victory: He agrees to spare the life of Stinkmeaner's clone to finally gain peace of mind, only to have Stinkmeaner II pester him 24/7 outside of his house.
• Really 700 Years Old: Played with. In "It's a Black President, Huey Freeman," Werner Herzog estimates Robert's age as between 80 and 120, but adds that no one knows it for sure - not even Robert himself.
• Refusal of the Call: In Season 4, it is revealed that Robert was drawn into the Civil Rights Movement against his will after accidentally getting on a bus full of Freedom Riders whilst escaping from a bus station attendant for using (and messing up) a white men's restroom. He was actually attempting to escape the South and return to Chicago. Once he was on the bus, despite his vehement protests, the protest leader wouldn't let him off, insisting that his people needed him.
• Retired Badass: He was a Tuskegee Airman during World War II, and also a Civil Rights Movement activist (although his level of involvement in it is frequently questioned).
• Revolutionaries Who Don't Do Anything: Robert is shown to have been one during the Civil Rights Movement. While he (tried to) participate in a few protests, he didn't seem to contribute much to them; and in the case of the Freedom Rides, his involvement in that was totally accidental and involuntary.
• Riches to Rags: He was never super wealthy, but was implied to have enough savings and presumably a pension to live quite comfortably in the suburbs as well as constantly going on dates. In season 4, it turns out the Freemans are now bankrupt, and most of the episodes, so far, have involved Robert participating in a bunch of harebrained schemes in order to clear his debts.
• Scatterbrained Senior: Another interpretation of his tall tales is that he's suffering from the early stages of dementia. If true, it could also explain why he seems to grow dumber with every season.
• The Scrooge: We don't know exactly how much he's good for, but he's incredibly cheap nevertheless. This is perhaps best demonstrated when he fired the only babysitter capable of handling Huey and Riley just because she left the lights on in the kitchen and used the telephone for five minutes.
• Shipper on Deck: Granddad seems to ship Huey with Jazmine, and Riley with Cindy; either subconsciously (calling Jazmine Huey's "little friend", and dreaming of Jazmine instinctively hugging Huey when attacked by the swarm of Stinkmeaners), or intentionally (worrying that Riley might be gay, he invited Cindy to play with him).
• Skewed Priorities: This is a common joke with him. For example, when the Stinkmeaner-possessed Tom is choking him, Riley tries to save him by breaking several vases over his head; but Granddad is just upset that Riley broke the vases. And later during that same night, Granddad is more focused on his date with a woman, than figuring out what to do with Stinkmeaner-Tom (who's been chained to a bed upstairs).
• Small Name, Big Ego: He often claims himself to be a civil-rights legend, when actually people don't know who he is whenever he mentions it. Several flashbacks reveal that while he was present at several historic civil-rights events, he either blundered into them by complete accident, or, in the case of the Freedom Riders, was forced into it. He didn't willingly fight for civil rights at any point.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Most of the Season 4 episodes are focused around Granddad, with Huey only getting a few lines each episode.
• The Stoner: In "Mr. Medicinal", he starts using marijuana to relieve his stress. However he gets convicted twice for possession of it, leading to about a month or so of house arrest, and has to appear in an anti-drug PSA as community service, which all force him to stop smoking weed.
• Supreme Chef: He's an excellent cook, especially when it comes to soul food. Unfortunately, while delicious, his own recipes are so unhealthy that anyone who eats them falls asleep afterwards.
• Technologically Blind Elders:
  • In the comics, Robert was browsing the Internet and was easily tricked into getting a computer virus.
  • In the episode "I Dream of Siri", he visited an Apple Store and couldn't tell the difference between iPhones, iPads, and Mac laptops.
• Took a Level in Badass: In "Stinkmeaner: Begun the Clone War Has", Robert takes up some kickboxing training in order to defeat Stinkmeaner's clone in a rematch.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: While Robert seemed to have some common sense in the comics (except when it came to technology), in the show he's far more stupid and impulsive, a problem that seems to worsen with every season. Whenever there's anything involving money or women, he will jump into it without thinking of the consequences.
  • In the Season 4 episode "Good Times", Ed II keeps tricking Robert into increasing his own debt, until he makes Robert sell himself into indentured servitude.
• Too Much Information: Granddad does this to Huey and Riley a lot.
  Granddad: Boys, Lando will be living with us for a while, because supposedly it's the right thing to do. I hope you'll take this as a lesson that life can really suck sometimes, and that you should always wear a condom. I'm wearing a condom right now!
• Unreliable Narrator: It's unknown just how much of Robert's alleged involvement in the Civil Rights Movement (or most of his stories for that matter) actually happened. Werner Herzog theorized that Robert might be either a pathological liar, or in the early stages of dementia.
• The Unreveal: We never get to find out who his significant other or child was.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: He's a greedy womanizer and a frequent perpetrator of child abuse (though the main victim being as comically disrespectful a grandson as Riley helps 'balance' his terrible parenting and keep it in the zone of Black Comedy, similar to Homer's over-the-top strangling of Bart). His vices are often played for comedy.
• Vague Age: How old is Robert anyway? It's not helped by the apparent Comic-Book Time used by this franchise. If he's a WWII veteran, he would probably be in his 90s (as of the 2010s), although he still has prepubescent grandchildren. Werner Herzog also had trouble estimating his age, and so he guessed a wide range between 80-120.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Though Robert is Huey's grandfather, they otherwise fit the trope with how much more mature Huey is than his grandfather.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: With regard to parenting. Robert says this to a woman at a grocery store who was trying futilely to calm down her bratty son, before Robert loaned his belt to the woman so she could punish her son:
  Robert: You ever try beatin' his ass?
• Where da White Women At?: Although Robert is usually seen dating black women, he's not picky about skin color.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Even though Robert has no problems with hitting his grandsons, he finds it unacceptable to smack a grown woman. So Robert forbids Slickback from striking Cristal in the Freeman house.

