Pam Brady on ‘South Park,’ ‘Smurfs’ and Her New Ramy Youssef Animated Comedy

Pam Brady is a comedy writer’s comedy writer, her Hollywood career starting in the mid-1990s. If you don’t recognize her name, you know her credits: She was integral to the early years of South Park — she was also co-writer of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and Team America: World Police — and she wrote the cult classic Hot Rod and co-created the Maria Bamford sitcom Lady Dynamite. And if all that wasn’t enough, she’s got stories about Robert Evans, the notorious producer and studio head responsible for some of the great American movies of the 1970s, like The Godfather. That’s what she wants to talk about first when we meet up over Zoom.

“I did the animated show Kid Notorious,” she says, referring to the short-lived 2003 Comedy Central sitcom that featured Evans as the swaggering main character. “I had to quit before we even animated the second episode because it was such madness. It was kind of everything you would’ve expected from a Robert Evans production. He brought in his coke dealer at one point to be the executive producer — I was the executive producer, I was showrunner. We were recording, and he said, ‘I brought in Joey, he took a whack at the script last night.’ It was just so insane — that’s when I knew I had to leave.”

Brady laughs as she tells this story, the warmest, friendliest laugh in the world emanating from her. “What an experience,” she says fondly. Referring to the egos and weirdos who run Hollywood, Brady adds, “It’s fun.”

The Emmy-winner clearly had a lot of fun on her new show as well, which she co-created with Ramy Youssef. #1 Happy Family USA, which premieres on Prime Video on April 17th, draws from Youssef’s memories of growing up as a kid in New Jersey after the 9/11 attacks, Muslims families like his suddenly becoming the target of dangerous xenophobia based on fear and ignorance. This animated satire features Youssef as the voice of the preteen Rumi and his grumpy dad Hussein, who desperately wants to Americanize his family so they can blend in. (Spoiler alert: That plan backfires, again and again, in comedic fashion.) But although funny and profane, #1 Happy Family USA is also a time capsule of a moment in which American society changed forever — the paranoia, cruelty and bigotry the show mocks is, sadly, still with us today. 

Obviously, Brady is quite familiar with working in animation. (In fact, she’s a writer or co-writer on two big animated family movies hitting theaters later this year, Smurfs and The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.) But #1 Happy Family USA is closer in spirit to South Park in its dissection of hypocrisy and its love of four-letter words. I was curious how one writer could be so comfortable writing in worlds so seemingly diametrically opposed: one filthy, one wholesome. We chatted about that, as well as making a sitcom about a Muslim family and why she’s never felt totally comfortable in the real world.

When you and Ramy Youssef first met about this show, he brought up “Strawberries,” the episode of Ramy in which Osama bin Laden shows up in a flashback dream sequence. #1 Happy Family USA springs from that, but how did the two of you figure out what the shape of the show would be?

It’s just riffing. I loved (Ramy) and I loved that episode, the flashback to the kids. So I understood his vision. He said, “Well, here’s what I’d like to do, I’d like to make it about the family.” I grew up on the East Coast, so I know Hackensack, I know Bergen County. It wasn’t so formalized — it really is talking to someone and going, “Oh, they could do this, they could do this,” and then you just keep going, which is the most fun for a collaborative partner. 

We kept talking, and then the shape of the pilot started popping up. Ramy always had this idea in the back of his head that the pilot, at its core, the grandfather dies and they’re rushing to get his body to Egypt (right before) 9/11. It was just a question of “All right, let’s flesh it out, let’s talk it through.” I was such a fan of his that we were in sync immediately — we thought the same things were funny and the same things were heartbreaking. We cared about the same stuff.

Because you’ve done so much work in animation, did you sell him on the idea that #1 Happy Family USA would work better that way?

I never thought I was selling him on anything — he was already going there. In the (initial) conversation, it was just so obvious that animation was the way to go because we were talking about how to show a 12-year-old’s fear. How do you show his interior life? How can we get him involved in the larger War on Terror? How do we do that satire stuff? By the time we sat down, I think he was already thinking, “Well, maybe she could be someone to work with.”

What keeps you coming back to animation?

I just love animation. You can do wizards — you can have (Rumi’s) lamb talk. I don’t think I see the world in a super-serious way — I think comedy has saved my sanity. I want to live in an aspirational world where the animals talk or anything can happen — a fantasy world. I think the joke is, I don’t know how to write real people. (laughs) But what’s so funny is I actually think the family in #1 Happy Family USA is probably some of the most grounded characters I’ve ever worked on. 

