Ed Wuncler III and Gin Rummy

Boondocks character
name = Ed Wuncler III (left)
Gin Rummy (right)
picture =
relative = Ed Wuncler, Sr.
(Ed's grandfather),Ed Wuncler, Jr. (Ed's father)
voiceactor = Charlie Murphy (Ed)
Samuel L. Jackson (Rummy)
firstepisode = "The Garden Party" (Ed)
"A Date With The Health Inspector" (Rummy)

Ed Wuncler III and Gin Rummy are two fictional characters from the Adult Swim animated television program "The Boondocks". Both are Iraq war veterans and occasional violent criminals. Ed Wuncler III, grandson of rich tycoon Ed Wuncler, Sr., is able to get away with just about any criminal activity he gets himself into due to the high status of his grandfather. Gin Rummy, Wuncler's best friend, usually serves as the "brains" and "muscle" of their plans, while Ed supplies the weaponry from his vast collection of firearms.

Though Aaron McGruder has never specifically said so, it seems likely that the pair are meant as lampoons of George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. Ed wears a gold "W" necklace and relies heavily on his family connections, while Gin's last name is Rumsfeld's nickname, and more evidenced when Gin covers up his failures by saying, "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence," and "it was an unknown unknown" which are direct quotes from Donald Rumsfeld's press conferences during his tenure as Secretary of Defense. This connection is further evidenced in Season 1, Episode 5 - A Date With The Health Inspector, where Ed and Rummy's robbery of a convenience store owned by a man "of terrorist descent," serves as a parody of the Bush administration's Iraq War.

Despite being white characters, Ed and Rummy are both played by black actors: Charlie Murphy plays Ed and Samuel L. Jackson plays Rummy.

Personality

Ed and Rummy are two wild and trigger-happy former soldiers. They constantly drink, curse, and rob stores in order to prove their superiority. However, although the robberies are poorly planned, they always manage to get away with them. Riley Freeman points out that they get away with everything because Ed's grandfather is extremely rich and has the police on his payroll or because they rob people of "terrorist descent" (when he's talking about Arabs or those who appear Arab). Rummy ignores him and says they get away with crimes because he is a criminal mastermind. However, in season 2 of The Boondocks, it was discovered that Ed's grandfather may actually be the mastermind of their acts. The two do reveal when caught red handed trying to rob the Freeman's house that many of the residential robberies and crimes they commit are to benefit Ed's grandfather's home security business, by putting the fear of safety in the residents of Woodcrest and their possession and indirectly pressuring them to purchase Ed Senior's security system. In turn, it would generate more profit and corporate domination for Ed Senior in the town of Woodcrest (and more inheritance money in the pockets of Ed III).

Ed is the less intelligent and the more violent of the duo. In his first appearance on the show, he states, without any discomfiture, that he was discharged from the military because he had a habit of soiling himself under stress and would give away himself and his soldier's position. He likes to text message, but Rummy doesn't approve, he claims that text messaging is "nigga technology", "technology that lets dumb niggas talk to otha dumb niggas about dumb nigga shit." Also, Rummy dislikes the fact that Ed uses a bluetooth headset ("Thank You for Not Snitching") claiming that he doesn't know when Ed is speaking to him and that it makes Ed look like a crazy person. Ed is the de facto leader, but Rummy, being the somewhat more intelligent, thanks to Rummy's current level of intelligence or lack thereof, plans the robberies (albeit poorly). Ed is a rough, foul-mouthed alcoholic. Very violent and anti-social, he constantly drinks and likes to use physical force even when it's not needed. He also uses stereotypes and other vulgar insults (such as referring to a Middle Eastern shop owner as "of terrorist descent") in order to mock the people he is robbing.

The two of them seem to have a brotherly friendship. They both like weapons, alcohol, and robbing people. They both share the credit for the robberies, no matter how poorly-planned they happen to be. In addition, they are completely ignorant to the consequences of their actions and feel no remorse for them. However, they disagree about texting and the use of bluetooth headsets and Rummy makes fun of Ed's lack of swimming aptitude. In fact, the one area of difference they seem to have is regarding minor lifestyle technology -- Ed is a technophile (often equipped with trendy technology such as his Bluetooth headset) while Gin Rummy is contemptuous of these gadgets, seeing them as more fad than functional.

Trivia

In A Date With The Health Inspector Ed and Gin are on their way to rob a convenience store, Riley and Huey are both in the car. Gin starts on a short rant that is hard to understand involving WMD's, mimicking Donald Rumsfeld's "Unknown Unknowns" quote. Riley says "what" and Gin (being voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) starts on the same famous "What?" scene from Pulp Fiction.

Sources

* [http://www.tv.com/the-boondocks/show/26812/summary.html?q=boondocks&tag=search_results;title;0 "The Boondocks"] on TV.com
* [http://animatedtv.about.com/od/theboondocks/a/amcgqanda.htm "Q&A with Aaron McGruder"]
* [http://www.tv.com/the-boondocks/lets-nab-oprah/episode/650895/summary.html?tag=ep_list;title;10 "Let's Nab Oprah"]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373732/ Boondocks] at Internet Movie Database