"Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the devil, and the government is lying about 9/11." As cartoonist Aaron McGruder grabs your attention in the opening minutes of The Boondocks-making its Canadian premiere on Teletoon this Friday (February 17) at 10:30 p.m.-you could be forgiven for thinking that Gil Scott- Heron had it wrong when he sang that the revolution would not be televised. Sadly, you'd be mistaken. What appeared in print as a politically right-on comic strip-the African-American Doonesbury-doesn't quite make the transition to a half-hour animated series. Sure, there's an abundance of controversial observational barbs in McGruder's adventures of young militant Huey Freeman (named after Black Panthers founder Huey P. Newton), his gangsta kid brother, Riley, and their grandfather and guardian, Robert. But on the whole, the series feels weighted down by its own self-importance, and unlike other similarly irreverent cartoons such as The Simpsons or South Park, McGruder's smart jokes about race and class in modern America don't really transcend their surface anger. Still, it does make you think about a lot of things, like how wise Doonesbury's Garry Trudeau has been to avoid making a similar leap from the strip to the tube.

Bravo! serves up a second season of Godiva's on Saturday (February 18) at 7 p.m. Unlike on locally shot The L Word, where Vancouver stands in for L.A., the sexy Godiva's is actually supposed to be set in a trendy little restaurant in Yaletown and stars domestic actors like Erin Karpluk, Sonja Bennett, and Matthew Currie Holmes.

Fresh from a recent reunion with his old comedy troupe the Frantics, writer and comedian Rick Green returns to History Television with History Bites VI: Uncle Sam, Monday (February 20) at 5 p.m. Recorded before Stephen Harper's recent election as our new Bush-friendly prime minister, this timely episode is preoccupied with what Green calls in press materials "Canada's love-hate relationship with the United States". The sketch-comedy show features actors impersonating historical figures in modern interview settings-for example, Genghis Khan on Larry King Live. This week's guests: a variety of Canadian prime ministers and American presidents, portrayed by comic actors Ron Pardo, Wayne Robson, and Frantics castmates Paul Chato, Dan Redican, and Peter Wildman, in a series of skits, songs, poems, and cartoons. Green's clear love of history and attention to detail make this goofy show work, even in its silliest moments.