Despite the kickball reference in the episode description, I had a feeling this episode wasn’t just about kickball. Sure enough, kickball becomes a conduit for social commentary in the The Red Ball.
Ed Wuncler bets the entire city (literally) on the outcome of a kickball game with a Chinese team. When the Blackwater crew he hired abandons the contest to tackle a military mission in a Afghanistan, Wuncler scrambles to assemble a new team. He forcefully bestows team captaincy on retired kickball vet Huey Freeman. Wuncler tells Huey to deliver or risk seeing a photoshopped picture of Huey wearing Kanye West shuttershades, nuthugger jeans and Louis Vuitton driving shoes on MediaTakeout.
They eventually play an epic game of kickball, replete with energy blasts and all. A game of kickball suddenly turns into an episode of Dragon Ball Z meets Street Fighter.
Ed Wuncler Sr. (voiced by the charismatic Ed Asner) is clearly the star of this episode. When he hands each member of his team a pair of Air Max 97s, he says: “These sneakers were made by the youngest Chinese sweatshop workers we could find.”
Wuncler delivers a T-shirt-worthy remark when things go awry in the game: “We’re American. We don’t quit because we’re wrong. We just keep doing the wrong thing until it turns out right.”
Animation-wise, this is the best episode of the season thus far.
Pingback: Boondocks Episode 33: The Red Ball | The Rap Up | Cyber Scraps
Pingback: Boondocks Season 3 Episode 7 - The Fun-Raiser | The Rap Up
Pingback: The Boondocks Season 3 Synopsis | The Rap Up