The Fuccons

The Fuccons, known in Japan as Oh! Mikey (オー！マイキー, Ō! Maikī) and Fuccon Family (フーコン・ファミリー, Fūkon Famirī), is a series of Japanese comedy sketches created by Yoshimasa Ishibashi. It features a family of American expatriates ("The Fuccons") living in metropolitan Japan. The series is notable in that all of the characters are played by mannequins with perpetually frozen facial expressions. They appear to have been borrowed from the subjects of numerous photographs by the French photographer Bernard Faucon.

The Fuccons
Left to right: Barbara Fuccon, Blueberry King, Mikey Fuccon, James Fuccon from the episode "Rags to Riches."
Japaneseオー!マイキー
GenreSurreal comedy, sitcom
Created byYoshimasa Ishibashi
Country of originJapan
Production
Running time3 minutes
Release
Original networkTV Tokyo
External links
Website
Production website

Individual sketches first aired on the Japanese late night variety show Vermilion Pleasure Night, later moving to their own late Saturday night time slot.[1] The collected sketches are also available on DVD, with the American ADV Films release being retitled The Fuccons and including English-dubbed versions of the episodes, in addition to the Japanese-language originals. As of December 2008, ADV has released a complete collection of the series, called "The Fuccons: The Whole Fuccon Show", (previously available as three volumes of The Fuccons plus a "Volume 0" sampler), as well as three volumes of the original Vermillion Pleasure Night (which includes additional Oh! Mikey segments), one of which includes the feature-length "best of" film, The Color of Life, in which the Fuccons appear.

The Fuccons aired in the U.S. on the G4 network, as part of G4's Late Night Peepshow which was broadcast every Monday night at 12:30am. The show also aired on Anime Network in the US. The Fuccons is streaming on Hidive, the streaming service of ADV's successor company, Sentai Filmworks.[2]

Overview

The Fuccons revolves around Mikey Fuccon, a young American boy who lives in Japan with his parents James and Barbara Fuccon, after James was recently transferred to Japan. Episodes run the gamut from the silly to the surreal, sometimes ending with a joke and sometimes not, and 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; these episodes, unlike most of the others in the series, are generally serious in tone.

Each sketch runs for around 2 and a half minutes long for a total of 162 episodes.

Major characters
  • Mikey Fuccon - Kind-hearted, impressionable, and somewhat dim-witted, Mikey is the main protagonist of the series. Mikey is very loyal to his friends; in one episode Mikey risks his life to save both Emily and Laura from drowning (even though he cannot swim). He usually tries to address his problems with a smile and look on the bright side of life.
  • James and Barbara Fuccon - Mikey's parents. Both American, they met in Japan while James was working as a caretaker and Barbara had an office job—apparently for the same company. One episode reveals they married after she became pregnant with Mikey, after which they returned to the United States. They come back to Japan when James was transferred to an unspecified job with a Japanese firm; Barbara no longer appears to have a career but has become a housewife. The two appear to have a strained relationship at times, and the Anniversary episode reveals that Barbara once caught James in bed with another woman. Several episodes, however, show James hurrying home (almost instantly) in order to help his wife with some dilemma. As the series progresses, James becomes more of a self-centered womanizer (with eyes for everyone from Mikey's tutor to Emily's mom) while Barbara becomes quicker to anger and more paranoid about potentially being replaced. The couple often give contradictory life lessons to their son, and in "Rags to Riches" kick Mikey out of the house and consider allowing the Blueberry King, a visiting dignitary, to adopt him.
  • Laura - Mikey's cousin, who acts like an adult trapped in a child's body. Perpetually bored and frustrated with being a kid, she is madly in love with Mikey (despite being a close relative), but alternates between being protective of him and being manipulative, continually threatening to leave Japan and return to America. In other episodes she is seen trying to mould Emily into her own image.
  • Emily - Mikey's girlfriend, who is learning the ways of manipulation from Laura, although she is considerably more kind-hearted and openly warm than Laura. A running gag throughout the series is that Mikey and Emily will breakup in an episode, then several episodes later be back together although their reconciliations aren't shown. Emily's mother was James' first girlfriend.
  • Brown - Emily's older brother, a fledgling filmmaker who has a crush on Barbara Fuccon. He is shown aiding Laura in her schemes to win Mikey's heart (or toy with him, as the case may be).
  • Teacher Bob and Bob-Mama - Rarely seen away from his mother, Bob is Mikey's schoolteacher at the American school, who is so shy that he usually communicates only by whispering to his domineering mother (known as Bob-Mama) who interprets. They often get into arguments and Bob-Mama occasionally tries to play match-maker for her son.
  • Tony and Charles, The Twins - a pair of British students who continually contradict each other and who often come across as rude to the point where Mikey eventually wants nothing to do with them. Their mother occasionally appears alongside her twin sister, with whom she has a similarly contradictory relationship. The twins' manner of speech sometimes annoys Mikey and especially gets on Laura's nerves, as it is shown that the twins do not take any of Laura's insults.
  • Princess Isabella of the Blueberry Kingdom - a rich girl from a faraway land who is featured in a story arc in which Mikey becomes engaged to marry her after the Blueberry King tries to adopt him by paying James and Barbara a large sum of money.
  • The Kawakitas - the antithesis of the Fuccons, the Kawakitas are a Japanese family (husband, wife, and one son) who used to be successful in the restaurant business, but now the father is unemployed and both parents are alcoholic and perpetually lazy, prone to forget things like their son's birthday. The Kawakita episodes are more serious in tone than most Oh! Mikey episodes.
  • Time Boy - a classmate of Mikey's who is obsessed with keeping to a schedule.
  • Tracy - Mikey's sexy 20-something private tutor, who is more interested in teaching Mikey "the lesson of love" than his homework.

