'Boondocks' to BET: !*%#!

Chairman and Chief Executive Debra L. Lee, who succeeded the network's founder, Robert Johnson, is shown as Debra Leevil, patterned after "Dr. Evil" in the "Austin Powers" films. Leevil declares in a staff meeting: "Our leader Bob Johnson had a dream, a dream that would accomplish what hundreds of years of slavery, Jim Crow and malt liquor could not accomplish -- the destruction of black people."

And BET President of Entertainment Reginald Hudlin is depicted as Wedgie Rudlin, a culturally insensitive buffoon coasting on his Ivy League education. Hudlin, a former friend of McGruder, is ironically credited as an executive producer on the series, the end result of a professional partnership that ended bitterly over creative differences before the series premiered in 2005.

A BET spokesperson said that the network was aware of the episodes and did not, as a network that runs its own satirical content, begrudge those who made fun of its programming.

The DVD release features stinging commentary from McGruder and Barnes about the episodes, which are uncut. In the introduction, McGruder said he went after BET because network executives, in his view, failed to elevate the network's standards -- something Hudlin had pointedly promised to do when joining the network three years ago.

"I was looking for changes and improvements, and I didn't see any," McGruder said on the DVD. "I didn't see them. So I said, OK, it's fair game. It's hard not to address it. It really was an important part of the strip." Because of legal reasons, he adds, he cannot mention the real names of the people satirized in the episodes.

Barnes added: "You expect white television to present black people in a particular way. The anger comes from black television portraying us in a particular way. That brings out a different sense of frustration, and at the heart of these episodes is that frustration."

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greg.braxton@latimes.com