Channel Changer

BET's shows that have aired are a mixed bag.

"Take the Cake," a live interactive daily game show starring Tocarra of "America's Next Top Model," only lasted a season. "Hell Date," a mash-up of dating shows that features a dwarf in a Devil suit, doesn't exactly advance the cause for quality programming. "We Got to Do Better" has come and gone, as has "Socially Offensive Behavior," a kind of "Candid Camera" for the 21st century, starring comic D.L. Hughley. "Read a Book," a satirical animated short by Washington rapper Bomani, came under fire by critics who said the video perpetrated negative stereotypes, and inspired the "Enough Is Enough" campaign.

A firestorm of controversy started last fall when BET debuted "We Got to Do Better," based on a Web site, "Hot Ghetto Mess," which casts a jaundiced eye at tacky African Americans, taking the "America's Funniest Home Videos" approach.

Critics like Gina McCauley, an Austin attorney, charged that the show catered to offensive stereotypes. She launched an online protest with her blog, "What About Our Daughters," and some Internet advertisers pulled their support for the show.

Observes Hudlin's mentor, the television pioneer Steve Bochco: "He's had to completely change the culture there, which is always a complicated chore. He has to grapple with a very, very anemic budget. When you look at what he's been able to do and the context of those challenges, you have to say he's doing a wonderful job. He needs more time to accomplish what he's set out to do. You don't turn those ships on a dime, big heavy corporate cargo vessels."

Hudlin has hurt feelings along the way. Mooney says his show was abruptly pulled without explanation and Hudlin never returned his calls. "I thought he was a king," Mooney says. "I had no idea he was a slave." (Both Hudlin and Lee maintain that the show was killed because it didn't test well with focus groups.)

His feet are to the flame. A few years back, Hudlin joined forces with comic strip artist McGruder to produce the cartoon version of McGruder's "Boondocks" on the Cartoon Network. The show takes frequent potshots at BET.

Today Hudlin and McGruder, once close friends, no longer speak. And Hudlin himself became the target of two "Boondocks" episodes. (The episodes, which the Cartoon Network decided not to release, are now making the rounds in the Afrosphere.) Hudlin is cast as the bow-tie-wearing "Weggie Rudlin," who declares, "My Harvard education tells us that our goal is to take all the [expletive] reality TV shows that MTV made five years ago and make them black!"

And yes, Hudlin still has an executive-producer credit on the show. And no, he's not going to talk about what happened, or how he feels about being skewered by his onetime friend/protege. Nor will McGruder comment.

The comedian Orlando Jones, director and producer of the upcoming BET animated sketch show "BUFU," says Hudlin "did everything right. He went to Harvard. Now he's been charged to change the stereotypes for people who think BET is the chitlin circuit network. He's like, 'I've never done anything in my life that's stereotypical, and now I'm that guy?' "

In the 'Ghet-to'

Hudlin grew up in East St. Louis, Ill., a city with a rich artistic past: Lillian Gish, Josephine Baker, Miles Davis, dance pioneer Katherine Dunham and bluesman Albert King all called it home. But by the time Hudlin came of age in the late '70s, East St. Louis, once dubbed an "All America City," was rapidly unraveling, the victim of riots, factory closings and virulent street gangs. A city that he affectionately sends up in "Birth of a Nation," where he and McGruder imagined what would happen if East St. Louis seceded from the union. (Hint: chaos.)

Hudlin's description of East St. Louis? "Ghet-to."