The creator and star discusses his new Prime Video series that delves into family dynamics and post-9/11 commentary, and why animation was the ideal medium to revisit early 2000s America through the lens of a Muslim family navigating surveillance, economic stress, and cultural misunderstandings with humor and honesty.
For Ramy Youssef, ideas first developed during Season 1 of his 3-time Emmy nominated live-action series, Ramy, continued to resonate with him for some time. Thinking back to when he was a kid in the early 2000s for a particular episode, Youssef came up with all sorts of stories reflecting that time in the U.S., right after 9/11, when America’s relationship with its Muslim communities underwent a monumental, “critical” reassessment. Stories he felt that really hadn’t been touched on in entertainment. Stories told from a Muslim perspective. Stories that have now coalesced in an all-new adult animated series, #1 Happy Family USA, that debuted April 17 on Prime Video - to considerable critical acclaim.
From Amazon MGM Studios, A24, and Cairo Cowboy, and created by Youssef with co-showrunner Pam Brady, the show follows the maniacally upbeat Husseins - “the most patriotic, most peaceful, and most definitely-not-suspicious Muslim family in post-9/11 “Amreeka” - as they navigate a landscape shaped by fear, misunderstanding, and economic strain.
The series stars Youssef (Ramy, Poor Things), Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development, Blink Twice), Mandy Moore (This is Us), Timothy Olyphant (Justified), Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain, Succession), Salma Hindy (Roast Battle Canada), Randa Jarrar (Ramy), Chris Redd (Saturday Night Live), Akaash Singh (Flagrant Podcast), Paul Elia (Ramy, Detroit Player) and Whitmer Thomas (Friendship, The Golden One). Mona Chalabi, Andy Campagna, Josh Rabinowitz, and A24 also executive produce.
Enjoy the trailer:
In conversation with AWN, Youssef discussed the show’s origin, its unique animation style, personal themes, and potentially touchy, even divisive premise and themes.
“The idea started while we were making an episode in the first season of Ramy,” he recalls. “It tapped into this young character’s point of view from 20 years ago. There was this flood of stories I had written out to shape the episode, and I realized this was a whole unexplored period of time. It became clear that this was a series.”
As the project evolved, it became clear animation was the right format. “We had quite a time trying to figure out how to cast kids,” Youssef says. “And we found great kids, but you know, kids grow up. Animated kids don’t grow up unless you draw them to.”
Asked why animation, Youssef says animation allowed the creative team to address serious topics with a tone that encourages both reflection and detachment.
“I think so many of the things we do in this show would be almost impossible to pull off in live-action,” he explains. “There is something to the way these characters are drawn that brings warmth and emotion but also signals from the start - ‘this is a cartoon.’ It should not be taken literally. And yet, you can do really profound things under the guise of things that feel inherently silly.”
He adds, “I hadn’t seen a lot of shows use this format to explore the weight of post-9/11 life in America from a Muslim family’s point of view. It felt like the right way to do something that is very timely for where we are right now.”
The series engages directly with themes of Islamophobia, American identity, and economic anxiety. Asked what he hopes audiences take away, Youssef shares, “I’m hoping they fall in love with this family. In a lot of ways, they just want what any American family wants. But they’re also crushed by the same things - finances, pressure, the need to belong. The pilot episode is essentially about being crushed by money. Our character Rumi wears a counterfeit jersey that fits like a dress. The dad hands out energy bills at breakfast. That kind of stress - everyone’s feeling it.”
Youssef believes the show will resonate across cultural lines. “People who’ve never heard Arabic outside the news might watch this and find something new. And people who are first, second, third-generation immigrants will see their families reflected. A lot of it is exaggerated, because it’s a cartoon, but it’s rooted in something real.”
Despite the politically sensitive subject matter, Youssef says the creative team faced little pushback.
“We’re putting out the show we wanted to put out,” he says. “It’s pretty unfiltered. We go there - but not to be sensational. We push because it feels like the right thing to do, and not because we’re trying to provoke anyone. There’s a lot of care in how we approached the material, and I think anyone watching can see that.”
He credits Prime Video and A24 for giving the team creative freedom. “They were really great partners in helping us do that. They supported the show we dreamed of making and got to experiment with.”
The show’s look was also key to grounding the tone. “We experimented a lot,” Youssef says. “We didn’t want it to feel like modern computer animation. We wanted that hand-drawn nostalgia - like it actually came out in the era it’s depicting.”
Mona Chalabi, who helped define the character design, was instrumental. “She brought warmth, emotion, and vibrancy. It’s something she does in her work as a journalist, and she carried that into how the characters and world were designed.”
The animation was handled by Malaysian studio Anima. “We didn’t want this to look like a show animated in a modern computer animation style. So, in order to get the older, nostalgic, hand-drawn look we wanted, we had to get older computers just to handle the workflow,” Youssef notes. “That definitely added time. But it was important to preserve the visual style we wanted.”
As a newcomer to animation production, Youssef encountered a steep learning curve.
“With animation, you’re looking at what basically looks like stick figures for a long time,” he says. “You have to imagine how it’s going to look later. But the animatic process gives you a few rounds to add jokes, revise dialogue, and really shape the story. That’s a kind of flexibility we don’t get in live-action.”
Youssef hopes viewers are open to both the satire and the humanity behind the show. “There are so many connection points in this show. People might be surprised by what they recognize. Everyone’s trying to find a good slice of life for their family. That’s the core of it.”
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