Others

Uncle Ruckus

Uncle Ruckus (No Relation) ^note "Uncle Ruckus" is his actual birth name. He adds "No Relation" to distance himself from his hated father, Mister Ruckus.

Voiced by: Gary Anthony Williams (English), Rolando de Castro (Latin American Spanish), Hiroshi Iwasaki (Japanese)

An elderly black man who seems to work in every conceivable low-wage job. Despite his ethnicity and being perhaps the darkest-skinned character in the show, he is also a loud-mouthed white supremacist who sycophantically praises the white man every step of the way. He's incredibly petty and cruel and is the stereotypical "Uncle Tom" to an exaggerated degree.

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• Acrofatic: Despite Ruckus' obese physique, in "...Or Die Trying" he is shown to be capable of some impressive martial arts feats, including a jumping-kick attack.
  • Subverted in "A Huey Freeman Christmas" where he claims he is this, but when he actually has to chase Riley, he quickly runs out of breath and collapses.
• Adaptational Job Change: In The Boondocks reboot, Ruckus is no longer a blue-collar laborer with dozens of different jobs, but he's now an elected politician who is in charge of Woodcrest.
• Aesop Amnesia: Whenever Ruckus ponders that he could be less racist, he forgets all about it.
  • This is lampshaded in the ending of "The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show". Ruckus claims that learning he was black gave him a more sympathetic perspective on black people, but then he quickly demonstrates that he doesn't actually believe this (see Jerk with a Heart of Jerk below).
  • At the end of "The Color Ruckus", Ruckus states that he shouldn't hate black people anymore, but instead pity them for their "inferiority" to white people. But in Season 4, we see that Ruckus' opinions of black people are still unmistakably hateful.
• All for Nothing:
  • Uncle Ruckus once part of the Civil Rights moment during the Jim Crow Era; however, he was on the opposite side. He tried to stop black people from getting rights, but failed miserbly. One of them he tried to throw bricks at Dr. Martain Luther King Jr., but keeping missing.
  • All his life he believed he's a white man with a terrible skin diease that made him black. However, he's really a black man. His mother lied to him about white. Ruckus spent most his life making a complete ass out of himself for nothing. Sadly, Ruckus is too ignorant to accept the truth.
• Ambiguously Bi: Seems equally enamored with Ebony Brown and Jimmy Rebel.
• Arch-Enemy: To Huey Freeman, due to their differences. Taken up a notch after the events of the season 2 premiere after they fight in the cinema, causing Huey to become more antagonistic and snarky towards him. In the season 3 premiere, Herner Werzog outright refers to Ruckus as "[Huey's] arch-enemy."
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Being the type of man he is, his three favorite movies are The Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind... and, well, Notting Hill.
  • His three favorite white men? John Wayne, George H. W. Bush... and Barry Manilow^note (ironically enough, Manilow would eventually come out as gay in 2017; so just imagine how a homophobe like Ruckus would react to this revelation...).
• Ascended Extra: He originally appeared very late in the comic strip's run, and became a semi-recurring character. He plays an even greater role in the show, appearing in most episodes and starring in a few of them. Would have applied even more in the proposed Continuity Reboot, where he would've been promoted to the role of the Big Bad.
• Author Avatar: Seemingly Implied in the episode "It's a Black President, Huey Freeman" when Uncle Ruckus tells Huey, a known mouthpiece for Aaron McGruder's political and social views, that they are the only two people with "sense" (the context being their shared dislike of Barack Obama). However, Huey silently walked away without explicitly agreeing or disagreeing.
• Bald of Evil: He is partially bald.
• Been There, Shaped History:
  • In "Return of the King", Uncle Ruckus claimed to have tried (and failed) to throw bricks at Martin Luther King Jr., though this whole episode turned out to be All Just a Dream by Huey.
  • In "Freedom Ride or Die", Ruckus recalls how he participated in angry mob violence against the Freedom Riders. He's surprised to learn that Robert was among the Freedom Riders when they were attacked.
• Berserk Button: As a fanatical white nationalist, he is always ready to rant about his frustrations with colored people.
• Big Bad: In the proposed Continuity Reboot, Uncle Ruckus is promoted to the role of being the show's main antagonist, rather than merely being an annoyance or the henchman of other villains like the Wunclers.
• Big Eater: In the comics, there was even a joke about how he's a loyal McDonald's customer. But unfortunately while eating a Big Mac, he suffers a sudden heart attack (which he somehow survives though).
• Bigotry Exception: While he hates most black people, he loves his mother and brothers and is on good terms with them. Prior to Season 4, he would reluctantly ally with the Freemans and Tom DuBois.
• Black Republican: Ruckus is a very proud and loyal supporter of the Republican Party, and frequently expresses extremely ultra-conservative and far-right-wing opinions.
• Boomerang Bigot: The whole purpose of his character and quite possibly one of the most famous examples of this trope. Uncle Ruckus is always praising white people and detesting black people, despite ironically being the latter^note Hilariously he's also quite possibly the blackest character in a show as he is 102 percent African with only a 2 percent margin of error. However Ruckus often denies being black, so from his point of view he isn't the hypocrite that he really is.
• Breakout Villain:
  • Due to his rising popularity, he was supposed to have a live-action movie, but it got scrapped due to lack of funding on Kickstarter (many fans thought the movie was intended to replace Season 4).
  • He appeared on podcast, “The Breakfast Club” where he talks about his political views.
• Calling the Old Man Out: He does this to his father Mister Ruckus in the climax of "The Color Ruckus".
  No no, that's okay. Keep talking dad, keep talking. That's the eulogy this woman [Nelly] deserved. She did this to you, and now you're doing it to me. You've been doing this all our lives, and it's getting old, it's getting old... it's getting real old, old man! So get it all out of your system, then sit down AND SHUT THE FUCK UP!
