The Block is Hot
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The Block is Hot was the 14th episode in the animated televison series The Boondocks. It originally aired on March 12, 2006
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The Boondocks Season 1 |
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[edit] Episode Summary
Huey, meanwhile, is spending the painfully hot day wearing a heavy coat and scarf and handing out flyers to passers-by. He sits on the sidewalk next to a lemonade stand that Jazmine has set up. Huey thinks that the spot will provide him lots of people who will listen, but he turns out to be helping Jazmine sell more lemonade.
- Huey: Prozac can lead to suicide
- Jazmine: Yes, but lemonade can lead to smiles, which can cause dimples.
- Man: Dimples? I'll take two!
Ed Wuncler happens by and sees Jazmine's stand. He asks what Jazmine is saving up for with the money she makes selling lemonade. Jazmine replies that she is hoping to get a pony. Wuncler sips his lemonade and says that he raises ponies. He offers to buy Jazmine's stand for the price of one pony. Jazmine agrees immediately and Wuncler goes to talk to his lawyers and accountants. Huey smells something fishy going on.
When Wuncler returns he has a thick contract and a picture of a pony. Jazmine signs the contract without reading it, too engrossed in the thoughts of having her own pony to pay attention to anything else. She has even picked out a name for the pony, deciding that "Sammy Davis Jr. the Pony" is a wonderful name. Wuncler cuts those dreams short by demanding her day's take so far and completely reorganizing how Jazmine's stand looks and operates.
Before, the stand had been a table with a small, hand lettered sign. Now that he owns it, Wuncler wants tables, a new stand, a large professional sign and advertising on local radio stations. He forces Jazmine to work ridiculously hard without time for breaks, sleep, or anything that does not involve making and selling lemonade. As the days heat up, the line of customers streaches around the block and Jazmine is kept busy.
Her father, Tom Dubois, insists that she come in and eat some lunch and take a nap. Wuncler says that Jazmine can leave whenever she wants, but that her cut of the money from the stand will pay for Sammy Davis Jr. the Pony's food and upkeep, meaning that if Jazmine leaves then the pony will starve to death in a puddle of its own feces. Jazmine stays at the stand.
Huey, meanwhile, has rallied human rights activists to come and protest the unfair child labor practices at the stand. The protesters arrive, but instead of actually doing anything constructive, they stand around and sing whiney protest songs, hoping that the stand will be shut down, although even they are not optimistic that it will be in their own lifetime.
Wuncler arrives (in a horse-drawn carriage) and hands out bottles of "cruelty-free" lemonade to make the crowd happy. He then shuts down the stand and tells Jazmine that her cut of each cup of lemonade was only 5% (five cents out of every dollar). Her cut was also supposed to cover the renovations to the stand, the advertising, the lemons, the sugar, and the gas that Wuncler's limo used to get back and forth to the stand, so she had not actually earned the pony when the stand was closed down.
Huey grabs a trash-can and throws it through the window of the stand, smashing it and letting the assembled protesters and thirsty citizens grab the cups of lemonade that they wanted. Before too much of a riot can break out, the entire crowd is dispersed when snow begins to fall.
We see that Huey has been handing out flyers saying "90 degrees in February? This is some bull-$#!+! Global Warming!" Jazmine thinks about what has just happened and then considers opening a hot chocolate delivery service.
[edit] Trivia
- There are several allusions to the movie Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee in this episode. Huey listens to Fight the Power by Public Enemy (a song that appeared prominently in the film). Huey's actions in this episode further mirror events in the film when he hands out fliers with revolutionary messages like Buggin' Out and throwing a trash can through a window, sparking a riot, similar to Mookie's actions. In the episode and the film, the unseasonable heat causes tension between police and general public. Uncle Ruckus also makes a reference to the film, telling Huey to "turn that jungle music off" when he walks by with his boombox. This is a direct quote from the film's character Sal.
- Rev. Al Sharpton lodged several complaints about Boondock's episode Return of the King, stating that its portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. saying the word nigga was disrespectful and demanding an apology. As Huey looks on-line for human rights groups, we hear radio announcers mentioning that Al Sharpton is all upset over "some cartoon".
- When Ed Wuncler is about to buy lemonade from Jazmine's stand, he says "Lemonade was a popular drink in my day...and it still is." This is a very obscure reference to an odd line from the Gangstarr song "DWYCK".
- Ed Wuncler makes another rap lyric reference when Tom tells him he is taking Jazmine's lemonade stand too seriously. Wuncler says, "You know the name of the game, your daughter chose me. Now we can handle this like some gentlemen, or we can get into some old gangster shit." This is an obvious reference Snoop Dogg's song Pump Pump, which in itself is a reference to Max Julien's character in The Mack.
- The title obviously comes from Lil' Wayne's song and album title, "The Block is Hot".
- Jazmine makes a refrence to Charlie Brown's Christmas special by saying one of Linus's lines. Instead she substitutes Huey for Charlie Brown. "Huey Freeman you're the only person I know that could turn a beautiful day like this into a problem."
- The part where Ruckus is being beaten by the police is a refrence to Rodney King
