We Need to Talk About Emmy #20: ‘No1 Happy Family USA’ Co-Creator Pam Brady on crafting stories that resonate
Pam Brady, the co-creator and co-showrunner of '#1 Happy Family USA', joins us to share insights from her impressive career that includes hit projects like 'South Park' and 'Team America: World Police'.
Our conversation explores how comedy serves as her vehicle for tackling serious themes, inviting audiences to engage with poignant moments through laughter. Pam speaks passionately about her creative partnership with Ramy Youssef and the delicate balance they've struck between humor and heart while navigating cultural representation in their show.
We also dive into the evolution of her creative process, examining how the pandemic transformed collaborative writing and why maintaining authentic characters remains at the core of her storytelling approach.
(Photo: Courtesy of Valerie Terranova / Getty Images For Prime Video)
Transcript
You are listening to the we need to Talk About Oscar podcast and this is our conversation with Pam Brady, co creator and co showrunner of number one, Happy Family usa.
Speaker B:When you're a writer, there's like a little bit of you in all the characters, something you can relate to, something like you that kind of connects you to them separate from identity, separate from ethnicity, separate from anything.
Speaker B:Plus.
Speaker B:All right, so we do the interiority of his fear.
Speaker B:Then we can also do.
Speaker B:Because this kind of interests Rami and definitely interests me is like thinking about the larger world and thinking about like, well, a lot of ways, like how dumb sort of, you know, people in power can be.
Speaker A:It is so nice to meet you.
Speaker A:How's it going?
Speaker B:Nice to see you too, Aaron.
Speaker B:I'm good.
Speaker B:How are you doing?
Speaker A:I'm doing all right myself, thank you.
Speaker A:You've of course helped shape some of the most boundary pushing animated content of the past few decades with the likes of south park or Team America.
Speaker A:What initially intrigued you about collaborating with Ramy Yousef on number one, Happily Family usa?
Speaker A:Other than the obvious that he's pretty much one of the most talented, not only comedians but storytellers of his generation.
Speaker B:I think you just nailed it.
Speaker B:Like, that's where honestly, I met him because I was just a fan and I just wanted to meet him and I didn't think it was going to go anywhere else.
Speaker B:I mean, I, I loved his show so much.
Speaker B:I love to stand up and I basically beg my manager.
Speaker B:I'm like, please just put me in a room with him.
Speaker B:And not, not.
Speaker B:I had no agenda.
Speaker B:I just wanted to meet him because I think what he's doing, like, you, like you have picked up on, like, it's kind of a next level sort of comedy.
Speaker B:There are, you know, every once a while like a comedic voice comes along that's so brilliant and unique and I, I just wanted to kind of understand how his mind worked.
Speaker B:So that's how this happened.
Speaker B:So we met and he had this idea and he wanted to explore his childhood.
Speaker B:And so I'm like, well, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker B:What are we talking about?
Speaker B:So the second he was like, do you want to work on something?
Speaker B:I'm like, yes, yes, please.
Speaker B:And that, I mean, that's.
Speaker B:I, I just jumped at the chance to work with him.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But at the same time, I'd still have to give you your flowers since there must be something in you picking up on these things.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's nice of you to say.
Speaker B:That's why the joke was like, I should maybe I should have been a manager.
Speaker B:I can, I can definitely pick out talent, that is for sure.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But that's nice of you to say.
Speaker B:I mean, it's, it's.
Speaker B:It's like I, I'm always just super excited when, you know, I'm just like, I really do approach this a lot of times as a fan.
Speaker B:Like, I'm so excited when someone's doing something amazing that I just want to sort of learn how they do it.
Speaker A:Maybe the key is the earnestness, I think.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:And as someone who's been a part of, like I said, iconic creative partnerships and the decades of experience bringing these wide variety of ideas and projects to life, it's a big question and a little why, but how and when do you usually know that a working relationship like these might actually work?
Speaker B:Oh, that's so funny.
Speaker B:Like, with Rami, it was like in, like in our first meeting.
