Ugly Americans (TV series)

Production history

Plot

Characters

Main characters

• Mark Lilly – A 21-year-old guy at the Department of Integration's Social Services Division and a newcomer to Manhattan. While attending college, Mark was a brother of the Zeta Psi Fraternity. In the pilot, he had recently moved into his first apartment, a two-bedroom he found on Craigslist. His roommate became a flesh-eating zombie in an ill-conceived attempt to pick up a woman. Despite the frustrations of his job where his boss Twayne Boneraper downsized Social Services to two people in the pilot in order to shift funding to Law Enforcement, Mark maintains a positive attitude. He has an on-and-off relationship with his immediate superior, a moody succubus named Callie Maggotbone. Despite his lax attitude towards his personal life, Mark is dedicated to his job and the people he looks after, coming into conflict with the anti-immigrant Francis Grimes during the course of his attempts to help immigrants in need. Because Mark is completely undereducated about the different species that inhabit New York, he often makes mistakes with his cases, which is a major theme throughout the series. Mark also has an unhealthy obsession with eggs, and likes Ferris wheels, and on regular occasions has stated his intention to name his children Ethan and Desiree. As of the end of the second season, Mark and Callie are "engaged to get engaged".
• Randall Skeffington – Mark's roommate, who became a zombie in an attempt to win over a cute girl with a zombie fixation, only to find out she had moved on to warlocks. Now, the unemployed and undead Randall spends his days doing odd jobs to pay the rent. He often uses a catch phrase of sorts by groaning the word "crap" in a way stereotypical of a zombie moan for brains. Randall hails from South Jersey, a fiercely anti-zombie community, so he has been forced to hide his condition from his parents. Due to his zombie nature, Randall is frequently losing body parts to decay, forcing him to find replacements at local flea markets. Like other zombies, Randall finds the smell and taste of human flesh appealing. In "Treegasm", Randall's penis was shown to be a living creature in its own right. He has admitted that he has been living his sexual life so long that he is indiscriminate in choosing sexual partners, in one instance a toaster. He sometimes gets cravings for flesh, causing him to go temporarily insane with desire, and is in a program similar to Alcoholics Anonymous to deal with his cravings. He has rarely missed an opportunity to consume Mark's body parts when it appeared he had been killed or otherwise didn't need them. In "Blob Gets Job", he mentions to Mark that he only has two working taste buds. He also has a bad habit of using Mark's things without permission.
• Callie Maggotbone – A succubus who is Mark's immediate superior, and his on-again/off-again girlfriend. In between romantic interludes with Mark, she berates him for being so caring and sensitive, although she loves it when he talks about how violent and malicious she is. She is the half human/half succubus daughter of the Devil and a human mother who was drugged by a cult and forced to bear his child, although this was retconned in the episode "Callie and her Sister" as a marriage of convenience: Her father got out of an arranged marriage to Twayne's mother and her mother got to have the child she always wanted. Callie is frequently marginalized with her demon side, and displays drastic mood swings and physio gnomic morphing between her demonic and more human appearances. Although she is drawn to Mark because he is nice, she feels in her heart that she will inevitably end up with someone like Twayne Boneraper, despite being repulsed by the idea, although she seems indifferent to the fact that such a union would bring about the end of humanity. She dislikes her father, seeming to be more turned on by Mark after believing her father hated him but has shown to deeply care about her mother, going to her to seek advice. Being a female demon, her body goes through a process called Painful Mortal Shedding, in which the toxins in her body cause her to shed her skin for a new one, during which she becomes increasingly deranged where the only thing that can numb the pain is sex. In earlier episodes she is shown to be overly possessive of Mark, and can shape shift. Unlike all pure demons, Callie has a soul, though she can remove it at will, although doing this seems to make her a full demon since when she does remove it, she changes into a large demonic beast. According to Mark's calendar, her period is three weeks long. Due to her demon side, she gets aroused by the sight of physical injury. At the end of the second season she asked Mark to be "engaged to be engaged" to her.
