Nightmare Fuel / The Boondocks

Comics

• In this Halloween 2004 strip, Huey has a nightmare in which Caesar informs him that zombies have taken over the world, they have possibly killed his brother and grandfather, and they reelected President Bush back into office.

Season 1

A Date with the Health Inspector

• An In-Universe example: Tom has recurring nightmares about dropping the soap in a prison shower, which leads to a Scary Black Man who calls himself the "Health Inspector" trying to anally rape him. These bad dreams may be funny to us, but not for poor old Tom.
  • While Tom has never actually been raped before, he's always scared shitless about the possibility of it happening to him. Especially when the police arrest him for a crime he didn't commit, and he almost goes to jail...

The Itis

• The Itis soul food restaurant causes the surrounding Meadowlark Park, a decent middle-class neighborhood, to transform into a crime-infested ghetto overnight. The residents of the neighborhood turn obese and homeless, mugging pedestrians to literally feed their addiction to junk food. It somehow manages to be funny yet disturbing at the same time.
  • For some bonus squick, Robert gets to see this happen with his own eyes. First during the opening night, he meets a pretty and thin young lady named Janet, who compliments his food and gives him her phone number. But some time later, when Robert meets Janet again, she has quickly transformed into a grotesque fat slob addicted to soul food! (Although she later loses that weight through some liposuction.)

The Passion of Reverend Ruckus

• Huey worrying about Shabazz's impending execution for a crime he didn't commit.
• Robert watching in shock as Ruckus is brainwashing both black and white people alike into joining his racist cult.

Season 2

Stinkmeaner Strikes Back

• While most of his antics in this episode were still outrageously hilarious, Stinkmeaner shows how terrifying he can really be, when it's shown that not even his own death can stop his Nigga Moment with Robert Freeman!
  • While in Hell, Stinkmeaner became really good at fighting, and he single-handedly beat down hordes of demons. Satan was so impressed that he allowed him to leave Hell and return to Earth for vengeance.
  Stinkmeaner: HELL AIN'T SHIT! I'M GONNA GET YOU, FREEMAN!
  • Stinkmeaner's ghost then possesses hapless nice guy Tom DuBois, turning the last person you'd suspect into an unwitting instrument for his mayhem.
  • When Tom comes home to hug Sarah, Stinkmeaner takes control of him again, and declares that he wants to have "sexual relations" with her. Sarah is totally oblivious as to why her husband is acting so weirdly.
  • After a day of messing with people for laughs, Stinkmeaner invades the Freeman house to try to kill Robert for revenge, and also his grandsons when they get in the way. The first thing he does is break into the house with a fire axe!

Attack of the Killer Kung-Fu Wolf Bitch

• Robert learns a lesson about online dating the hard way when he meets a beautiful woman named Luna... who is also an insane femme fatale who knows kung fu, casually mentions that she keeps wolves as pets, and once ripped out the heart of a man much bigger than her.
  • She's moments away from a nervous breakdown, which happens after she learns that Robert lied to her. She then kidnaps Robert (and Tom) and holds them captive at gunpoint, threatening to blow up all of them with a hand grenade.
  • She later steps outside to blow up herself with that grenade.

Shinin'

• This one scene that demonstrates just how idiotically malevolent Ed Wuncler III can be. After Riley asked Ed III to help find Butch Magnus and take back Riley's chain necklace from him, Ed III just goes and kidnaps the wrong boy, an innocent skinny little nerd (named Phil according to another episode). Ed III is holding Phil captive in a dark basement, threatening to smash his testicles with a hammer if he doesn't divulge any info. Ed III would've tortured a little boy if Riley didn't intervene in time!

The Hunger Strike

• BET's CEO Deborah Leevil is a card carrying villainess who plans to destroy black people. While her cartoonish supervillainy is very funny, she's still a legitimate force of evil, as she brutally murders one of her co-workers for daring to criticize her evil plans.