South Park is so much more grounded than people give it credit for being. There’ve been situations where people are like, “Check out this new show — it’s just like South Park!” and it’s just people cursing the filthiest stuff. Not like I’m a prude or anything. (laughs) But the thing people don’t realize about South Park is there’s so much heart in (the show) and in everything Trey and Matt do. It’s about these four kids — they love each other, but they’re boys and they screw with each other. Without that, none of the craziness works. In a weird way, when I worked on the Lady Dynamite show, that was more of a cartoon than (#1 Happy Family USA).

In the early days of South Park, did it take a little while to realize that the show needed that emotional underpinning?

Trey and Matt always knew that — especially Trey. He always said, “What’s the boys’ story? What’s the simple story? They want a video game. They want to skip school and see a movie — that’s enough.” He was so clear about that — he’s so good at making his stuff have heart. It seems easy to do, but he’s so in touch with the kid in him that it’s a hundred-percent real. 

Did you find it fun to write in the voice of those boys?

I have a brother. And I don’t know what this weird thing is, but I love watching pro football — I love watching guys hug each other. Male affection to me is so sweet. (There aren’t) that many outlets that are deemed socially acceptable, but football guys patting each other and hugging each other — I always thought that was cute. I totally got those kids and their world.

Obviously for Youssef, #1 Happy Family USA is coming from a personal place. But is there something personal in this show for you? Where is Pam in here?

There’s a piece of all of us writers in each of the characters. Everybody feels like a little bit of an outsider at some point in their life, even if it’s not because 9/11 just happened and you’re Muslim. 

It’s also funny having gone through 9/11 and doing a South Park episode about it — it was like a Bugs Bunny takeoff. It’s funny now to be able to go back as a full-fledged adult and look back and almost do a meditation on it. I feel the struggle of Sharia trying to mix in — she’s just like, “I’m going to double down on my spirituality.” Everybody’s reacting to this national trauma in a personal way — I could relate to all that. 

So, what’s that perspective give you? Being so far removed from 9/11, what do you see now that you didn’t back then?

The best comedy comes at your own expense and realizing how stupid you were at the time. (Back then) I was very fearful — I remember at one point thinking, “The neocons, that sounds pretty good!” (laughs) The country went through this moment of madness — it really was a scary situation. Being able to look back at it, hopefully we’re making fun of ourselves. 

You remember Diane Sawyer interviewed Britney Spears (in 2003), and it was just a really gross interview? I remember seeing it in real time and just going, “Yeah, ask her the tough questions” — I don’t think I was very sympathetic at all of how we destroyed female pop stars. South Park did an episode about how wrong that was. But I think now, being able to go back, you’re like, “Oh, this is how we devoured people.” We’re definitely making progress in terms of how female artists are treated — I still think we got a little ways to go.

I don’t think I put politics or a take on the world first (when I’m writing) — I hope I’m thinking about characters first. But (Youssef and I) wanted to talk about, “Well, how did we get here?” without being ham-fisted and obvious and just go back to “Oh, it all started here.” The surveillance state started here — I remember the Patriot Act came out, and I was like, “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea…” In the back of my mind, maybe I knew I was being a coward. But that’s ultimately what’s good about comedy: I’m never who I wish I could be. So it’s being able to go, “Our fearful foreign policy started there. The way we turned on our own citizens started there.” It really has metastasized to where it is now. 

Because of the period in which the show is set, you can’t really talk about the Trump presidency. Do you wish you could?

I don’t know how to approach Trump as a subject, as a point of satire. He’s beyond satire — I think he is satire. I think he is the Joker. I think he spins everything. It’s more interesting to see him in a causal chain, if that makes sense — it diminishes him. That’s why it’s fun to focus on the early-2000s because you can make commentary about what’s going on now without hitting it on the head. And I don’t know how I would hit it on the head — maybe that’s a cop-out. But we don’t want to be like, “This is the way to think about stuff.” We’ll just point out stuff we think is dumb. Smarter people than us will come and bring stuff to it. That’s really all we can do.

As a white woman, how do you approach writing comedy about a Muslim family whose culture is very different from yours but is often the butt of the joke?

That was something we really tried to gauge when we were meeting writers for the writers’ room. We were like, “We’re going to say things that aren’t going to be cool sometimes. Not that it’s coming from a negative place, but we want to be free to say anything.” Basically, it was like being on a text thread with your friends: “Oh, would you want that published? No, no, no.” It was so everybody in our writers’ room felt safe with everybody. 