• Changeling Fantasy: In "The Color Ruckus", we learn that Ruckus believes he's a white orphan with re-vitiligo, who was raised by a black family. It turns out that his black family is his real family, and his mother lied and made up this story to make him feel special. Even after his father broke the news though, Ruckus continued to be in denial about it.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "I'm Uncle Ruckus, no relation."
  • "I've got re-vitiligo (it's the opposite of what Michael Jackson's got)."
• Characterization Marches On: Season 1 actually has moments where he seems completely aware that he's black. Referring to whites as "they" and blacks as "we" is a subtle example. Other lines in this vein include "I was happy at the back of the bus" and "I would have shoot you myself but I realized the white man got better aim." Not to mention the episode "The Passion of Reverend Ruckus".
• Cool Old Guy:
  • In "...Or Die Trying", Ruckus is shown matching Huey in martial arts skills, which would arguably make him one of the most skilled fighters in the show.
  • Later in "It's Goin' Down", he fights with Dan the Security Man, subduing him with a suplex throw and several kicks to the balls.
• Corrupt Politician: In the new rebooted comics and show, Uncle Ruckus has been elected as the county executive of Woodcrest County.
• Damned By a Fool's Praise: He's a big fan of Barry Manilow.
• Deadpan Snarker: Towards other black people. Averted when he's speaking to white people, he's amazingly polite to them.
• Deep South: Uncle Ruckus seems to hail from this region, as he speaks with a very thick Southern US accent. He's old enough to remember Jim Crow segregation, which is obviously something he fondly reminisces about a lot.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • In some episodes, Ruckus is a self-hating black man, and in others, he's under the delusion that he is actually a white man. Ruckus would later accept the latter belief.
  • Sometimes he's a brilliant martial artist, other times he's comically unathletic.
• The Dragon: Ruckus has shown to be a very loyal servant/henchman to Ed Wuncler I, and later to Ed Wuncler II as well.
• Easily Forgiven: Uncle Ruckus believed his white parents abondoned him due to having a skin condition that made him black. Uncle hopes that one day his white parents will one day come and take him back and be reunited; however, his white parents aren't real due to his mother (who is his real mother) lying to him about being adopted. Also, Uncle is willing to forgive white people whenever they abused him, insult him, assulted him, and say anything racist towards him and don't blame them due to his own ignorance.
• Enemy Mine: Twice in Season 3, Ruckus has found himself teaming up with Huey of all people:
  • In "It's a Black President, Huey Freeman", Huey's apathy and Ruckus' hatred for Barack Obama provokes an angry reaction from a crowd of Obama supporters. As they no longer feel like they belong in America, the two decide to drive up north to Canada together, but this plan is aborted when Ruckus is arrested by the Secret Service.
  • In "It's Goin' Down", after a confused counter-terrorism operation gone wrong (Jack Flowers mistakenly believed that Huey and Ruckus were terrorists), Jack convinces Huey and Ruckus to help him out by evacuating Dan Stuckey from the Wuncler Tower before a bomb destroys it.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's on very good terms with his mother and brothers; it's just his father and grandmother he hates (with good reason).
• Even Evil Has Standards: In "The New Black", despite his racism and homophobia, he considers mocking or abusing the disabled to be inexcusable (notably, this includes disabled people who aren't white).
• Evil Is Petty: Of course, being the racist bigot that he is, he tries to infringe on the rights of black people as many times as possible, even if it is on the smallest, pettiest levels imaginable.
• Evil Old Folks: An old, bigoted jerkass. Though his father and grandmother are even older and worse than he is.
• Fat Bastard: He is just as obese as he is hateful. Fittingly, he borrows the leitmotif (a slow song performed on a tuba) of Jabba the Hutt, an even fatter bastard.
• Fat Idiot: Given his entire "loud-mouthed bigot" personality and horrible judge of character, he's also one of the most ignorant and uneducated characters in the show.
• Foil: To Tom DuBois. As evidenced by their names, they're both a reference to the Uncle Tom stereotype. Tom is a stereotypical sellout that makes money off of throwing other black people in prison as a prosecutor. While he is polite, friendly, and far from a bad person, Tom is part of the same system Huey condemns. In direct contrast to this, Ruckus lives in a shack, works dozens of jobs, and openly hates black people with a passion.
• Freudian Excuse: He was raised by an extremely Abusive Dad who always proclaimed his hatred of white people, whose physical abuse of young Ruckus resulted in his lazy eye, and whom threw him out of the house when he was just a child; as well as having a loving yet delusional mom who idolized Caucasians (and lied that Ruckus was born white). This helped warp Ruckus' mind into the self-hating oaf we know, love, and hate.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Sometimes he's this with Robert and Tom. Despite his racist views and the verbal abuse they keep slinging at each other because of it, the three sure seem to hang out a lot.
  • For some reason, Ruckus tolerates Robert and plays checkers with him at the park, although Ruckus shows open disdain for Robert's grandsons (by refusing them entry into the school bus).
  • Not surprisingly, Ruckus respects Tom for being an "Oreo" and sharing the same preference for white women.
  • Although in "Mr. Medicinal", Robert and Tom both admit to not really liking Ruckus while they were drunk.
  • And sometimes Ruckus' racism overrides his friendship, as seen when he was bossing around Robert and Tom in "Freedomland".
• Friend to All Children: Subverted for laughs. Ruckus apparently adores all white children, such as the white kids who ride his school bus (even though they're very rude to him). Ruckus also has a bit of a soft spot for Jazmine because she is partly white (see Pet the Dog; though this doesn't stop him from rudely calling her a "little half-n-half" in another episode). On the other hand, Ruckus openly disdains children who are black or otherwise non-white, such as Huey and Riley (see Would Hurt a Child).