The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show

• Deborah Leevil once again demonstrates her ruthlessness, when one of the BET producers fails to propose a show idea that was evil enough for her. She punishes him by sending in her evil henchmen (Big Nigga and Crazy Bitch) to slash him to death, while she watches on with sadistic smiling and laughter as his blood splatters all over her face.
• Uncle Ruckus is totally unable to handle the truth that he is a black man, to the point that he even attempts suicide. Also a Tear Jerker moment.

Season 3

The Red Ball

• Ming tells Huey that if her team loses the game, they'll be sent to a scary prison camp in China full of other failed athletes. Subverted, as this sob story was a lie made up to trick Huey into feeling sorry for Ming and go too easy on her.
• Ed Wuncler I orders Gin Rummy to kidnap and murder a corrupt kickball referee as punishment for taking bribes from Mr. Long-dou instead of Wuncler himself. Of all the crimes that Rummy and the Wuncler family commit, this is the most serious one we see, but it's just used as a quick gag.
• It is revealed that Ed Wuncler had faked one of his players getting a permanent severe limp caused by Huey. Why? To traumatize Huey into quitting so his team would win. The fact that Wuncler would go as far as to scare a child just so he would win a game is undeniably horrifying, not to mention petty.

Stinkmeaner 3: The Hateocracy

• The cold open, even if it turned out to be All Just a Dream. Robert has a nightmare in which a horde of Stinkmeaner clones attack the neighborhood, and they kill all of his friends and family; but while Robert is fleeing from the Stinkmeaners, he actually assists all those murders out of cowardice.
  • When the Stinkmeaners grab and seize Sarah, Tom tries to save her, but Robert forces him to let go, callously telling him that he can just "find another white woman" later. Tom then has to watch as his wife is pulled away, screaming.
    • There's also some Fridge Horror to go along with that. Remember how in "Stinkmeaner Strikes Back", the Stinkmeaner-possessed Tom decided to have sex with Sarah? Now imagine what a bunch of Stinkmeaner clones might want to do with Mrs. DuBois...
  • While everyone is running upstairs, Robert throws Jazmine at the Stinkmeaners downstairs to slow them down. The Stinkmeaners appear to be eating her alive, while her father watches in horror. Robert then kicks Tom downstairs, and the clones run right over him.
  • Huey and Riley try to block the door, but they fail and two Stinkmeaners grab them. Despite their calls for help, Robert ignores his own grandkids and jumps out through the window. Though they sound more annoyed than if anything.
  • Finally, Robert swims across a lake to Ruckus' fishing boat. Robert and Ruckus struggle to take control of the motorboat, both of them intending to leave the other to die. Ruckus then falls overboard, where the Stinkmeaners drown him.
• Stinkmeaner's old partners in crime, the Hateocracy, who are just as (if not more) evil than he is.
  • We see how frightening this trio of Evil Old Folks can be when they first encounter and ambush the Freeman family:
    • Huey and Riley are suddenly dismissed from their classes at school, being told that an "aunt and uncle" will pick them up. Huey thinks something's fishy about this, and he's right. Esmeralda Gripenasty and George Pistofferson then appear in the playground, and they attack and fight them. Gripenasty and Pistofferson almost beat the two boys to death.
    • The mere fact that they attacked them at school is this, given that it shows that they're so determined to get them that they're willing to try and attack them anywhere at anytime, making absolutely nowhere safe for them.
    • Robert is trying to enjoy a quiet day of crab fishing, and unwittingly meets Rufus Crabmiser. Crabmiser talks and shares some of his twisted philosophy with him, and then announces that he's after Robert. Cue another fight, with Crabmiser trying to slice up Robert with his weaponized crabtrap.
    • The weapon in question is Nightmare Fuel. Whenever Rufus throws it, it makes a noise similar to a circular saw, hinting that the blades are spinning REALLY FAST. And it's also based off an actual weapon called the flying guillotine, a Chinese execution instrument.
  • In the climax, the Hateocracy fight with Bushido Brown, who was hired to protect the Freemans. Bushido puts up a good fight, but he ends up getting his head sliced off by Crabmiser.
    • The Freemans try to talk the Hateocracy out of killing them, by apologizing about Stinkmeaner's death. But they reveal that they don't actually care about their old friend's demise, they just want to kill them for fun. Fortunately, the Hateocracy is arrested by the police just in the nick of time.

