On June 5, the IndieWire Honors Spring 2025 ceremony will rejoice the creators and stars answerable for a number of the most spectacular and interesting work of this TV season. Curated and chosen by IndieWire’s editorial staff, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the creators, artisans, and performers behind tv properly value toasting. We’re showcasing their work with new interviews main as much as the Los Angeles occasion.
Ramy Youssef and Pam Brady have been large followers of one another who had by no means met — and as quickly as they did, they began to work collectively on a tv present. The duo teamed up for A24 and Prime Video’s “#1 Comfortable Household USA,” an animated sequence a few Muslim household in post-9/11 America that “has no enterprise being as humorous as its first season proves to be.” Extra episodes are on their method, because of a two-season order from the streamer, and Youssef and Brady will obtain this 12 months’s Spark Award for animation at this season’s IndieWire Honors.
As a millennial stand-up and creator of his personal present, Youssef was (in fact) influenced by “South Park,” which he describes as an “‘Oh shit’ second” breakthrough in regards to the potentialities of animation and “the loopy issues that you possibly can say when it’s simply popping out of like little animated youngsters’s mouths.” Brady had been impressed by Youssef’s work and begged her supervisor to arrange a gathering, simply to “perceive how [his] thoughts labored.” She performed it cool when he requested her about working collectively, whereas inside she was freaking out.
She wasn’t alone. Because the present went into pre-production — and manufacturing and post-production — Youssef mentioned that on the studio, “everybody, at each time” was nervous about how it might go (“together with proper now”).
“It’s so attention-grabbing, as a result of the present is in loads of methods about concern, however working with Ramy, the inventive course of was fairly fearless,” Brady advised IndieWire. “It didn’t really feel like we have been being provocative for no motive, simply to be provocative. We have been simply telling the story. We’re exploring a 12-year-old boy’s mentality at a extremely powerful time, and the truth that it felt true gave us the arrogance to push it.”
“In loads of methods, making an animated present was much less daunting than making a live-action present that was not solely coping with issues that have been delicate to me, but additionally utilizing my face and my title and all that stuff,” Youssef mentioned, referencing Hulu’s award-winning “Ramy.” “To enter one thing that’s like, ‘He’s only a cartoon’ really felt far more liberating, and felt like let’s simply fucking throw it on the wall.”
Early on, the present introduced Youssef again to his stand-up roots, riffing on a joke with an viewers — the writers room — for rapid suggestions and finessing. The excellent strategy of animation allowed them to be what Brady calls “joke maximalists” by way of high quality tuning one thing for so long as attainable.
“In reside motion, we accomplish that a lot iterating, however at a sure level you go dwelling with the footage, and that’s simply what it’s,” mentioned Youssef. “Right here, so long as you don’t want to maneuver a background, that mouth is yapping and shifting. You might have it say regardless of the hell you need it to say, just about up till the final day.”
Every episode of “#1 Comfortable Household USA” opens with a cheeky disclaimer. They’re rated H for haram, and never supposed to function cultural illustration. It began as simply that — a humorous insurance coverage coverage for Youssef, whose work is usually tasked with talking for giant swathes of the Arab and Muslim group — and grew right into a dependable operating joke.
“It began from the honest place, after which turned this actually humorous runner the place each episode we listing off the issues we’re not representing,” he mentioned. “So instantly there’s a joke because the episode begins, however then you definitely additionally type of know what we’re about to satirize, and also you go, ‘Oh, properly, how’s that going to occur?’”
“#1 Comfortable Household USA” goes to some fairly surreal locations — the code switching, the speaking lamb, the musical interludes, and, in fact, George W. Bush — however that’s commonplace for animation, or certainly for these acquainted with Youssef’s work. The sequence grew from the identical seed that knowledgeable Episode 104 of “Ramy,” a 9/11 flashback with a strawberry-loving Osama Bin Laden hallucination. Breaking that exact story, Youssef mentioned, confirmed him that “there’s this entire period right here. One of the best components of the live-action episode have been very surreal, after which I acquired actually impressed by pushing it even additional and taking it into one thing that was animated.”