• Go Mad from the Revelation: In "The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show", he goes through a DNA test. Ruckus reads the results and finds out that he's 102% African (with a 2% margin of error), much to his shock and horror. After Ruckus' unsuccessful suicide attempt, the show's producer (Wedgie Rudlin) forces the geneticist into redoing the DNA test, so that Ruckus is "actually" 50% Caucasian and he snaps back to normal.
• Gonk: He's old, obese, balding, and has a bulging eye and crooked teeth. The last two are a product of what his father did to him before throwing him out of the house.
• Green-Eyed Monster: In the first episode, he is openly bitter that Ed Wuncler I invited the newly arrived Freemans to his garden party while he's not even allowed enter through the front door of the mansion after 20 years of service.
• Heel Realization: At the end of "The Color Ruckus", he comes to the realization that, now that his abusive father is deceased, his hatred for black people actually stemmed from his hatred of him only. He still believes that colored folks are inferior to the white man though (due to his mother's brainwashing), but he says that he will stop hating them and instead sympathize with them. Though his personality quickly reverts back to his usual hateful bigotry in subsequent episodes, as if all of this didn't happen.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": In "The Color Ruckus", When they flashback to his childhood, his mother actually calls him Uncle, so "Uncle Ruckus" is actually his full name. In fact he's named after his father's uncle. Yes, both the Uncle and the Ruckus part.
• Horrible Judge of Character: His blind hatred of blacks and blind love of whites. Not to mention his mother, who he loves despite being the other big reason he's such a self-hating mess today. On a more personal note, his attitude around the Wuncler family.
• Hypocritical Humor: Due to the whole absurdity of being a black white-supremacist, it's hard not to enjoy when he's onscreen.
  • Best exemplified during "The Lovely Ebony Brown" episode. Ruckus at first goes on a racist rant about how much he hates black women. Then he meets Ebony Brown, and suddenly falls in love with her.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Despite being one of the most major and recognisable characters in the series, in the original comic he didn't appear until the strip had been running for over 5 years.
• I Know Karate: "You think you're the only one to master the ancient and deadly art of the Nunchaku?"
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: His whole life is centered around bullying and belittling people of color and talking up how great white people are. However, despite his claims of being a white man with re-vitiligo, he always treats white people as separate and superior to himself and occasionally lets slip that he knows he's really black.
• I Reject Your Reality: He will occasionally outright deny being black. Some occasions he deep down knows he's black, but chose to deny the truth.
• Irony: Openly white supremacist despite having probably the darkest skin tone of any recurring character on the show.
• Jerkass: Most of the time. He often takes any opportunity to degrade other people of color.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While he's an asshole, he's absolutely right when he tells his father that the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother and some racist white men doesn't give him license to be such a hateful, abusive prick.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: At times, such as "A Huey Freeman Christmas" and "The Color Ruckus", show that he does have a more decent side. Also see Pet the Dog.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: He has a moment like this at the end of "The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show", as he claimed that learning he was black gave him a more sympathetic perspective on Negroes... and then he allowed Huey and Riley to almost get killed by passing traffic for his own amusement.
• Lack of Empathy: Ruckus just doesn't give a damn about problems affecting most of the non-white people around him, with a few rare exceptions.
• Large Ham: He is very loud and vocal about his views.
• Laughably Evil: He’s hateful, but it’s hard not to laugh when he’s onscreen.
• Leitmotif: An excerpt from Jabba the Hutt's theme plays most of the time he's on-screen from Season 2 onward.
• Lower-Class Lout: Ruckus takes more pride in the quantity than quality of his jobs.
• Mad Eye: Interestingly enough, this is the only one with color. It's a product of all the times his horrible father hit him.
• Meaningful Name: Uncle Ruckus is a combination of Uncle Tom, Uncle Remus, and Amos Rucker (allegedly a slave soldier who fought for the Confederacy), thus creating a black man most enthusiastically subservient to white people.
• New Job as the Plot Demands: Uncle Ruckus is always seen with a different job in every appearance, usually as some kind of low-wage laborer or servant. He has apparently held about 30-47 different jobs simultaneously, working many different shifts throughout the week (how he ever has any free time is unexplained).
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Occasionally, Uncle Ruckus proves to be more than just a hateful oaf:
  • During the Jim Crow era, Ruckus supported racist violence. He claimed to have served on a white jury that convicted a blind black man of 3 shooting murders (although this is unlikely to be true, as segregation should've kept any black man off jury duty). A later flashback does seem to confirm that he once incited an angry mob to attack the Freedom Riders though.
  • Ruckus has mastered using nunchucks, and he even beats Huey Freeman in a fight. Though oddly enough, he is never seen showing any similar fighting prowess afterwards.
  • While working as a crossing guard in "The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show", he lets Huey and Riley walk across the street and immediately lets a truck drive by at the same time which nearly runs over the boys.
  • He later becomes Ed Wuncler II's right-hand man, and he takes his harassment of the Freemans to whole new levels, especially when he acts as their overseer in Freedomland.