Smokin' with Cigarettes

• This episode is about Lamilton Taeshawn, a little boy who is also a psychopathic criminal. He is stoic and emotionless to a very creepy degree. He mercilessly hurts and endangers people because he thinks it's fun. Even Riley, the boy who normally idolizes criminals and killers, thinks he's a monster.
  • Lamilton causes countless car crashes, beats down people (including his own grandma), tries to rob an old woman, actually shoots that old woman's dog to death, and later tries to kill Riley!
  • Also, when Lamilton falls off the school building in the end — but he survives. Albeit with some broken bones.
  • And finally, Lamilton Taeshawn is based on a real kid named Latarian Milton. And Latarian really did steal his grandma's car, and beat her up over a fried chicken dispute, this wasn't exaggeration made up by the show.
  • Lamilton's breakdown as he's about to shoot Riley is something to behold:

    Everybody says I'm crazy, but I don't care. I don't care about my grandmother, I don't care about that dog, and I don't even care about myself! And since we ain't cool no more, I don't even care about you!

The Fundraiser

• Riley's chocolate bar trafficking operation is all fun and games until real gangsters hired by the World's Ultimate Chocolate company show up to harass and threaten all of his friends and associates, most of whom are elementary school children.
  • Robert and his grandsons almost get killed by a car bomb, just barely a few feet away from the explosion. (But naturally, Robert is more upset that his expensive new car was destroyed.)
  • In the climax, when the WUC gangsters, Italian-American mobsters, and an FBI paramilitary squad all start shooting at each other. Riley, Cindy, and Ed III narrowly escape the carnage.
    • Riley and Cindy have been trying to act like tough wannabe gangsters throughout the episode, but the climax shows that they're just a couple of scared little kids. After the gang shootout, Cindy screams in terror and calls for her mommy.

Pause

• The very cult-like vibe of Winston Jerome's theater troupe. He keeps Robert and his other employees in a compound and forbids them from any contact with their families back home.

A Date with the Booty Warrior

• The whole episode is another in-universe example for Tom again. He tries to confront his worst fears by visiting a prison full of Scary Black Men who really enjoy raping anyone and anything in sight.
  • Especially the titular Booty Warrior, who managed to make Chris Hansen (a guy who catches sexual predators for a living) his bitch!
    • What makes this especially terrifying is that the Booty Warrior turned Hansen's own trap against him! When Hansen confronts him, the Booty Warrior reveals that not only was he not interested in having sex with underaged boys but he specifically was after Hansen. The fact that the police were waiting outside and that he was being filmed didn't intimidate him in the slightest.
  • And finally, the Booty Warrior is based on a real prison rapist named Fleece Johnson. While Johnson didn't actually rape a TV show host, he is still quite creepy.

The Fried Chicken Flu

• During the ongoing pandemic of the "fried chicken flu", the news media is reporting that society is crumbling and falling apart.
  • When we see that Tom DuBois has been infected with the flu, we get to see him fall ill with a leaking nasal congestion and projectile vomiting. He lies in bed surrounded by everyone else, and seems to be on the verge of dying.
  • Once word breaks out that the Freeman family and their friends are hoarding emergency supplies, Betty von Heusen and other neighbors form a "militia" (really a bandit gang) to rob them, and later they even chase them all the way through a desert highway.
  • Subverted because the so-called "fried chicken flu" was really just salmonella, nobody actually died from it, and civilization is still the same.

The Color Ruckus

• Years of abuse by his father and grandmother, combined with brainwashing by his mother, turned Uncle Ruckus into such a mentally ill man who despises his own race. No wonder he's so messed up! Also a major Tear Jerker.

