![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Spring-25-Honors_Bug_142x147_052725.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
On June 5, the\u00a0IndieWire Honors<\/a><\/a>\u00a0Spring 2025 ceremony\u00a0will celebrate the creators and stars<\/a>\u00a0responsible for some of the most impressive and engaging work of this TV<\/a> season.\u00a0Curated\u00a0and selected by IndieWire\u2019s editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the creators, artisans, and performers behind television well worth toasting. We\u2019re showcasing their work with new interviews<\/a> leading up to the Los Angeles event.<\/p>\n Ramy Youssef<\/a> and Pam Brady<\/a> were big fans of each other who had never met \u2014 and as soon as they did, they started to work together on a television show. The duo teamed up for A24 and Prime Video\u2019s \u201c#1 Happy Family USA<\/a>,\u201d an animated series about a Muslim family in post-9\/11 America that \u201chas no business being as funny as its first season proves to be.\u201d<\/a> More episodes are on their way, thanks to a two-season order from the streamer, and Youssef and Brady will receive this year\u2019s Spark Award for animation at this season\u2019s IndieWire Honors.<\/p>\n As a millennial stand-up and creator of his own show, Youssef was (of course) influenced by \u201cSouth Park,\u201d which he describes as an \u201c\u2018Oh shit\u2019 moment\u201d breakthrough about the possibilities of animation and \u201cthe crazy things that you could say when it\u2019s just coming out of like little animated children\u2019s mouths.\u201d Brady had been impressed by Youssef\u2019s work and begged her manager to set up a meeting, just to \u201cunderstand how [his] mind worked.\u201d She played it cool when he asked her about working together, while inside she was freaking out.<\/p>\n She wasn\u2019t alone. As the show went into pre-production \u2014 and production and post-production \u2014 Youssef said that at the studio, \u201ceveryone, at every time\u201d was nervous about how it would go (\u201cincluding right now\u201d).<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so interesting, because the show is in a lot of ways about fear, but working with Ramy, the creative process was pretty fearless,\u201d Brady told IndieWire. \u201cIt didn\u2019t feel like we were being provocative for no reason, just to be provocative. We were just telling the story. We\u2019re exploring a 12-year-old boy\u2019s mentality at a really tough time, and the fact that it felt true gave us the confidence to push it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn a lot of ways, making an animated show was less daunting than making a live-action show that was not only dealing with things that were sensitive to me, but also using my face and my name and all that stuff,\u201d Youssef said, referencing Hulu\u2019s award-winning \u201cRamy.\u201d \u201cTo go into something that\u2019s like, \u2018He\u2019s just a cartoon\u2019 actually felt way more liberating, and felt like let\u2019s just fucking throw it at the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n Early on, the show brought Youssef back to his stand-up roots, riffing on a joke with an audience \u2014 the writers room \u2014 for immediate feedback and finessing. The comprehensive process of animation allowed them to be what Brady calls \u201cjoke maximalists\u201d in terms of fine tuning something for as long as possible.<\/p>\n \u201cIn live action, we do so much iterating, but at a certain point you go home with the footage, and that\u2019s just what it is,\u201d said Youssef. \u201cHere, as long as you don\u2019t need to move a background, that mouth is yapping and moving. You could have it say whatever the hell you want it to say, pretty much up until the last day.\u201d<\/p>\n Each episode of \u201c#1 Happy Family USA\u201d opens with a cheeky disclaimer. They\u2019re rated H for haram, and not intended to serve as cultural representation. It started as just that \u2014 a humorous insurance policy for Youssef, whose work is often tasked with speaking for large swathes of the Arab and Muslim community \u2014 and grew into a reliable running joke. <\/p>\n \u201cIt started from the sincere place, and then became this really funny runner where every episode we list off the things we\u2019re not representing,\u201d he said. \u201cSo immediately there\u2019s a joke as the episode starts, but then you also kind of know what we\u2019re about to satirize, and you go, \u2018Oh, well, how\u2019s that going to happen?’\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c#1 Happy Family USA\u201d goes to some pretty surreal places \u2014 the code switching, the talking lamb, the musical interludes, and, of course, George W. Bush \u2014 but that\u2019s not unusual for animation, or indeed for those familiar with Youssef\u2019s work. The series grew from the same seed that informed Episode 104 of \u201cRamy,\u201d a 9\/11 flashback with a strawberry-loving Osama Bin Laden hallucination. Breaking that particular story, Youssef said, showed him that \u201cthere\u2019s this whole era here. The best parts of the live-action episode were very surreal, and then I got really inspired by pushing it even further and taking it into something that was animated.