• N-Word Privileges: No one takes offense to his song "Don't Trust Them New Niggas Over There" in "The Garden Party", or anything else he says because he has these.
  White party guest: I think the "N-Word" is okay if they say it.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In "A Huey Freeman Christmas", Uncle Ruckus restores Jazmine's belief in Christmas and Santa Claus after Riley destroys it. Although it should be noted that Ruckus only likes Jazmine for being half-white.
  • In "The Color Ruckus", he shows genuine love for his mother and younger brothers, even though they are black.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: If you didn't already know, Ruckus is very racist against pretty much anyone who isn't of non-Hispanic white European descent; Africans, Chinese, Mexicans, Arabs, etc.
  • However he doesn't seem to have much ill-will towards multiracial people who are part white, such as Jazmine; Ruckus himself seems to be satisfied if someone else lied that he's 50% Caucasian. He is also one of the few people who doesn’t disrespect Tom because he is married to a white woman (and in fact, it seems to be the reason why Ruckus likes Tom in the first place).
  • And as seen in "The New Black" he's also homophobic, remarking that he doesn't even like or respect gay white people. Despite this, he draws the line at disabled folks (including non-white disabled people).
• Sinister Minister: One of his many jobs is as a man of the cloth. He's no nicer in these episodes than in any other.
  • In "The Passion of Reverend Ruckus", he starts his own racist sect of Christianity, promising anyone who converts to his ideology of white supremacy (even if they're non-white like him) that they can find salvation in "White Heaven", an afterlife ruled by Ronald Reagan.
  • Later in "Stinkmeaner Strikes Back", we see him as an exorcist who specializes in dealing with evil black spirits such as Stinkmeaner (though he didn't actually know what he was doing).
  • Later in "I Dream of Siri", he again serves as a priest during Robert's aborted wedding to Siri.
• Sitcom Archnemesis: Ruckus is usually just an annoying jerk and idiot. But see Not-So-Harmless Villain above.
• Straw Character:
  • Uncle Ruckus is a satirical spoof of white supremacists and extremist Tea Party members.
  • He's also a spoof on your typical sellout, in the opposite direction to Tom DuBois.
• Strong as They Need to Be: His martial arts abilities come and go depending on what would be funnier. He can trade blows with Huey in one episode, and then get blindsided and beaten by the much weaker Riley the next.
• Tragic Bigot: Uncle Ruckus' hatred of his own race comes from his hatred of his abusive, racist father and grandmother, along with brainwashing by his delusional mother.
• Transnature: Probably the best way to describe Ruckus, who rejects his black ancestry and self-identifies as a white person, is "transracial". He even literally dreams of going to Heaven and turning into a white man.
• Uncle Tomfoolery: Whenever he's in the presence of a white person, he immediately becomes fawning and servile towards them and accepts any type of abuse with a grin. He's also proud to be working dozens of demeaning dead-end jobs at the same time, seemingly for free or below minimum wage, while living in a decrepit shack similar to a slave cabin.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: As a little boy, Ruckus was quite innocent, and he even once dreamed of becoming a doctor. But it's too bad that he had a really horrible childhood.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • In "The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show" after he takes a DNA test which reveals that he is 102% African with a 2% margin of error.
  • He breaks down in tears when President Obama is being inaugurated.
• Villainous BSoD: He has a long drawn-out one after his DNA test result reveals that he is 102% black (with a 2% margin of error). Ruckus becomes depressed, and tries to live as a stereotypical "black man". He doesn’t like it and eventually attempts suicide right when the producer of his show interferes. Then he receives a faked test result claiming he is 50% white and becomes enthusiastic about it and goes back to normal.
• Villain Protagonist: Of "The Passion of Reverend Ruckus", "The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show", "The Story of Jimmy Rebel", and "The Color Ruckus". He was also set to star in his own live-action movie had it secured sufficient funding and entered production.
• Where da White Women At?: Obviously, Ruckus doesn't like black women (well, except for Ebony Brown), and views whiteness as ideal beauty. He considers Tom to be a lucky man for marrying Sarah. Though given the fact that Ruckus is both horribly cruel and ridiculously ugly, we've never actually seen him in a relationship with any woman, white or otherwise.
• The Whitest Black Guy: Invoked and lampshaded. When Ruckus is about to take a DNA Test, he tells the doctor that he is very white because, for example, "[his] favorite movies are The Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, and Notting Hill". But this is due to the fact that Ruckus really believes that he is white, so he wanted to "clarify" things up to the doctor before taking the test.
• Would Hurt a Child: He has no problem with putting non-white children in harms' way, such as the Freeman brothers.
  • In "...Or Die Trying", Ruckus states that he's been "waiting a long time to do this" before he fights Huey in a martial arts duel.
  • In "The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show", Ruckus (while working as a crossing guard) intentionally misdirects Huey and Riley into oncoming traffic, almost getting them run over by passing vehicles just for his own sick amusement. Even though he failed to killed them, he still laughs his ass off.
  • In "A Date with the Booty Warrior", Ruckus pleads with a gang of prison convicts to not hurt any of the white boys they took hostage, while adding that he doesn't care if they do anything to Huey or Riley.
• You Are What You Hate: Sometimes, he's under the delusion that he's a white man who just looks black due to having a disease called "re-vitiligo". Other times, he's well aware that he's black but hates black people anyway.
• Younger Than They Look: Uncle Ruckus is only about 60 years old, give or take a few years, but looks and acts just as old as (if not even older than) Robert, who's 84.