Speaker B:So within a half hour, our first meeting was just supposed to be like a quick, like, hey, like, how you doing?
Speaker B:And it was like a two and a half hour.
Speaker B:So I knew, like, it was like, sort of like I, I joke with them.
Speaker B:Like, it's a love at first sight.
Speaker B:I'm like, are we.
Speaker B:We falling in love?
Speaker B:What's happening here?
Speaker B:Because we just clicked so fast about just sensibility and just sort of like how we.
Speaker B:Even though we see the world really differently, like, we just, like, you know how sometimes you just.
Speaker B:You just click.
Speaker B:So, I mean, that was sort of the way it happened with him.
Speaker B:And I don't know.
Speaker B:My history with the south park guys is that I was an executive at Fox and I was trying to be a writer and I couldn't get a job.
Speaker B:And my boss at the time said, oh, we'll set up a writer's division.
Speaker B:You can be the boss of that if you can get some writers to work for no money.
Speaker B:And I'm like, that's.
Speaker B:You're on.
Speaker B:And I just graduated from college and I saw something that they had done on the MTV is the Big picture about college filmmakers.
Speaker B:And I called them up and I'm like, I'm a major Hollywood executive.
Speaker B:You might want to come out to Los Angeles and have a meeting.
Speaker B:And I, like, seriously, I just graduated from college, like, three months before.
Speaker B:I was kind of bullshitting them.
Speaker A:You know what's the greatest thing about it?
Speaker A:It's for free.
Speaker B:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker B:And then I.
Speaker B:And then I don't know if you, you know, in the, in the 90s, like, you know, Spago on Sunset was the place to go.
Speaker B:So I was like, well, where.
Speaker B:Where does anybody that's in Hollywood take anybody else that's in Hollywood?
Speaker B:And I'm like, we went to Spago.
Speaker B:So we're at Spago on a Saturday night, and we're just kind of looking at each other.
Speaker B:I'm like, I don't doing.
Speaker B:I've had this job.
Speaker B:So I think that's also the great lesson in life.
Speaker B:It was like, don't bullshit people.
Speaker B:If you can level with people and just tell them that's.
Speaker B:That's the best way to go.
Speaker A:And yeah, as for writers rooms, how did the collaborative environment on, for example, here, compared to your experiences on something like south park in the late 90s or Lady Dynamite, for example, a little under 10 years ago?
Speaker B:Well, I mean, the one huge difference was we worked through the pandemic, so there were.
Speaker B:We never met in person.
Speaker B:So that was a little weird.
Speaker B:But in a strange way also made us super focused.
Speaker B:Like, we.
Speaker B:We worked for three hours a day, like on a zoom.
Speaker B:So if you're working on stories for three hours a day on a zoom and you're always like, locked in normally in a writer's room.
Speaker B:Writers rooms are so fun because you're just kind of like, screwing around and you kind of can waste the whole day think about what to have for lunch.
Speaker B:So I think our writers room was more efficient and.
Speaker B:But I probably.
Speaker B:I mean, I think it's like I was at this point in my life where it's like, well, you don't really go to writers rooms now, like, make friends and all that good stuff, you know, like you do at the beginning of your career.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Such a great social outlet.
Speaker B:But I.
Speaker B:Our writers room was so good.
Speaker B:I mean, we had like, we had a lot of, like, you know, Muslim, you know, Arab writers.
Speaker B:We had non Muslim writers.
Speaker B:We had, you know, you know, Iraqi writers.
Speaker B:We.
Speaker B:I mean, we had just a completely, like, kind of diverse view of the world, which was super cool because a lot of things that, you know, culturally, some people take for granted, you know, about, like, oh, that Rami's dad used to buy phone cards, like knockoff phone cards.
Speaker B:Like, a bunch of us were like, wait, what?
Speaker B:You did what?
Speaker B:Yeah, we had a rush phone calls.
Speaker B:Like, we'd have to call, you know, back to Egypt, and if you didn't get all the information in, like, five minutes, you know, the dad would get, you know, Romney's dad and get mad or something.