Partial list of sketches

The Fuccon Family:

  • Moving In
  • After Arriving Back From An Amusement Park
  • Mikey's Kidnapping
  • A Marital Dispute
  • Dad's Affair
  • Peeping Mikey
  • Mikey's Illness
  • Moving Away
  • Mikey's Confession
  • Mikey's Run Away From Home
  • Mikey's Exorcism
  • Mikey's Brother
  • The Return of the Fuccon Family
  • Let's Go For a Drive
  • Growing Mikey
  • New Dad
  • Mikey's Birthday
  • Good-bye, Fuccon Family

1st:

  • The Start of Our Life in Japan
  • The Teacher's Visit
  • The Teacher's Visit Continued...
  • Mikey's Cousin
  • Mikey Goes Shopping
  • Mikey and the Twins
  • The Twins' Visit
  • Mikey's Date
  • A Heated Exchange
  • Mikey and Milk
  • Mikey Gets Dumped
  • A Peep Hole
  • Laura's Love

2nd:

  • Let's Go on A Picnic
  • Mikey and The Ghost
  • Christina My Love
  • The Twins and an Alien
  • Here Comes 'Time Boy'
  • Emily's Blues
  • The Wrong Number
  • Mikey in the Mirror
  • The Invitation
  • The Chill Wind of Structural Reform
  • The Lady Tutor
  • Rags to Riches
  • Super Princess Isabella

3rd:

  • Twins and the princess
  • The lady's man Mikey
  • Laura the diviner
  • Mother of the twins
  • The wording game
  • Brown's forbidden love
  • Dad and mom's excuse
  • Twins' birthday
  • Dad's courage
  • The Kawakita family
  • Twins' treasure hunting
  • Fly! Mikey
  • Wedding anniversary

4th:

  • Mikey's grandfather
  • Mikey and the traffic signal
  • Granma came to Japan
  • Mikey sinks
  • Criminal Mikey
  • Mr. Bob's blind date
  • Mikey's promise
  • Dad's classmate
  • Kawakita's birthday
  • Fake Mikey
  • Minami's why
  • Going to the beach
  • Angel Mikey

5th:

6th:

7th:

8th:

Hardcore:

Extra:

Fever:

Romance:

Film
  • Oh Mikey Fever (2007): A collection of never-before-seen sketches featuring The Fuccons. During the movie, Mikey dances at a disco and the Fuccons celebrate Christmas.[3]

Reception

The Austin Chronicle describes The Fuccons as having "witty" dialogue that was "filled with non-sequiturs and static humor", praising the series for parodying the sitcom genre with its "absurdity."[4] Jamie S. Rich from DVD Talk stated that the humor of the series is better accepted through its absurdity and not through its depiction of stereotypes.[5] Jake L. Godek from THEM Anime Reviews gave the series a 1-star rating, claiming that the episodes have no "continuous ideas."[6] Zack Parsons from Something Awful gave the first season a score of 41/50, citing its strengths to be its characters and surreal humor.[7][8] In his review of the second season, Parsons gave the same score, praising the first half of the season while stating the second half of the season was where the series went to "uncharted territories."[9][10]

References
  1. Newitz, Annalee (2006-11-17). "The Bizarre Alternate Universe of "Oh, Mikey!"". Wired. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  2. "The Fuccons". Hidive. Sentai Filmworks. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  3. "Oh! Mikey Fever". Tokyo's Coolest Sound. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  4. "OH! Mikey: Volumes 1-6". Austin Chronicle. 2005-01-28. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  5. Rich, Jamie S. (2006-04-29). "The Fuccons Vol. 1: Oh Mikey!". DVD Talk. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  6. Godek, Jake L. "The Fuccons". THEM Anime Reviews. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  7. Parsons, Zack (2004-01-07). "The Madness of OH! Mikey (Part One)". Something Awful. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  8. Parsons, Zack (2004-01-14). "The Madness of OH! Mikey (Part Two)". Something Awful. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  9. Parsons, Zack (2005-10-06). "The Return of OH! Mikey (Part 1)". Something Awful. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  10. Parsons, Zack (2005-10-13). "The Return of OH! Mikey (Part 2))". Something Awful. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
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