Tom DuBois

Thomas "Tom" Lancaster DuBois

Voiced by: Cedric Yarbrough (English), Gerardo Garcia (Latin American Spanish), Kunihiko Yasui (Japanese)

A black man who "acts white" as much as possible: He's an Ivy League-educated attorney, married to a white woman, and has no "ebonic" accent. A genuinely Nice Guy, but also a big pushover.

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• Apologizes a Lot: Something which causes Sarah to explode on him in "Pretty Boy Flizzy".
• Berserk Button:
  • In the comics, Ralph Nader is this, as Tom disagrees with his Green Party platform, and blames him for George W. Bush's victory in the 2000 election. It got so bad that he temporarily split from Sarah over her vote for him, and later he even kidnapped Nader during the 2004 election.
  • In the show, Tom reacts poorly to anyone who wants to rape him, tries to steal his wife from him, or acts inappropriately in front of his daughter.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Tom is usually a mild and non-confrontational guy but even he has limits as Usher and Sarah have found out.
• Big "OMG!": Inverted; he follows up his (or rather Stinkmeaner's) courtroom outburst with a tiny, horrified "ohmygod..."
• Black and Nerdy: Besides being an awkward and milquetoast lawyer, Tom once mentioned that he likes Star Trek in the comics.
• Bourgeois Bohemian: Of the "left-leaning but still distinctly The Establishment" variety.
• Butt-Monkey: He's a very polite and sweet-natured gentleman, but his neurotic, whiny, and weak-willed personality usually causes almost everyone around him to never give him any respect.
• Category Traitor: R. Kelly's defense attorney (who is white) uses the fact that Tom is married to a white woman to make the all black jury even more hostile towards Tom.
• Celebrity Resemblance: Tom DuBois is noted to look a lot like Barack Obama, except the latter is more wealthy, powerful, and attractive. It would explain why Sarah voted for him.
• Character Development: Tom starts branching out from a prosecutor who just does his job, to a public defender that takes cases based on innocence of the client, regardless of the money he's offered. He's also become less of a doormat, as he is more prone to swearing when he's angry, and calls people out when he feels disrespected.
• Cluster F-Bomb: When his junior basketball team lost in a big match when it looked like they would finally win, he went on a long cluster shit bomb.
• The Comically Serious: Tom's naturally neurotic nature and straight-laced attitude is often very amusing (and pitiful) to watch.
• Cowardly Lion:
  • In "A Date With The Booty Warrior". Tom was still cowardly for much of the episode, but he was able to overcome his fears about rape, and defeat the Booty Warrior.
  • By the end of "Pretty Boy Flizzy", he seems to have grown more of a spine, and resolved most of his marital hang-ups with Sarah.
• Extreme Doormat: The guy has practically NO backbone! He gets very little respect from his friends (and at times, even his wife).
• Freudian Excuse: The source of his PTSD-level phobia of prison rape comes from merely watching a movie about it as a kid, rather than actually experiencing it.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: To a lesser extent than Ruckus, but his straight-laced and pitifully meek demeanor has occasionally made the Freemans reluctant to deal with him.
• Foil: To Ruckus. Unlike Ruckus, Tom is actually a legitimately nice, non-bigoted man that lives in a mostly white neighborhood, with a privileged job and loving family. However, Tom, true to his name, is a stereotypical sellout, not because of his job or his status, but his attitude. He's a spineless wimp who would gleefully sell out other people to avoid going to prison and getting anally raped. He's part of the system that Huey hates so much, The Whitest Black Guy in the room. That said, Tom learns from his past mistakes, and eventually by Season 3 he starts to grow a backbone. Ruckus actively refuses to learn from his own misfortunes and continues to live in his self-inflicted misery.
• Good Parents: Aside from being a bit too insecure and sheltering Jazmine a bit too much, Tom still tries to do a better job at raising his daughter than Robert does with his grandsons.
• Henpecked Husband: He feels very insecure around his wife, who in turn feels frustrated by his submissive behavior.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Whenever he's forced to confront his fear of prison. A manly crier he is not.
