The Fuccons Oh! Mikey

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.