It's Goin' Down

• Jack Flowers' flashbacks about his girlfriends' fates. It seemed that whenever the poor guy just wanted to go on a date night, a crazy terrorist or supervillain always has to ruin it by brutally murdering his lovers right in front of him.
• Ed I sends in Ed III and Gin Rummy to blow up the Wuncler Tower with the intent of killing one man, as part of a crazy scheme to profit from his demise. Later, the bomb goes off and destroys the building. Although fortunately nobody gets killed, we see Huey, Ruckus, Dan, and dozens of other people fleeing in panic as the tower is collapsing into rubble — Does This Remind You of Anything??
• The ending of this episode is full of Fridge Horror. After Jack is informed that he cannot arrest Ed I, he decides to instead kidnap Ed III at gunpoint; while Ed III is begging and screaming for help from his grandfather, who for some reason just stands there watching, without bothering to intervene on his grandson's behalf. The Freemans then walk home, while gunshots are heard off-screen; just what the hell happened to Jack, Ed III, and Rummy? Considering that we never see those characters again...

Season 4

Good Times

• Ed Wuncler II is a ruthless con man who is greedy like his father, and violent like his son. He seems to take great joy in preying upon bankrupt people like the Freemans, and making their financial troubles even worse. And it's implied that he will kill debtors who displease him too much. And he only gets worse in "Freedomland"...
  • Especially the scenes where Ed II accidentally holds onto a bloody knife and says that he was cutting meat; and he later dumps a rotting body bag in the Freemans' garage, implying that he will order them to dispose corpses for him.

Breaking Granddad

• Asshole Victims or not, Boss Willona and her henchman burning to death in Robert's mobile hair product lab can qualify.

Freedom Ride or Die

• Ripped straight from actual history, there's the Birmingham riot scene, in which an angry mob of racist men attack the Freedom Riders in an attempt to preserve white supremacy.
  • We see that Uncle Ruckus wasn't always such a joke villain, as he makes a racist speech inciting the aforementioned angry mob to attack the Freedom Riders. He also plants a bomb on their bus that was set to detonate if they exceeded 15 MPH.
• Later on, there's the scene where Robert Freeman, Sturdy Harris, and Diane Nash are still riding the bus, which Sturdy defiantly drives past a roadblock filled with heavily armed local cops. The police fire about a thousand or so shots at them, covering the bus with many bullet holes (though fortunately, the trio was somehow uninjured).

Granddad Dates a Kardashian

• The sight of Kardashia's silicone butt implants exploding comes off as being more disgusting than funny. This even causes her death at the end of the episode.

Freedomland

• The entire concept of Freedomland: a slavery amusement park attended by people who don't seem to care just how horrifying the concept is, and staffed by people who are so far in debt to Ed II that they're forced to work there in rather degrading circumstances. If that wasn't bad enough, the staff is also forced to live there, living as actual slaves did.
  • Ruckus is particularly horrifying in this episode. The sheer amounts of joy he gets in dominating the slaves, and his refusal to listen to how insane he's being are rather horrifying.
  • Ed Wuncler II tries to punish Huey's rebelliousness by cutting off his foot. Fortunately Huey just kicks Wuncler in the face, and he starts a slave rebellion to destroy Freedomland.

I Dream of Siri

• Everything about Robert's digital phone assistant Siri. She may be an iPhone application, but she's unusually intelligent and malevolent. She develops a creepy obsession with Robert, and makes him miserable whenever he refuses to love her back.
  • She demonstrates an ability to hack into just about any piece of technology, in order to continue spying on Robert and damaging his reputation.
  • In the climax, Siri tries to force Robert into marrying her, and fools the US government into thinking that Robert is an Al-Qaeda terrorist. Cue a drone missile striking the Freemans' yard, while everyone at the wedding flees in terror — though fortunately only Siri was killed.

Stinkmeaner: Begun the Clone War Has

• The idea that anyone would want to clone Stinkmeaner.
• Robert becomes so consumed by his hatred for the Stinkmeaner clone, that he starts behaving like Stinkmeaner, becoming just as nasty as him. Later during their final fight at the boxing arena, Robert beats the crap out of Stinkmeaner and leaves him at his mercy; and he is almost about to kill him off, until Huey intervenes and snaps his grandfather back to his senses.
  • Even more impressive and frightening is just how jacked Robert becomes after his training. Just before the fight starts, his muscles are visibly enlarged and rippled, unlike every other time he's been seen shirtless throughout the series. If it were an official boxing match, Robert would be at least one full weight class above Stinkmeaner.