I mean, I was the butt of a lot of jokes, being the white woman. (The other writers talked about) “the power of white woman tears.” I’m like, “Wait, what?” They’re like, “Oh yeah, if a white woman cries in public, things start happening — people make sure that stops.” (Note: This observation is a plot point in one of the first season’s episodes.) It’s cool to be on the other side of that. It’s about being able to laugh at yourself. Look, middle-aged white women haven’t acquitted ourselves super-great in the last few years. (laughs) That’s okay, I’ll take the hit for my cohort. 

Cancel culture is talked about a lot these days. You’ve discussed it a little recently, but I wondered: Do you think your own radar for what’s inappropriate has changed as you’ve gotten older?

I was probably more reckless when I was younger, just in terms of, “Let’s see what we can do,” although I’m a very cowardly person. When we did the South Park episode with a portrayal of Muhammad, I was like, “Don’t do it. Don’t do it.” 

It’s been an interesting evolution (in comedy) of “What can you do? What can’t you do?” Basically, you come down to the idea of “If there’s a point and something’s funny and it’s a little controversial, do it — but don’t do stuff just to push buttons.” I don’t feel like that’s ever been the thing that’s been exciting for me, just getting people aggravated. I am trying to avoid conflict — I’m not trying to get a bunch of people pissed off at me at all. That’s not exciting. I just want to see, “Is there something funny in here that people haven’t made fun of before?” It’s never coming down hard on either a group or a person. 

The times have changed, but I don’t think it’s one of those things of “Oh god, comedy stinks now because you can’t say this and you can’t say that.” No, it’s just more people have gotten a voice in the in-group.

Do you have a friend — say, a personal Jiminy Cricket — that you turn to? “Hey, do you think this joke is over the line?”

Honestly, it’s probably project-specific. If something happens in the room, you can feel from the other writers, “That (joke) shouldn’t happen.” With network television, there’s definitely been a bunch of pushback. I don’t know what’s been pushed back on South Park, but they’ve kind of earned themselves a special carve-out. It’s amazing now that they can have jokes at people’s expense, and they’ll get a letter from Steven Spielberg that says, “Hey, guys saw the recent episode — you got me!” 

But I don’t really have a person I check with — maybe I’m delusional, but I don’t really think that what I’m working on is that controversial.

You also wrote Smurfs, which is coming out this summer. That’s, obviously, meant for a mainstream family audience. Still, even in that PG world, do you think, “What can I get away with?”

Not in terms of filthy jokes or anything like that, but in terms of “Oh, let’s make it as weird as possible.” My first draft of the script was pretty weird, and it was definitely supported. Ramsey Naito runs Nickelodeon and Paramount Animation, and she worked back at South Park — she hired me, so she knew what I’d do. 

We’re trying to answer the question, “What is a Smurf? Where did they come from?” And the answer is kind of trippy. That’s just as satisfying to me as it is to be satirical or politically relevant — being able to take an iconic franchise and being like, “We’re going to play with the canon a little bit.” I don’t think it’s subversive — to me, it’s fun because I take the Smurfs super-seriously. I love Smurfs. I’m not laughing at them — I’m psyched to be writing (this movie).

The wholesomeness of the Smurfs has always made them the subject of snarky adolescent sexual humor: “Wait, there’s only one girl Smurf in that entire village? How does that work, exactly?” Does your movie lean into the naughty innuendo? The tone is more the South Park tone, or even Book of Mormon tone, where it’s “Aw, shucks.” We follow characters that are innocent and then you put them in a real world. We want to make sure that the lens isn’t dirty — it’s more the juxtaposition of “Oh, the world’s insane” when you look at it through a childlike lens.

On one side of your career, you’ve got South Park and #1 Happy Family USA. On the other, you’ve got something far more family-friendly like Smurfs. Which comedy guise is more true to who you are?

We all contain multitudes, but deep down Smurfs does feel like something I really do connect to. (laughs) I don’t think I really exist in the real world — I want to live in a world where I’m looking in the shrubs and (thinking), “Will a Smurf pop out?” And I do think South Park does have that kind of vibe where it’s sort of a fantasy land. Even though the real world comes crashing in on these kids, there’s a sweetness to it. Maybe it’s naive, but that’s how I am — I feel like I stumble through the world where I’m just like, “I don’t have a hundred-percent clue of what’s going on.”

I understand what you’re saying but, seriously, South Park is incredibly filthy!

It’s easy to be filthy when you start with sweetness. But, yeah, that’s the stuff that probably would’ve been funny in fourth grade on the bus. I don’t think my humor’s evolved that much — the same stuff that I laughed at then is still super-funny now.