Tuesday night’s Atlanta took a trip into the wonderful world of surreality with an episode-long parody of BET, done via the fictional “Black American Network.” As the show went about deconstructing stereotypes and hypocrisies, complete with a ridiculous news debate show and fake commercials aimed at black viewers, it almost felt like a temporary resurrection of Chappelle’s Show.
Atlanta’s fake BAN news show, Montague, centered on a lively conversation between its protagonist rapper Paper Boi and a trans activist (doubling as commentary on the merits of internet outrage) and included a fake segment on a “trans-racial” black man who considered himself white. This was ludicrous in itself, but the show’s extended concept really hit the mark with its series of fake commercials, the best and most uncomfortable of which was a kids’ ad for Coconut Crunchos.
Watch the clip above, where a starving cartoon wolf (which mirrored cartoon fiends like the tragically persistent Trix Rabbit) hunts down a bowl of Coconut Crunchos, the cereal that’s ridiculously just for kids. The commercial takes a dark turn when a police officer sees the wolf trying to “steal” the Crunchos and attacks him. The cop arrests him and orders him to “stop resisting.” While the wolf pleads, “I could be eating these kids, but I’m out here eating cereal,” the kids are there filming the whole scenario, and the implications are deep. Atlanta continues to be a show like no other, with an episode that drew a tense line between absurd humor and the fact that you can’t make this stuff up.
