Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-4224349-20150219162914/@comment-26138904-20150223164903

Hey I just joined to talk about this crossover which I was...unfortunate enough to see a preview of. I have an animation blog and I live in Burbank sometimes I'm able to talk with industry animators, including those at CN Studios. I was able to score a seating at a preview for the Steven Universe/Uncle Grandpa crossover which is still in the animatics stages.

Let me clarify, this is not so much a crossover as it is an Uncle Grandpa episode with Steven Universe characters in it. The SU characters are drawn in Uncle Grandpa style.

I was with my partner and we were in a group of about 15-20 people in a small screening room. They took our cellphones (of course) before it began, and I was somewhat surprised to see Pete Browngardt himself introduce the preview (He said something about the Skyler Page scandal which neither my friend nor I heard correctly). He said they recently finished up the voice acting and that the animating process would soon begin. Like I said, the preview was in the animatic stage (if you've seen J.G. Quintel's "2 in the AM PM", then you know what this was like).

I was expecting this crossover to be bad, however, I was not expecting it to be subtly racist.

The preview was short, about 1 minute and a half, and in it Steven and the other 3 gems (drawn in UG style) come out of a portal coming from Uncle Grandpa's microwave. Steven was nothing like the Steven from the show, instead he acted like a spoiled brat with a face full of acne. It was the same SU voice actors (unsure for Amethyst who only belched). Pearl's nose was way longer and pointier than in SU. My biggest complaint, going back to my concern about subtle racism, was the depiction of Garnet. Her afro was a lot bigger and had a comb sticking out of it. Worst of all though, her nose and lips were way more pronounced (her lips looked similar to Mr. Gus's lips).

Uncle Grandpa greets each SU character separately, he says "hi" to Steven who simply grumbles. Then he tries to shake Pearl's hand, which she pulls her hand away because she's a germaphobe I guess. He says hi to Amethyst who, like I said, just belches (it sounded like a stock belching sound). When UG gets to Garnet though, his mouth drops in panic and he says "Please don't hurt me! Here, this is all I have, take it!" and he pulls out a pile of items out of his bell bag which included; a bucket of chicken, a basketball, and a boom-box (or radio) and a few other items I couldn't make out. My friend said he thought he saw a boomerang too but I didn't see that. I found that to be some sort of subtle joke concerning the stereotype that African-Americans all love fried chicken and watermelon, as well as music. Needless to say I picked up on the joke right away, but I wasn't laughing. I was stunned. I really doubt that will get past the censors, but the scene was so quick that they might not notice it.

After the preview I tried to ask other audience members if they caught the scene, but we were rushed up by a couple attendants after they returned our phones.

I'm curious to see the final product, and I hope that whoever put that joke in is identified and hopefully is fired from CN.