The green light came from Fox, but that turned out to be the problem.

"We wrote the script, we did a six-minute presentation and then it died," McGruder said. "Fox wanted a sitcom with an 'A story' and a 'B story,' and there were just very rigid creative rules that work on some shows and don't work on others."

Luckily for McGruder, somebody else diagnosed the problem. His name is Mike Lazzo, and he has become a cult figure in the television business, as have the figures he has promoted. Think Space Ghost, Harvey Birdman, Meatwad and Brak.

They are some of the oddball residents of Adult Swim, the wildly popular nighttime cable refuge cleverly tucked away inside Cartoon Network. How popular? Well, NBC and CBS might take note because the next generation of night-time viewers, ages 18-34, is watching Adult Swim in larger numbers than it is Leno or Letterman — drawn by its irreverent use of language and situations that would never fly on network TV.

Lazzo saw the six-minute film McGruder had put together and declared it "too networky." He suggested that McGruder bring his comedy ideas over to cable TV, forget about the sitcom formula and, as McGruder put it, "just tell stories."

It's too soon to tell if "Boondocks," which makes its debut Oct. 2, will justify Lazzo's faith in McGruder. A cartoon show that takes months to assemble can't possibly be as timely as the comic strip, which, for example, recently satirized the "Being Bobby Brown" reality show less than two weeks after its TV debut.

Lazzo says he's thrilled to have "Boondocks."

"Where was black culture on television where it didn't feel like it was just, you know, written by white people?" he asked. "It didn't feel legitimate."

"Legitimate" is not a word you hear from a conventional network suit. But then Adult Swim did not become No. 1 among young people because Lazzo thought conventionally.

SOMETHING NEW NEEDED

It started in 1994. Lazzo worked at Cartoon Network, which at the time consisted of 8,000 Hanna-Barbera cartoons and not much else.

Lazzo recalled those days in an interview. "We were like, 'Another "Huckleberry Hound"? Don't we have anything new?' "

A high school dropout now in his 40s, Lazzo has a blond mop top and Southern drawl that make him seem less like a TV executive and more like a semi-successful country music manager.

Ted Turner had made it clear there wouldn't be any money for new shows on Cartoon Network for a while. Other than that small obstacle, Lazzo and his small band of Atlanta-based folk were free to try anything.

"So we learned how to take cartoons apart and put them back together again," he said.

Lazzo loved hearing the big, booming sound of Gary Owens, the voice of 1960s superhero show "Space Ghost," which was recycled on Cartoon Network. After hours, the group talked about recycling old "Space Ghost" cels into something new.

Inspired by the Leno-Letterman late-night wars then at their peak, they created a show: "Space Ghost Coast to Coast." It featured the superhero on a cheaply drawn background and started out interviewing celebrities like Susan Powter and Kevin Meany ("whoever would talk to us," Lazzo said).

The humans appeared in the cartoon via a small TV screen that was lowered from the ceiling. Space Ghost would talk to the screen in non sequiturs: bragging about how strong he was, or being distracted by his creepy bandleader, a life-sized predatory insect named Zorak. Meanwhile the guests would chuckle nervously and make oddly off-kilter comments that suggested no one had clued them in to the show.

Soon the bored host would zap them and move on.

At first few people noticed. Cartoon Network was in only 10 million homes when it made its premiere. "I think people who loved television instantly responded to it. They got it," Lazzo said. "But it was only on 15 minutes a week. Nobody knew about us, nobody talked about us, but I could see that people were watching."

The show eventually spawned other like-minded programs:

"Sealab 2021" revived an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon called "Sealab 2020," except in the new version the people living in the futuristic underwater city were idiots.

"Aqua Teen Hunger Force" (airing at various times most nights) is a crudely animated cartoon featuring the exploits of a talking milkshake, a talking meatball and a talking side of fries superimposed on old scenes from "Scooby-Doo" and other shows.

"Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law" (new episodes began July 24) has recycled a staggering number of old Hanna-Barbera characters in service of TV's daffiest courtroom show. In one episode, Speed Buggy, the wheezing 1970s jalopy, hires Birdman to defend him against charges of reckless driving. While that goes on, his dashing driver, Mark, seduces women in the next room.

"We were just all TV-obsessed," Lazzo said. "We thought we were doing cartoons that reflected what we liked to watch."

Also, they were decidedly not for kids. Hence the "Adult Swim" label, first applied in 2001.

But what supercharged Adult Swim, and would turn it into a six-night-a-week service, were repeats of two animated sitcoms that first appeared on Fox, "Futurama" and "Family Guy."

NICK'S NO. 1

Now considered a channel-within-a-channel, a la Nick at Nite, Adult Swim is No. 1 among teenagers — by a wide margin — compared to all cable shows in its time slot. And that time slot is wide: a full six hours beginning at 8 p.m. in Hawai'i and on the West Coast and 11 p.m. on the East.

Even the nonadult shows on Cartoon Network seem a little edgier these days. "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" is a fantastical take on a young child's fear of losing his invisible buddy.

And while a show about two female Japanese rock stars would seem a less-than-ideal premise for American comedy, the "Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi Show" delightfully defies logic with its adorable characters and peppy soundtrack.

But Lazzo, who is now senior vice president in charge of Adult Swim, might be taking the channel's biggest gamble yet with "Boondocks," an expensive half-hour, full-animation series.

Ironically, he obtained the services of McGruder by telling him not to make "Boondocks" like Adult Swim's biggest hit, "Family Guy."

That was a relief to McGruder. After all, the "Boondocks" strip, about an angry, wise-beyond-his-years 10-year-old named Huey (as in Huey Newton) who is transplanted from the urban area to the suburbs, revolves around people with color and character.

"Our show is not 'Family Guy,' " McGruder said. "The element of race changes everything."

However Lazzo justifies adding "Boondocks" to the top-rated Adult Swim, he has made McGruder feel like a lottery winner.

"It astounds me that good, responsible white people paid for this show," McGruder said.