Speaker B:But so what was great is that we never had to.
Speaker B:We never took for granted, people's experiences.
Speaker B:And then we got to do shows about that where we really explored it because, you know, we had to explain it.
Speaker B:So that was super fun.
Speaker B:It was a great writer's room.
Speaker A:Love it.
Speaker A: saying, I think it was around: Speaker A:So with that in mind, how have you and both your way of storytelling adapted to the different changes in the cultural landscape over time, throughout the decades?
Speaker B:That's a good question.
Speaker B:Like, I don't feel like we held back on anything on this show.
Speaker B:Like, it's less about what kind of jokes we could tell versus, like, oh, could we have sold the show now?
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B: I think we pitched in: Speaker B:And I'm trying to think, like, you know, over the stretch of south park, has there been stuff that we've pulled back on?
Speaker B:And, you know, I think south park has also earned.
Speaker B:Earned a place where they know, you know, the audience knows that this is coming from.
Speaker B:From a.
Speaker B:A decent place.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:I think that's all the comedy is about trust.
Speaker B:Especially if you're making jokes, like, about ethnic groups that you're not part of, then the ethnic group is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker B:Like, who's the in group?
Speaker B:It's always a question of the in group, you know, and, like, who.
Speaker B:You know, who's the.
Speaker B:Who's who's joke?
Speaker B:You know, like, are you making a joke at someone else's expense?
Speaker B:And I think that's.
Speaker B:I think that's just.
Speaker B:I don't know if it's a sensitivity, but I think.
Speaker B:I think you have to earn the trust.
Speaker B:You have to earn the trust.
Speaker B:And it's got to.
Speaker B:It's got to.
Speaker B:There's got to be a point.
Speaker B:You can't just start, like, lashing out at people.
Speaker B:So I don't know if my, like, approach to comedy per se has changed, but, like, I think I'm definitely more.
Speaker B:More conscious of who's the in group.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:I think that's sort of an interesting kind of notion.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Now that you mentioned the aspect of who is telling the story, because coming from a different culture background than the story being told, how do you even approach the idea of fitting in, while, of course, still aiming for adding value to the entire process of the storytelling?
Speaker B:Well, I think so much of it is just going back to the characters, like Trying to be true to the characters.
Speaker B:And this is a lot like, you know, Maria Bamford too, of just, you know, the way we told stories on Lady Dynamite is, is we were just, you know, she would tell us stories, she would tell us about her experiences and we would try to develop the shows, the episodes off of that.
Speaker B:So like, Rami would come in and other people come in and kind of tell stories about what their childhoods were like.
Speaker B:So in terms, and the more specific it was, the more we all could relate to it.
Speaker B:Even if I didn't grow up in an Egyptian first generation Egyptian family, you know, in New Jersey, I, you know, you still can relate to feeling, you know, a little bit like an outcast, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:The big feelings, the big human feelings are there, even if the specifics are, you know, a little different.
Speaker B:So I mean, hopefully that's what we, I mean, we tried to pull off in the show is we tried to make sure that the characters in the family were so real and so like funny and, you know, silly, but also like had sad moments.
Speaker B:Like, we tried to show the range, you know, and it was separate from them being like, oh, this is going to represent a Muslim family, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:That's secondary to me.
Speaker B:It's sort of like we don't want to stand for all Muslim families.
Speaker B:This is a very specific family that happens to be Muslim, you know.
Speaker A:Yeah, and that's the point because also this is an extremely personal story to Rami and not in a sense of taking the experience and the history and the memories from him, but you trying to make the story yours as well.
Speaker A:Is that a conscious process or more of a happens in a day by day type of thing?
Speaker B:Probably isn't conscious, it probably is unconscious.
Speaker B:But I think once the characters become real, then they do start talking, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:It's like you just imagine them in circumstances and you know what they're going to do.
Speaker B:If so you've done enough of the work of developing them.
Speaker B:So I think that's probably what I brought to it and maybe unconsciously also brought, you know, brought to the characters in terms of like, oh, what would Rami do in this situation?