• Insistent Terminology: He's not just afraid of getting raped, he's afraid of getting anally raped. And he will add that qualifier every single time.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Robert and Huey. And sometimes with Ruckus.
• Ivy League for Everyone: It's mentioned that Tom once attended an Ivy League university (either Harvard in the comics, or Princeton in the show), where he played on the men's basketball team, and of course graduated with a law degree.
  • Interestingly, though, Princeton doesn't have a law school, so it makes more sense if he attended Harvard.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Sarah and Tom respectively. While Sarah isn't a tomboy by any means, she would at least seem so in comparison to her very effeminate husband. She's frustrated that he isn't the dominant spouse. Also taken up a notch when concept art for a video game in development shows Sarah angrily armed with a crossbow as while Tom is cowering with a wooden shield and lacrosse stick (although to be fair, Sarah is carrying Jazmine at the time).
• Meaningful Name: Tom as in Uncle Tom, due to his status as The Whitest Black Guy. He may also be named after the prominent civil rights leader W.E.B. DuBois, who was also an upper-class black man with an Ivy League education.
• Nervous Wreck: Tom can be a very mild-mannered gentleman but he can also be a skittish and uptight weakling that often cries and panics very easily, especially when it comes to marital problems or his phobia of rape.
• Nice Guy:
  • He's usually a pleasant neighbor and family man due to his gentle and sensitive nature.
  • The most shining example of this is in the episode "Stinkmeaner Strikes Back", where he becomes genuinely concerned for a man who yelled at and insulted him over a parking spot after he dropkicked him in the chest when Stinkmeaner possessed him, and yells for somebody to help the man that he dropkicked.
• N-Word Privileges: Averted, as he and his daughter are the only members of the black cast who don't say "nigga". The one time he tries he stumbles and says "Nincompoop" instead.
  • But of course Stinkmeaner has no problem with the word, so while controlling Tom's body, he embarrasses him by making him drop some N-bombs out loud in a courtroom.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: He is rarely referred to by his full name "Thomas".
• Only Sane Man: Besides his extreme phobia of rape and spinelessness, Tom is relatively more cautious and rational than a lot of other men in the show. Especially compared to guys like Robert or Ruckus.
• Prison Rape: He has an obsessive and paranoid phobia of going to jail and getting anally raped. The result is that he tries to avoid committing any kind of crime no matter what. The cost is that his wife is too sexually frustrated as a result.
• Properly Paranoid: In "A Date With The Booty Warrior", the moment he decides to visit prison, he really is being stalked by a deranged rapist! Fortunately, Tom manages to literally save his own ass from the Booty Warrior during a fight.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Tom is the straight-edge somewhat idealistic Blue to Robert and Huey's cynical and pragmatic Red.
• The Smart Guy: Butt-Monkey antics aside, Tom is one of the saner and smarter members of the cast. When Granddad goes to fight Stinkmeaner the first time, he and Huey made legal arrangements in case Grandad killed him, which he did.
• Straw Character: He and his wife are stereotypical clueless moderate liberals, to the disdain of the radical leftist Huey. Although they almost split in one comic arc, because he voted for Al Gore instead of Ralph Nader like Sarah did.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: While he's a Nice Guy, over the course of the series, he does grow more irritable due to all the shit that happens to him.
• Where da White Women At?: In the comics, he is stated to have only dated white women, eventually marrying Sarah. While talking to her about his preference in women, he even quotes the famous line word-for-word from Blazing Saddles.
• The Whitest Black Guy: Sometimes Huey forgets to count Tom as a black man.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Which puts Tom at odds with both A Pimp Named Slickback and Pretty Boy Flizzy. He wouldn't even strike back at one of Slickback's hookers in self-defense.

Michael Caesar

Michael Caesar

Huey's best friend in the comic strip, but is glaringly absent from the animated series. He's a smart-mouthed black kid from Brooklyn, New York City who chats with Huey about everything from politics to pop culture (mostly the latter, as they have a shared hatred of bad black media).