• Leonard Powers – A wizard whose path has led him to a desk job at New York's Department of Integration. This suits Leonard just fine, as his primary goals in life are to drink heavily and not rock the boat. He hasn't done any real work in over three years, usually just literally throwing his case files out of a window, relying on Mark and his union, The Wizard's Guild, to cover for him. Leonard bears much resentment to his older but younger-looking brother, the famous magician Christ Angel, due to Christ's abuse of Leonard during their childhood. Leonard has a soft spot for Mark, although this may be because Mark covers for him so much. Despite this he appears to have a vast array of knowledge when it comes to the different types of beings that live in New York, as he often explains the importance of something Mark finds pointless or odd, and seems fairly competent at spell-casting, when he bothers to actually focus on it. In one day he became a tuna canner in Alaska, addicted to spray paint, and gained a lot of weight, and was worshiped as a god in Dà Nang, Vietnam, claiming he really needed structure to function properly. In the episode "Kong of Queens", Leonard mentions to Mark that he currently lives at the YMCA, though in "Kill, Mark... Kill!", it is shown that he lives in an apartment in a townhouse.
• Twayne Boneraper – A demonic, mid-level government bureaucrat who is the Director of New York's Department of Integration. Twayne loathes Mark's case files and would rather vaporize them than help them, but cannot, because infiltrating the U.S. government appears to be part of some larger demonic plan. Nonetheless, he despises Social Services and their compassionate ways, so in the pilot, he slashes the department down to just Leonard and Mark, the only two he could not get rid of, Leonard due to his union and Mark due to filling the token "Bleeding Heart" position, in order to allocate most of its funds to law enforcement. Despite his imposing appearance, Twayne often relies on Callie to make sure the department runs properly. Mark has referred to him as a "total douche nozzle". He also suffers from a severe case of glossophobia and shows signs of being a Momma's Boy, as seen in "Hell for the Holidays". Whenever he is under great stress he thinks of ponies, often repeating the word "ponies" aloud to make himself happy. He is also treated with little respect from the other demons, as they often look annoyed when he joins them. Twayne comes from a very well known and prestigious family and is very rich, although he doesn't seem to know how much he has, as when asked how he could afford to write Leonard a check for 1 billion dollars, he asked "How much is 12 zeroes?". Like most demons, he bleeds white snakes. Twayne's birthday is March 8, 1941 making him aged 70 as of 2011. He is often shown to be a child at heart, like when he and a little girl went to a fair and became BFF's.
• Francis Grimes – The head of Department of Integration's Law Enforcement Division, and like Twayne, has utter disdain for non-humans. Preferring to think of them all as "illegal", he hunts down those who have strayed from the proper bureaucratic procedures that provide a path to U.S. Citizenship – at which point Mark must step in to help. As young man, he was an officer of the New York Police Department, but was fired because he kept ruining his partner's sting operations. Grimes' encounters with unruly creatures have left him with a lifetime's worth of both physical scars, such as his missing kneecap, and emotional ones, as that stemming from his broken marriage. Thus, he naturally detests Mark and anyone else who sympathizes with the immigrants. Grimes commands a small but well-funded goon squad that operates out of the D.O.I.'s "force floor". He has a daughter who in the first season, became a vampire and got married. His relationship with his wife is complex, given that after 15 births Grimes's wife left him and married "The Count." He likes to collect model trains and also moonlights as a hospital security guard and contract hit-man. He is also shown to be attracted to older women in "Better Off Undead". In the second season finale "Mummy Dearest," it is revealed that his mother is a Mummy and that he is Egyptian. Grimes has powers of some sort as he is able to perform a ritual to summon Anubis to get rid of his mother.