Speaker B:I mean, I think each character, like when you're a writer, there's like a little bit of you in all the characters, something you can relate to.
Speaker B:Something like you that kind of connects you to them.
Speaker B:Separate from identity, separate from ethnicity, separate from anything.
Speaker B:That's why like a good writer should be able, like hopefully just inhabit, you know, anything Anybody.
Speaker B:So yeah, that was sort of the, the, the fun of it is just like creating characters that you really cared about and then just, and then torturing them.
Speaker B:Of course, that's the key to comedy.
Speaker B:We're really, you know, sadists if you think about it.
Speaker A:And as far as the animation style for the series goes, could you sort of walk me through the process that led to landing on the particular visual approach and maybe also how this process has changed throughout the years?
Speaker B:Well, we, I know that when we sort of approach the visual like design language for this show, we wanted to make people feel like this show could have existed in the 90s.
Speaker B:So we had a bunch of episode like a bunch of series that we use as touchstones like, like Doug or even King of the Hill to some extent.
Speaker B:But we wanted people to feel like, oh, this could have existed then.
Speaker B:But it also has the sophistication of being able to look back on an era knowing what we know now.
Speaker B:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker B:So we were really like, we definitely wanted to make sure that the lines weren't like super clean and polished.
Speaker B:We wanted to have a hand, like a handmade DIY kind of vibe.
Speaker B:And Mona Chalabi was the creative director and she designed all the characters with her team and the whole look of, you know, the show.
Speaker B:And we had an animation studio in Malaysia called Animasia which was really cool to have like in a Malaysian studio interpreting American sort of visuals.
Speaker B:And they did bring their, their spin to it, which was super meta and interesting because normally it's like America first.
Speaker B:We're put things through the American lens.
Speaker B:We're like, no, no, we're actually looking at America from a slightly.
Speaker B:We're looking at it with the wisdom of like 25 years and from sort of an outside America lens.
Speaker B:And I think that kind of gave the show a kind of a cool feeling.
Speaker A:In your experience, what storytelling possibilities does animation open up that might be constrained in the reality of live action, especially when dealing with culturally specific content?
Speaker B:Well, I think one big thing and the show really is seen through the eyes of 12 year old Ramy Yousef.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So it's is his character Rumi, he's just a kid, he's going through puberty.
Speaker B:That's a scary time.
Speaker B:And we wanted the audience to sort of feel what he was going through and sort of.
Speaker B:So to get the sense of interiority, you know, we can sort of show him like he, he acts his whole family sort of has a different visual language inside the house and outside the house.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, so you couldn't do this in live action, where you sort of like as soon as the dad walks across the threshold, like, his beard pops out.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:And like, so we could exaggerate.
Speaker B:I think that's the thing about animation is that you can exaggerate truths and it kind of hits you in a different way.
Speaker B:And you can't really exaggerate truths in live action, if that makes sense.
Speaker B:There has to be like a slight abstraction in order to do that.
Speaker B:So then that's what's fun with this.
Speaker B:Plus all right, so we do the interiority of his fear.
Speaker B:Then we can also do.
Speaker B:Because this kind of interests Rami and I definitely interest me is like, thinking about the larger world and thinking about like, well, a lot of ways, like in just like how.
Speaker B:How dumb sort of, you know, people in power can be.
Speaker B:And, you know, it's fun to do that in animation too.
Speaker B:You know, Stanley Kubrick's the only one that really could do satire with like, Dr.
Speaker B:Strangelove in live action.
Speaker B:You know, it's just, you know, especially in the second season, we get into George W.
Speaker B:Bush, we get into the war on terror, we get into Condi Rice, Rumi becomes George W.
Speaker B:Bush's pen pal.
Speaker B:So then you just, just.
Speaker B:And I just feel like hopefully in the first season we've earned the, you know, the.
Speaker B:The audience's trust that these people are real.