Within the present, Youssef additionally voices the younger Rumi Hussein, and his father Hussein — a deliriously entertaining observe that Brady pushed for. “If I look again, in all probability my favourite factor about making this present is discovering that character of Hussein Hussein. I believe he’s the heartbeat of the present,” Youssef mentioned.
“There’s a depth to the concept that Ramy as a child lived by way of 9/11 as a 12 -year-old, and now he’s taking part in it as a 12-year-old but additionally seeing the expertise by way of a father’s eyes,” mentioned Brady. The present excels as a result of it sees the world by way of Rumi’s eyes, or Hussein’s, or sister Mona (Alia Shawkat) or mom Sharia (Salma Hindy).
Think about Rumi’s dalliance with illegally downloading music, which places him on the radar of a not-so-mysterious pen pal referred to as Curious_George_Bush43! By the top of the season, President George W. Bush arrives on the household’s doorstep, masquerading as Rumi’s good friend whereas barely concealing his sinister intentions.
“What’s so nice about attending to know his character by way of Rumi is that he simply will get to be a mischievous grownup, who at first is like, ‘Hey, I’m your pal,’ till the opposite shoe drops,” mentioned Youssef. “I believe youngsters have that have of adults: ‘Hey, you’re a extremely good child. You get to do that, however first you bought to do your homework,’ or regardless of the child doesn’t wish to do. However on this case it’s the President of the USA, and he needs to implicate this child in his world battle on terror.”
“We additionally wished to verify we didn’t current him in the way in which that he’s simply this boob and this puppet, as a result of all of us felt fairly clearly that he knew precisely what he was doing,” mentioned Brady. “We simply wished to point out him being a bastard to Rumi, and present this man shouldn’t be your good friend.”
As for the central household, Brady mentioned, “The factor that’s humorous about ‘South Park’ that individuals don’t speak about that a lot is it’s a narrative about 4 finest good friend boys. At its core, it’s very sentimental — not within the dangerous method, but it surely’s about friendship. That’s why you may get loopy, since you purchase their relationship. [This show,] at its core, it’s exhibiting the the bonds of the household.”
Youssef likes to start out broad along with his humor after which add layers of specificity. He offers an ideal instance: within the present’s pilot, there’s a disaster over the place to bury Rumi’s grandfather (Azhar Usman), a disaster which culminate in Uncle Ahmed (Elia) being arrested on the airport on the morning of September 11, 2001.
“You’ve got this household that’s so loving they actually care the place their lifeless relative is about to be buried, however then there’s a lot dysfunction that the physique must be stolen,” he defined. “That’s its personal can of worms, earlier than you even add on the layer that they’re Arab and Muslim and add on what occurs on the airport. What would it not seem like for this household to have a lifeless physique on the airport on 9/11? That could be a very wild thread to attach, and is emblematic of the type of issues we attempt to pull off on the present.”
It’s clear that Youssef and Brady take satisfaction within the present, as a lot because the artist’s impulse typically leans towards self-criticism. They’ve additionally acquired the second season coming, and have been thrilled to attract on a properly of concepts that provided each installments. Brady is proud of with the viewers response, and hopeful {that a} present like this one received’t at all times really feel so radical. For Youssef, it’s a welcome addition to a various physique of labor.
“I’m discovering that this animated present is sitting with completely different followers in several methods, and that’s actually cool,” he mentioned. “There are individuals who love ‘Ramy,’ after which there are different individuals who go, ‘Yeah, “Ramy” was OK, however I actually like “Mo,”‘ after which there’s people who find themselves like, ‘Hey, that is my favourite factor you’ve performed.’ I discover all of that basically thrilling. You simply get to be taught extra about various things that that may join in several methods.”
“#1 Comfortable Household USA” is now streaming on Prime Video.