All That Ruckus - Interview with Gary Anthony Williams

Let’s take it back to the year 2008. The Dark Knight was dominating cinemas worldwide. Netflix was just a DVD rental website. PlayStation 2s were in our living rooms and iPods were in our pockets. The club was hot. The economy was below the toilet.

Good thing The Boondocks was on our TVs to help us forget! This was the year I first watched the series with childhood friend Sebastian. Both ten at the time, we stayed up later than we should to watch cartoons we shouldn’t.

Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks follows Black elementary school-aged brothers Huey and Riley Freeman, who move in with their “Granddad” Robert from inner-city Chicago, and are forced to adjust to life in white suburban Woodcrest. Based on his comic strip of the same name, the animated series ran on Adult Swim from 2005-2010. It was revived for a fourth season in 2014, though without McGruder.

Being some of the few Black people in their town, they are joined (often without warning) by local Black white supremacist Uncle Ruckus, no relation, voiced by today’s interviewee, Gary Anthony Williams. 

Uncle Ruckus’ barging entrances in episodes are accompanied by an oboe backing piece, the sound of which evokes a wafting fart that stinks up the Freemans’ peace while he’s around. Ruckus working a different job every episode means that the Freemans frequently deal with his nonsense unexpectedly.

The character of Uncle Ruckus is a satire of the Uncle Tom, as he blames all other Black people for their societal oppression and believes white people to be superior. He claims to be white himself, but suffers from re-vitaligo, as he says, “the opposite of what Michael Jackson’s got.”

While Ruckus is crude and ignorant, his voice actor couldn’t be further from! Gary Anthony Williams was incredibly warm, sweet, and generous upon our meeting in New York Comic Con this year. During our interview he stayed in character as Ruckus, leading to some hilarious moments!

When asked how he feels about people my age who watched as kids and are only now appropriate age to watch, he said this:

“Well I am very happy that the white kids have watched it, so it’s educational for them. I am not happy that the Black kids watched it! They shoulda been in bed somewhere! Now the white kids, the white kids get to do whatever the hell they want to. They call it ‘white privilege,’ I just call it, it is their right.”

I buried my face in my jacket sleeve.

He continued, “But I am very happy that the white kids did enjoy this show and they Uncle Ruckus, no relation.”

I relayed to him the brief tale about my first viewing, asking if he had any specific memories of Season 1, Episode 14, “The Block is Hot,” the first episode I had watched. His response gave some great insight into the show’s production, painting a picture of what it was like to be there.

“First of all, all the episodes was the same to me in this way right here. We all got in the studio together, talking together, acting together, just improving together. So that’s what made us all the differences. Whether it was the lemonade, or the kickball, or me and Robert playing chess in the park, I knew we were all there together, working together, and just going back and forth. Sometimes with a script, sometimes without a script at all.”

The show’s dialogue has a very natural flow and feel to it, which could be attributed to the improv aspect Williams mentioned. I had to ask: How much of Ruckus’ dialogue was improv versus scripted?

“The whole show was definitely scripted out. But then Aaron McGruder, that smart l’il negroe, who created the show, Aaron McGruder would always just let us go off. Like in the chess episode with Robert [Freeman], we would do one [take] that was written out like it was, and he’d say, ‘just do whatever the hell y’all want to.’ But that’s mostly ‘cause negroes can’t write anyway, so he had to trust a good white man like myself to do the work.”

It was as if Williams was writing Ruckus’ dialogue on the spot! Some of the show’s most iconic scenes, such as that of Season 1, Episode 2, “The Trial of R. Kelly,” were born of this format.

I then asked about the show’s creator, Aaron McGruder. There’s limited public footage of him speaking, so I inquired what he was like from someone who had worked with him closely.

“Well first of all, Aaron McGruder is one of those uppity, smart negroes. He’s always thinking, always creating. He’s multi-talented, he’s a father, he got all that shit going on. Truth is he probably isn’t no negroe, he probably just in a negroe disguise to make people feel bad for him! So he’s always just one of the most amazing men working. He is one of the most intelligent negroes you will ever meet in your life. Very politically minded, very socially minded negroe. If there is such a thing.”

I suppose for Ruckus, those are some kind words! McGruder’s keen and striking commentary are one of the trademark features of both the comic and animated series. It has earned the series its following, some controversy, and a whole lot of respect from its audience.

Lastly, I wanted to ask about the supposed reboot of The Boondocks, which was announced in 2019. With the death of Robert “Granddad” Freeman’s voice actor, John Witherspoon, that same year, production went on hiatus. There then were back and forth rumors of cancellation up to this year, including that John Witherspoon’s son was to step in. 

Williams was swift to quell the rumors and thankfully set the record straight. In response to the rumor of Witherspoon’s son joining the cast, he said:

“That ain’t true! That’s a lie! That’s a lie, that is a Black man’s lie. We was audition folks for it and all that kinda stuff. We were actually trying to figure out what was the best way to go about doing it. But [John Witherspoon’s son] was never slated to step in. They were just trying to figure out the best way to make it work.”

Williams, still as Ruckus, then reminisces on John Witherspoon, and what he meant to him. 

“But everybody miss that John Witherspoon. I hate to say it, I hate to say this, you know I do, but that John Witherspoon, he was one talented Black son-of-a-bitch. And I hate to admit it! I hate to admit that someone black has talent! But he really was one of them.”

Both John Witherspoon and Gary Anthony Williams featured in the 2004 comedy Soul Plane, and its subsequent parody in The Boondocks’ Season 2 opener, “...Or Die Trying.” In the episode, the Freemans sneak in to see fictional sequel, Soul Plane 2: The Blackjacking. Ruckus, today working as an usher in the theater, notices they never bought tickets, leading to an iconic fight between he and protagonist Huey, who never wanted to see it.

I had to point that statistic out, to which he said:

“That was crazy, that we were actually looking at ourselves in the cartoon, looking at ourselves on the movie screen. That was crazy.”

I believe that is the first time that has ever happened in media! About Soul Plane itself, Williams says:

“It’s a movie you have to laugh at… one way or another.”

It was a true honor to meet someone who lent life to a character I grew up watching! The picture below he had available to sign, and his note did not disappoint! Thank you, Gary Anthony Williams. 

You can catch him in the upcoming film Outlaw Johnny Black as the town mayor, in Disney’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur as Pops Lafayette and Rockin’ Rudy, and as Beta in Hailey’s On It!