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• Adapted Out: Despite being one of the main characters in the comic strip and having a wallpaper of him on the Go Comics website (which is also a design of what he would have looked like in the show), Caesar has never appeared in the TV show for some strange reason. Word of God is that they couldn't find the right voice actor for him.
• Berserk Button: Caesar usually weathers the world with cool compassion and occasional sarcasm, but there are some moments where he loses that cool. He doesn't have much patience for Huey's cynicism turning completely fatalistic, and he also tends to get more biting when Huey gets judgmental to the point of being nasty or hypocritical about his own faults. But most of all, issues involving his Celebrity Crushes can get... explosive.
• Best Friend: To Huey in the comics, as well as one of his only friends.
• Black and Nerdy: Caesar has just as much casual nerdy knowledge as Huey.
• Celebrity Crush: Claimed Jennifer Lopez was the female ideal of unobtainable beauty and then dumped her off the list because of the movie Enough.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "BROOKLYN!"
  • "Your Mom"
• Class Clown: He blurts out random jokes to annoy Mr. Petto.
• The Confidant: One of the people who will actually listen and care about what Huey has to say, lending an ear to his many conspiracy theories and potentially unpopular opinions, even if he'd rather be doing something less weighty.
• The Conscience: He serves this function particularly when Huey's thoughts or actions threaten to cross a line in some way, reminding him that life doesn't have to be so black and white.
  • A more straight-forward example of Caesar playing the part was when Huey tried to write a civil, courteous letter to President G. W. Bush. Whenever he'd type something cynical or rude, Caesar'd steer Huey back in the 'right' direction.
    (Huey begins typing the header to his letter)
    Huey: DEAR ILLEGAL AMERICAN REGIME—
    Caesar: Start over.
• Deadpan Snarker: Mostly to Huey. One of the few people who can out snark him.
• Dreadlock Rasta: Caesar falls into the laid-back, anti-authoritarian group of dreadlock wearers, contrasting his best friend's ultra-serious, militant attitude and afro.
• Foil: Was introduced as a character with Huey's views and wisdom who was much more laid back about it. This quickly put him into the Only Sane Man slot.
• Fish out of Water: Same as the Freeman kids, though he gets used to it a lot faster than either of them do.
• The Gadfly / Troll: Though he's usually more generally sarcastic, he sometimes clearly says or does certain things just to get a rise out of Huey - sometimes to make a point, sometimes for fun, and it isn't always clear which.
• Honest Advisor: Caesar often makes a point of noting when Huey is being hypocritical, is the only one really capable of outright telling Huey when he's being an idiot, and generally offers pointed and sensible alternatives to Huey's more extreme ideas. He's also the only person in the series whose advice Huey always takes when given, at least when its not wrapped up in trolling.
• The Idealist: He's an optimist and tries to make Huey see the bright side of things.
• The Lancer: Caesar functions as Huey's right-hand-man on many an activity, such as being a co-founder to their newspaper. At the same time, he generally challenges the kid's serious nature with a much warmer personality.
• Last-Name Basis: His first name, Michael, is referenced less than a handful of times in the comic strips.
• Meaningful Name: MC.
• Meta Guy: He has a habit of vaguely referencing his and Huey's positions as characters, the comic's creator, or the strip itself in meta fashion.
  Caesar: Can you believe it's been four years since the last election?
  Huey: Yeah.
  Caesar: Funny. Seems like we haven't aged a day...
• Morality Pet: Huey can only control his anger and hatefulness through the one who is Caesar.
• Nice Guy: He's much more pleasant than Huey anyways.
• Obligatory Joke: Often, much to Huey's annoyance. Especially since his jokes can come out of nowhere with little-to-no prompt.
• Only Sane Man: Caesar shares many similar opinions to Huey, but he is far less arrogant and militant about them.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Played with, but is overall the Blue to Huey's Red. Caesar is more energetic and outgoing than Huey is but he's much calmer and closer to earth. Meanwhile, Huey is an overly dramatic Conspiracy Theorist prone to irrational anger.
• So Unfunny, It's Funny: Most of his jokes fall into this category.
• Straight Man: To Huey whenever his cynical comments go a bit too far.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Caesar is often the Wise Guy to Huey's Straight Man. While they share many of the same views, Caesar tends to approach them with critical mockery or sarcasm while Huey is usually more serious-minded (sometimes The Comically Serious) and cynical. Caesar tends to provide most of the humor between the duo, much to Huey's annoyance and/or confusion at times.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Occasionally, Caesar or Jazmine will call Huey out on his Protagonist-Centered Morality.
• Where da White Women At?: Oh Caesar.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: He is categorized this to an extent. His awareness of the absurdities of society matches Huey's, but he still has a childish persona.
• You Need to Get Laid: To Condeleeza Rice of all people.
• Your Mom: Caesar thinks he's perfected these into an art form, much to Huey's continued annoyance. For fun, he tends to spring them in the middle of otherwise normal conversations.
  Caesar: Well Huey, congratulations on making it to another year on planet Earth!
  Huey: Thank you, Caesar. Same to you.
  Caesar: Oh, and before I forget, congratulations to your mom — I heard she got that part as the stunt monkey in the Planet of the Apes sequel.
  Huey: Goodbye, Caesar. (Slams the door in his face.)
  Caesar: (Shouting through the door) I heard she ain't gonna wear a costume or nuthin'!

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