The Japanese equivalent to Adult Swim is a variety show called Vermillion Pleasure Night, and one of its standout serials is called Oh, Mikey! (English versions call it The Fuccons.) Starring a bunch of freakishly cheerful mannequins who never move, it tells the story of the Fuccons, an American family who come to Japan to "live like Japanese." But James, Barbara and little schoolboy Mikey aren't really Japanese stereotypes of Americans – except, perhaps, for their exaggeratedly Caucasian looks. Still, they behave so strangely that the show achieves a kind of blank, shocking surrealism. Most episodes revolve around tormenting poor, clueless Mikey or having sex (sometimes both). In one episode, James and Barbara pretend they're being tortured in order to trick Mikey into drinking milk; in another, they accidentally leave Mikey behind when they decide to move back to America. Every weird scene ends with all of them breaking into scary, artificial laughter. In the episode I've posted here, we see how James and Barbara react to the news that Mikey has been kidnapped. Although you can get a bunch of the episodes on DVD dubbed into English, I like watching them in the original Japanese – though reliable sources tell me that the dubbed translation is excellent.
Oh Mikey! The Fuccons [website]
