A Muslim family in New Jersey facing bigotry after Sept. 11 doesn’t sound like a particularly fruitful sitcom premise. But Ramy Youssef has managed to make the subject matter grimly hilarious in his new animated series, “#1 Happy Family USA,” premiering Thursday on Amazon Prime Video.
Created by Youssef and Pam Brady (“South Park”), the series is half coming-of-age story, with shades of “Big Mouth” and “Everybody Hates Chris,” and half brutal satire about Islamophobia in the early 2000s. It encourages viewers to find humor and humanity in outlandish scenarios stemming from what was a dark period for many American families.
The premiere episode is set on Sept. 10, 2001. Youssef voices Rumi, an Egyptian American boy preoccupied mainly with impressing his attractive teacher (Mandy Moore), who has a thing for Michael Jordan. To that end: Rumi wears an oversized bootleg Bulls jersey that reads “Balls.” Poor kid.
Of course, the next day, life for Rumi and his family suddenly changes. His father, Hussein (also voiced by Youssef), is a former doctor turned halal cart owner maniacally intent on assimilating. At the same time, however, his Princess Diana-obsessed mother, Sharia (Salma Hindy), is reconnecting with her faith and begins wearing a hijab — much to Hussein’s dismay. Rumi’s ambitious older sister, Mona (Alia Shawkat), is hiding the fact that she is gay, and an F.B.I. agent with an alcohol problem (Timothy Olyphant) moves in next door.
The animation, with big-eyed character designs from the illustrator Mona Chalabi, at times literalizes Rumi’s anxiety and at others allows the story to take absurd detours. (Chalabi won the Pulitzer Prize in 2023 for a contribution to The New York Times.) When Rumi tries to code switch to appeal to his classmates’ families, he transforms physically into identities like preppy WASP and Hogwarts student. Hussein launches into musical numbers, one of which becomes the theme song. Also, there’s a talking lamb.
“#1 Happy Family USA” manages to place story lines drawn from the pangs of early adolescence within the terrifying context of being a Muslim caught in a suddenly more xenophobic society — while also making fun of the peculiarities of the early 2000s. (In one subplot, Rumi panics after illegally downloading music for a mix CD.) It’s a tricky balance to strike, but Youssef and his team pull it off.
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