The Fuccons Oh! Mikey (2002)

The Fuccons began as a series of comic sketches on the Japanese TV program Vermillion Pleasure Night: A family of Americans, James and Barbara and their son Mikey, move to Japan "to live as Japanese." The brief skits consist of still photographs of window store dummies in Kennedy-era outfits juxtaposed with over-the-top vocal performances and lots of forced laughter. The humor is labored and inane; the dummies--obviously a Japanese take on Caucasians--recall the American cartoons of the 1930s that trafficked in ethnic stereotypes. Graduate students in sociology may someday write theses about what The Fuccons reveals about Japanese attitudes towards Americans; connoisseurs of outré cultural phenomena may revel in the series' we're-so-dumb-we're-hip charms. Episodes run the gamut from the silly to the surreal, sometimes ending with a joke and sometimes not. Episodes invariably end with the characters laughing hysterically, even if the episode ends on a serious note. Occasionally the series diverts from following the Fuccons and instead focuses on a destitute Japanese family, the Kawakitas.