Speaker B:So that when we go to really take things into absurd, you know, levels that you're with it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:What's incredibly fascinating to me is because, of course, on the audience's side, I know what difference does it make when we get to witness more emotionally loaded sequences, subjects, et cetera, in the form of animation.
Speaker A:But I'd like to ask you about what difference does it make on the creative side of the medium that we're.
Speaker B:Willing to go to sort of these more emotionally?
Speaker B:Yeah, well, I mean, I think, like, I really took my.
Speaker B:My sort of sort of cues from sort of Rami and his style of comedy where he will go to sort of these heartbreaking.
Speaker B:He will take it to a heartbreaking place and be.
Speaker B:And have an honest, raw moment there, which I think for a comedian is like a very brave thing to do, because I think most people get into comedy because they don't want to dwell in the honest, raw parts.
Speaker B:You're like, haha.
Speaker B:We're like, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:We're making jokes because the feeling is there.
Speaker B:But I think what's so unique about How Rami does it is that he'll do the crazy jokes and hilarious stuff, but he'll also take you there and just let you sit in, maybe an uncomfortable emotion.
Speaker B:Not bittersweet, but more heartbreaking.
Speaker B:And that was sort of like, what was fun for me because I.
Speaker B:I mean, I did that.
Speaker B:Like, I hope, like, I worked on that a little bit, because I think Maria Bamford kind of is that kind of a talent, too.
Speaker B:But it's not something that comes naturally to me.
Speaker B:Like, to me, I would, like, skate.
Speaker B:Skate past all the heartbreaking stuff, like how I can make it funny.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I think that's what's unique about Ramy and why I totally wanted to work with him.
Speaker B:And I think the show does do that.
Speaker B:Like, it does balance this, like, super insane dumb humor and comedy with reality and heartbreaking moments.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:And that's like.
Speaker B:And, like, you know.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because then that gut punch hits even harder.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:But there is a way back.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Always.
Speaker B:Yeah, there's always a way back.
Speaker B:Like, you can always use comedy to sort of build yourself back up and.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think that's ultimately, like, what Rumi's character is all about.
Speaker B:Like, he's going through hell, but it's because he can sort of laugh at stuff that, you know, it's like a survival mechanism.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:As far as casting goes for the voice actors, with, once again, how personal the stories to Rami in that scenario, Are you there to balance that out so that the characters and the voice actors are fitting together, or how did that work for you guys?
Speaker B:Well, it's funny.
Speaker B:I think we just wanted to get amazing actors because, you know, I think if you.
Speaker B:If you play it for real.
Speaker B:If you play the part for real and commit to it, it's, like, super funny.
Speaker B:So, like, Alia Shawkap, we.
Speaker B:We wrote the Mona part for her.
Speaker B:We knew, you know, so her voice was even in our head as we were writing.
Speaker B:And then thinking about FBI Dan, Timothy Oliphant, who lives across the tree.
Speaker B:He's such a great actor, and he played his part pretty heartbreaking because it's a.
Speaker B:It's an FBI guy.
Speaker B:He's got a drinking problem.
Speaker B:He lost his family.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And he's a little lonely.
Speaker B:So it's like, you know, we didn't want to play that just as, like.
Speaker B:Like, all shucks.
Speaker B:Like a joke guy.
Speaker B:It's so funny because he fully commits to it.
Speaker B:I mean, that's in Kieran Culkin, you know, as the dentist Right.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And Mandy Moore.
Speaker B:And Mandy Moore was just amazing for so many.
Speaker B:I mean, Mandy Moore's hilarious, and she's also amazing because she was, you know, like, she was of the 90s.
Speaker B:You know, this is.
Speaker B:She's an icon.
Speaker B:So we sort of got to revisit her fame, you know, through this lens.
Speaker B:And that's sort of.
Speaker B:We had a lot of fun with that.
Speaker B:Of just, like, also thinking about, like, oh, you know, who do we want to.
Speaker B:Who do we want to think about?
Speaker B:It's sort of just like having the benefit of a time machine.
Speaker B:So anyway, many more super comedic genius.