  Recurring characters

• Croatian Man – A man from Croatia. Works in a hospital as a candy striper, but dreams of becoming the President of the United States. Mark once described him as a sociopath. It is revealed in "Any Given Workday" that his real name is "Goran", though he only lets his friends call him that.
• Doug – A very timid giant humanoid koala that lives as a human. He never talks, has no genitalia, and is usually seen in the background. He is usually mistreated by others, or in the wrong place at the wrong time. He almost always is seen weeping, whether frightened, overjoyed, or otherwise emotional. It is indicated in "The ManBirds" that Doug has a tendency to wander off. A still drawing in the end credits of the episode "Kong of Queen" portray him firing a rifle in a 1930s zoot suit and hat. The scene resembles Saddam Hussein firing his rifle into the air during a military parade in December 2001. Turns out that photo was actually foreshadowing that "Doug" is none other than a dangerous former assassin, who abandoned his work after he was responsible for a massacre in Bolivia, in which many women and children perished. Consumed by guilt, Doug moved to the U.S. under a new alias and tried starting his life anew. He still feels very guilty about the aforementioned incident and it is hinted his gentle and timid nature is a direct result of the past trauma. However, he still retains most of his assassin skills. His dream is to fly.
• Erik – A robot with senses and emotions, though more often than not has a cynical viewpoint. He is able to read punch cards, but is annoyed that everyone assumes he can. His dream is to be a human boy. It is possible that he is a former human who was murdered and became a robot to survive as stated during the last episode but it is unknown if this is true as this was all part of an elaborate practical joke on Mark.
• Great Brain – A living brain from Canada. He works as a counter-top sponge, and is usually the first to voice his opinion. He and his wife have a complicated relationship and enjoy playing mind games on others, which is aided by their telepathic powers.
• Martin – A two-headed worm creature. Works in a coffee shop. Oddly for their species, the heads see themselves as equals, while usually the right dominates the left and treats the left as a slave. They are possibly in love with each other.
• Toby – A fish man. He reproduces by fertilizing a pile of eggs. Likes to point out negative or depressing facts.
• Aldermach "Mac" Maggotbone – Callie's father and the highest ranking demon in Hell. He shows signs of having mysophobia, and wishes that Callie had been born a boy. Rather than being specifically Satan himself, "The Devil" seems to be a title that's passed onto a next candidate, like positions in royalty or government, and one that he'd like to pass down to Callie. It is possible that he is acting as a host for Satan by letting a snake with multiple mouths live inside him. He is an avid fan of the perpetually snake bitten New York Jets, possibly a play on the old expression, "God is a Yankee fan" and is seen frequently in New York Jets attire and cheering for them on television. His real name is Aldermach Maggotbone.
• Rosie – Callie's human mom, separated from Callie's father the Devil. Though it's originally claimed that she was impregnated with Callie when in a cult, she actually sold her soul to Aldermach shortly after they first met so that she could have a baby. However, she truly loves her daughter, claiming Callie was the best thing to come from the union. Rosie's relationship with Aldermach is shown to be strained most of the time with one episode revealing they argue almost constantly, but her relationship with Mark is much better. Her character appears to be modeled after Rosemary Woodhouse from the movie Rosemary's Baby as the story of Callie's conception is similar to the story in the movie and the character looks like Mia Farrow who played Rosemary in the movie.
• Grimes' Goon Squad – Shown doing all of Grimes dirty deeds when he is not around. Loyal to Grimes, but not afraid to leave him behind if it means their lives, just as Grimes would them.
• Girl Anchor – A news anchor that reports on New York. Always seen smiling even when saying horrible things.
• Melchior – Leonard's hologram. Originally used by Leonard as a means to communicate with Mark when he is away, or to perform menial tasks for Leonard, but took on a life and personality of his own in "Kill, Mark... Kill!".
• Buddha – A walking, talking Buddha who has golden skin, wears a prayer beads necklace and always bares his large belly.
• Medusa – A gorgon, a woman with green snakes for hair, a green rattlesnake's tail for lower body and light blue skin.
• Amoeba – An amoeba that reproduces asexually, yet still manages to get laid frequently.

  Minor characters

• Krystal – The girl Randall turned zombie for. She is constantly changing attractions to different species and was already out of her zombie phase when Randall got back to her after going zombie. However, Randall continues to stalk her, having problems admitting the relationship is over, let alone that it never started.
• Kid Wizard – A kid wizard resembling Harry Potter. Has appeared on Top Wizard. He is often portrayed as a jerk and giving people the finger.
• Ratso Demon – A nod to Dustin Hoffman's character Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy, this demon wears a trench coat, has a five o'clock shadow and slicks his hair back. Ends every sentence with "ova heah".
• Mark's Mom – Seen to have slept with Clark Dungaree. Mark has dreamed about her in crotchless panties.
• Lillith Maggotbone – Callie Maggotbone's sister in the episode "Callie and Her Sister" who was born very shortly after Aldremach and Callie's human mother got back together for a very short time. Lilith was born one day after she was conceived in Mark Lilly's apartment on a pool table. Due to a massive amount of hormone injections her mother was taking, so she also aged at an accelerated rate of one year per day. After Lilith was born, Aldremach decided to make Lilith marry Twayne Boneraper instead of Callie. Lilith appears to be more evil than Callie due to the constant use of her powers to harm people.

  Episodes

Production

Critical reception