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The Proud Family is an animated Disney sitcom created by Bruce W. Smith in 2001. The show's run originally ended in 2005, but it was announced in 2019 that it will be revived on Disney's new streaming service, Disney+, with a continuation called The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder that will feature the original voice cast reprising their roles.
Plot[]
Fourteen-year-old Penny Proud is growing up! She's trying to gain her independence and faces typical teenage experiences in junior high. With the help of her parents, Trudy and Oscar, and her grandma, Suga Mama, Penny faces all sorts of comical events.
Why It's Proud[]
- This was the first animated Disney Channel original series.
- Well-done animation.
- Incredibly likable and comical characters, such as Penny, Trudy, Oscar and Suga Mama.
- The background design is pleasing to look at.
- Unique and well-written episodes with great dialogue.
- Brilliant morals, such as "don't judge someone by the color of their skin" and "your friend would never want to hurt you".
- Catchy theme song performed by Solange Knowles (Beyoncé's younger sister) with Destiny's Child (Beyoncé and her group at the time).
- The voice acting is great, especially with the adult characters.
- Plenty of intelligently funny moments, most notably the scenes that demonstrate the relationship between Suga Mama and her son Oscar.
- Some of the character elements are similar to The Simpsons. Trudy is the mature and loving mom, Oscar is the childish father, and Penny is the daughter who always wants to make things right.
- Penny is a relatable teenage girl, almost the entire show is based on her going through typical teenage experiences, like breakups with close friends.
- Apart from the first moral mentioned in Number 5, this show maturely handles serious topics, such as family issues and sexism.
- An accurate presentation of the average African-American life, rough and tough but fun.
- The titular family and Wizard Kelly crossed over in a fun episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series.
- The show had many guest stars/celebrity appearances such as Al Roker (despite his counterpart being unlikable as mentioned in the Bad Qualities), Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Lou Rawls, Steve Harvey, Gabrielle Union, and even the late Kobe Bryant (it was made before he died).
- It spawned a movie called mh:greatestmovies:The Proud Family Movie, which was a great finale to the show.
Bad Qualities[]
- Can get stereotypical at times (i.e. The Chang Triplets, who are straight-A students of Asian ethnicity and having a tiger-dad).
- LaCienega Boulevardez could also be stereotypical since she is portrayed as a mean popular girl stereotype.
- There are some unlikable characters such as The Gross Sisters and LaCienega Boulevardez, depending on your point of view.
- Al Roker (his character counterpart, not to be confused with the real one) is also unlikable because he is a double-crossing saboteur to Penny. In his debut appearance (Tween Town), he tricked Penny to wishing her parents, Suga Mama, and the other parents in the world to disappear after Penny was upset she got punished for lying to her parents to go to a dance party. He also kept them in a place where they had to wash clothes non stop, which is torture, and was a bad influence to the children/teens to be against their parents and have fun all day without anyone spoiling it. He was also unlikable in the episode "Twins to Tweens" when Penny states that she wished BeBe and CeCe were old enough to take care of herself after she was forced to babysit them because her parents and Suga Mama went to go bowling, causing Roker to grant Penny's wish without her noticing, resulting to BeBe and CeCe turning into teens, getting more attention from Penny's friends (causing her to feel left out) and her parents (after they found out) and led to them being favored over Penny.
- The Oscar bashing jokes got a little too ridiculous in later seasons. (He was almost killed by rowdy babies.)
- The way Suga Mama treats her son like a punching bag can get pretty repetitive and mean-spirited.
- Felix Boulevardez and Puff (Suga Mama's poodle) could also qualify as punching bags because for Puff, he gets tortured by the twins, while Felix recieves the same amount of torture Oscar suffers in episodes featuring both of them/episodes that show them together.
- There was a plot-hole in the episode, "Enter the Bullies" where Penny's parents ask her who the Gross Sisters were, although they have supposedly met them in the episode "The Party" where they join Penny's party though it could be implied they forgot who the Gross Sisters were since the events.
- "Pulp Boot Camp" could be the worst episode of the series because of Penny turning into a mean-spirited, disrespectful, and brutal bully all because she wanted to make an article of how it feels to be a bully.
- Although Trudy is a well-meaning character, she sometimes intends to be bossy to Oscar (mostly when it comes to forcing him to do things against his will, not when she points out something).
- Parentification of Penny with BeBe and CeCe, babysitting once in a while is fine, but they constantly dump THEIR babies on Penny.
- It uses quite a lot of stock cartoon sound effects which weirdly clash with the blaxpoitation aesthetic. Although they can be funny sometimes.
Trivia[]
- Bruce W. Smith, creator of The Proud Family, is also responsible for creating mh:greatestmovies:The Princess and the Frog.
- Orlando Brown, voice actor of Penny's friend Sticky Webb, was also Eddie in That's So Raven.
- Jo Marie Payton, actress of Suga Mama, is previously Harriette Winslow in Family Matters.
- This was originally pitched to Nickelodeon, but the cable channel turned down the series.