Speaker B:So funny.
Speaker A:I mean, who isn't in this cast?
Speaker B:And we also have the benefit of, like, when you have Rami Yousef calling people, that makes life a lot easier.
Speaker B:Everybody wants to.
Speaker B:It's the physics of stars.
Speaker B:You know, stars attract other stars.
Speaker A:What I'd really like to ask you about is how you've talked about the future plans of a second season and so on.
Speaker A:And I'm sure that among the successful series and films we've talked about earlier, other than those, there are not so happy stories.
Speaker A:So how do you go about planning for the future, planning ahead?
Speaker B:Well, we've done two seasons, so we've got the second season already.
Speaker B:And I think when you're just in a writer's room, we always just, like, come out, you know, come up with ideas, and you always just kind of put them aside.
Speaker B:I'm just like, well, that's third season.
Speaker B:Oh, that's fourth season.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That go me that Rumi will get involved in, you know, the Bush administration.
Speaker B:The second.
Speaker B:You know, the second four years of Bush administration.
Speaker B:I mean, I think it's always in the back of your mind, but you don't want to be presumptuous.
Speaker B:You're like, oh, let's.
Speaker B:Let's put what we have out there.
Speaker B:Hopefully it connects with the audience, and then we can make more.
Speaker B:But then, you know, there's a part of me like, I don't want to jinx ourselves, but God willing, we will get to tell more.
Speaker B:More stories.
Speaker A:Yeah, because it's like, there is, of course, balance to find there, as well as in, you don't want to shoot all your shots in your sure seasons, but at the same time, you want to make those good enough so that you can make the ones to come for sure.
Speaker B:And we feel like these.
Speaker B:These characters, like, have started, like, kind of, you know, behaving on their own for us.
Speaker B:Like, that's what starts happening once you start writing for characters, you're like, oh, no, there's more stuff to go.
Speaker B:Like, you know, Rami's going to go to Islamic school.
Speaker B:Like, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, it's just there are so many things to do.
Speaker B:There's so many great characters in that family that if we got more seasons, we would.
Speaker B:Yeah, I don't think, I don't think we'd have any problems coming up with more stories.
Speaker B:Plus, we're just sort of scratched the surface in terms of, like, our, like, side passion, which is a way to look at the world and look at America and where we are now by examining that era of time, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:And I don't think you could write a show, look at South Park.
Speaker B:You can go forever and think about what's going on in the world.
Speaker B:The world is so insane.
Speaker B:There's no end for the, you know, for the stories that we could tell.
Speaker A:And then you think there are no more surprises left.
Speaker A:Then guess what?
Speaker B:Yeah, guess what.
Speaker B:But, you know, it has made satire sort of hard.
Speaker B:You know, you're like, wait a minute, like, you can't even tell if sort of anything like, on online is like, is it an Onion article or, or is this like, the Trump administration is going to tariff China 146%?
Speaker B:You're like, 146%.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:You know, it's just we're in an era of madness, which, you know, always makes things interesting.
Speaker B:It's a challenge for comedy, but we accept the challenge.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Of course there's difference in fiction and autobiographical, semi autobiographical and then real life.
Speaker B:Well, but when your stock and trade is like, oh, absurdity, and what's going on is already absurd, it's like, huh, thanks a lot.
Speaker B:It makes it, it makes it interesting.
Speaker A:But I feel like these are the exact type of series films we need in these times because we can always use a laugh.
Speaker B:I agree.
Speaker B:I agree.
Speaker B:I mean, and yeah, I hope you're right, because I, I, yeah, I, I think the worst thing to do now is, like, you know, do the finger wag and, like, this is how it should be because, like, nobody cares.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's just like, you know, let's, let's laugh at it.
Speaker B:Because when you laugh at it, you know, you take away the power of something.
Speaker B:So I think, and I think that's the healthiest thing to do.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Thank you so, so much for your time.
Speaker A:This was an absolute pleasure.
Speaker B:Oh, thank you.
Speaker B:It was so nice talking to.