\u201d<\/p>\n In the show, Youssef also voices the young Rumi Hussein, and his father Hussein \u2014 a deliriously entertaining track that Brady pushed for. \u201cIf I look back, probably my favorite thing about making this show is finding that character of Hussein Hussein. I think he\u2019s the heartbeat of the show,\u201d Youssef said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a depth to the idea that that Ramy as a kid lived through 9\/11 as a 12 -year-old, and now he\u2019s playing it as a 12-year-old but also seeing the experience through a father\u2019s eyes,\u201d said Brady. The show excels because it sees the world through Rumi\u2019s eyes, or Hussein\u2019s, or sister Mona (Alia Shawkat) or mother Sharia (Salma Hindy). <\/p>\n Consider Rumi\u2019s dalliance with illegally downloading music, which puts him on the radar of a not-so-mysterious pen pal known as Curious_George_Bush43! By the end of the season, President George W. Bush arrives at the family\u2019s doorstep, masquerading as Rumi\u2019s friend while barely concealing his sinister intentions.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s so great about getting to know his character through Rumi is that he just gets to be a mischievous adult, who at first is like, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m your pal,\u2019 until the other shoe drops,\u201d said Youssef. \u201cI think kids have that experience of adults: \u2018Hey, you\u2019re a really good kid. You get to do this, but first you got to do your homework,\u2019 or whatever the kid doesn\u2019t want to do. But in this case it\u2019s the President of the United States, and he wants to implicate this kid in his global fight on terror.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe also wanted to make sure we didn\u2019t present him in the way that he\u2019s just this boob and this puppet, because we all felt pretty clearly that he knew exactly what he was doing,\u201d said Brady. \u201cWe just wanted to show him being a bastard to Rumi, and show this guy is not your friend.\u201d<\/p>\n As for the central family, Brady said, \u201cThe thing that\u2019s funny about \u2018South Park\u2019 that people don\u2019t talk about that much is it\u2019s a story about four best friend boys. At its core, it\u2019s very sentimental \u2014 not in the bad way, but it\u2019s about friendship. That\u2019s why you can get crazy, because you buy their relationship. [This show,] at its core, it\u2019s showing the the bonds of the family.\u201d<\/p>\n Youssef likes to start broad with his humor and then add layers of specificity. He gives a perfect example: in the show\u2019s pilot, there is a crisis over where to bury Rumi\u2019s grandfather (Azhar Usman), a crisis which culminate in Uncle Ahmed (Elia) being arrested at the airport on the morning of September 11, 2001.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have this family that is so loving they really care where their dead relative is about to be buried, but then there\u2019s so much dysfunction that the body has to be stolen,\u201d he explained. \u201cThat is its own can of worms, before you even add on the layer that they\u2019re Arab and Muslim and add on what happens at the airport. What would it look like for this family to have a dead body at the airport on 9\/11? That is a very wild thread to connect, and is emblematic of the kind of things we try to pull off on the show.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that Youssef and Brady take pride in the show, as much as the artist\u2019s impulse often leans toward self-criticism. They\u2019ve also got the second season coming, and were thrilled to draw on a well of ideas that supplied both installments. Brady is happy with with the audience response, and hopeful that a show like this one won\u2019t always feel so radical. For Youssef, it\u2019s a welcome addition to a diverse body of work.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m finding that this animated show is sitting with different fans in different ways, and that\u2019s really cool,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are people who love \u2018Ramy,\u2019 and then there are other people who go, \u2018Yeah, \u201cRamy\u201d was OK, but I really like \u201cMo,\u201d\u2018 and then there\u2019s people who are like, \u2018Hey, this is my favorite thing you\u2019ve done.\u2019 I find all of that really exciting. You just get to learn more about different things that that can connect in different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c#1 Happy Family USA\u201d is now streaming on Prime Video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On June 5, the\u00a0IndieWire Honors\u00a0Spring 2025 ceremony\u00a0will celebrate the creators and stars\u00a0responsible for some of the most impressive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[64932,14010,64933,64934,466,17949,17946,382,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-152309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-1-happy-family-usa","9":"tag-awards","10":"tag-indiewire-honors","11":"tag-indiewire-honors-2025","12":"tag-interviews","13":"tag-pam-brady","14":"tag-ramy-youssef","15":"tag-tv","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114614257960596492","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Adam](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/P10R0AX.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"Niecy](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/P101GY2V.jpg\")
<\/a> <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/RMMY_S1_FG_105_00002703_Still002_3000_65db2d.jpg\")
\u2018#1 Happy Family USA\u2019Courtesy of Prime<\/p>\n![\"Salma](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/RMMY_S1_FG_01095018_Still0207_3000.jpg\")
\u2018#1 Happy Family USA\u2019Courtesy of Prime<\/p>\n