Series / Delocated

"What happens when you take a family from the Witness Protection Program, move them to New York City, and give them their own reality show?"

Delocated is a live action [adult swim] show about a man in the Witness Protection Program who's starring in his own Reality Show. He's targeted by a Russian stand-up comedian/hit man. Jon wears a mask all the time and uses a voice harmonizer, and he expects his family to do the same. The entire show and premise are chock-full of absurd Fridge Logic, likely entirely intentional.

The Real Life show produced by PFFR, which also produced The Heart, She Holler, Wonder Showzen, and Xavier: Renegade Angel. Unlike their previous shows, Delocated isn't based on Black Humor; rather, it, like The Office, uses deadpan humor. It also has no CGI mixed in with the Live Action, which is odd for a show on the Cartoon Network.

Its pilot premiered on April Fools' Day in 2008, which confused or pissed off some people who were expecting The Boondocks. Its first season ran in 2009 with six episodes, a second in 2010 with 12 episodes, a third with ten episodes in 2012, and its series finale aired on March 7th 2013.

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Tropes:

• Adam Westing: Comedian Todd Barry appears As Himself in a recurring role. He's mostly there to hang out at the Mirminskys' club, though some episodes feature him much more prominently.
• Anyone Can Die: From Season 2 onwards, thanks to Yvgeny's brother Sergei. The first episode alone sees the deaths of the show's crooked producer, an assistant, and a body double.
  • Jon's bodyguard and best friend, Mike, is killed in episode 2.
  • Jon's parents are Killed Off for Real in episode 4.
  • Mighty Joe Jon, The Black Blonde bites the bullet (literally) in the Season 2 Finale.
  • Both Susan and Papa Mirminsky are Killed Offscreen at the start of Season 3.
  • Pavel is shot by Sergei in "Skins".
  • Bohai, Qi-qang's right hand man, is shot in the head (unknowingly) by Mishka.
  • Qi-qang, leader of the Wang Cho Chinese mob, is killed by Sergei in the 3rd season finale.
  • Finally, Sergei, TB, and even David are killed off in the series finale.
• Attention Whore: Jon, who's so desperate for attention that he puts himself in a reality show and risks getting his family killed by the mob just so he can be famous. Deconstructed, as his behavior starts to cause increasingly worse things to happen, cause nothing but harm to everyone around him, and by the end of the show, his pathetic attempts to get attention fail and the show gets cancelled.
• Asshole Victim: While it was supposed to scare Jon who was already at a low point, it was EXTREMELY satisfying to see Mighty Joe Jon, The Black Blonde get shot in the Season 2 finale, especially after he manipulated Kim's ex-husband into trying to win her back and actually made a reality show out of Jon being in a coma. And that's not counting all the other crap he's done this season.
• Ax-Crazy: Sergei, who wants to kill all of "Jon"'s loved ones and drive him insane because it's "more fun" than just killing him.
• Badass Decay: Deliberately invoked. Yvgeny is no longer nearly as dangerous in season 2 when his brother Sergei takes the reigns as antagonist.
  • He once again Takes a Level in Badass when his brother convinces him to use The Power of Acting to murder people under the guise of living out the character of train robber Igor Pachenko. When he turns out his soundtrack and starts saying his lines, someone is about to get strangled.
• Bait-and-Switch Gunshot: "Coma" ends with Sergei holding Jon at gunpoint. He pulls the trigger, the camera shakes violently... and Jon remains unharmed; it's Mighty Joe Jon who ends up taking the bullet.
• Bald of Evil: Sergei is a scary, head-shaving enforcer.
• Big Applesauce: The show takes place in New York City. In-Universe, its full title is “Delocated: New York”.
• Big Bad: Sergei Mirminsky is the show's main antagonist, while Yvgeny is The Dragon (and Punch-Clock Villain) and their father is the Greater-Scope Villain. While the entire family is considered a threat, Sergei is by far the most dangerous and personal one to Jon.
• Bittersweet Ending: Pretty much everyone save Jon, Susan Shapiro, Greg, and Yvgeny is dead by the end of the finale. Jon goes into hiding because he's "tired of show business" despite the fact it was his stupidity that resulted in the death of his family. He sends the network a tape explaining this, but they don't care and throw the tape into the trash, pretty much rendering the whole series pointless in the long run.
• Black Comedy: Delocated is an absurd, yet surprisingly dark comedy where characters (both major and minor) are killed quite frequently, especially from Season 2 onwards. While some deaths are treated seriously, most of them are strictly Played for Laughs.
• Boom, Headshot!: Seth, Pavel, Bohai, and Qi-qang are all killed this way.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Jon in the series finale where it's revealed Sergei tortured and programed him to kill his son. Jon breaks out of it but by then it's too late.
• Break the Haughty: Jon throughout the second season. Sergei's Evil Plan is to break him down completely by killing the people around him, friends and family alike.
• Brick Joke: Discussed and played straight in "Coma". Yvgeny plans yet another vodka joke that involves him getting cut off as he says "vodka", then finishing the word at the start of the next season. The episode does indeed cut to the credits as he asks the bartender for a vodka.
• Bubble Boy: Jon makes himself invulnerable by walking around in a multimillion-dollar bulletproof bubble in "Jon Done Gone Nuts".
• Call-Back: After John Hodgman is killed in "Reunion Show", the Glaze emotionally lists out all the shows and films he was featured in. The same thing happened with Paul Rudd back in the pilot episode.
• The Cameo:
  • Paul Rudd briefly shows up in the pilot. He gets mistaken for Jon and is killed immediately.
  • Michael Shannon plays Mark (the guy in the bush) in Season 1’s “Sick of It!”.
  • Jimmy Fallon appears As Himself in “Kim’s Krafts”, where he talks about Kim’s popular tortilla hats on his show.
  • Real Life TV writers Seth Fisher, Don Puglisi, and Eric Slovin appear in Season 2's "David's Girlfriend".
  • Finally, John Hodgman and Reggie Watts appear in "Reunion Show".
• Candid Camera Prank: Parodied with Jon's short-lived prank show, "Jon He Does It". The pranks aren't particularly good, and Jon only seems to use it as an outlet for his impressions.
• Character Catchphrase: Invoked by Jon himself, being a TV star and all. His favorites include “Frrt!”, “What a crunchry!”, and any phrase involving “the bone zone”.
• Cerebus Syndrome: From Season 2 onwards, things get much darker as the Big Bad Sergei is introduced, and more supporting characters are killed off. There's also a larger emphasis on mob drama, particularly with the Mirminskys (who usually star in the B-plot for each episode).
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Mighty Joe Jon, The Black Blonde goes to some depraved and blatantly illegal lengths to improve the show's ratings. Sergei ends up killing him for it at the end of season 2.
• Crapsack World: Apparently, no one objects to giving a hit man a show, or arranging for more murders to get more ratings.
• Cruel Twist Ending: "Friend" ends on one hell of a downer. Jon's high school sweetheart Karen reveals that she got pregnant with his child when they were together, and their daughter grew up to become a mother herself, therefore making Jon a grandfather. Jon decides to fly Karen and the granddaughter out to New York so they could bond as a family, and even wires them one million dollars (from his late friend's inheritance) to give them some much needed support. So what's the twist? Well, it turns out that Karen lied about everything; she never bore Jon's daughter and the little girl he bonded with is not his grandkid. In reality, Karen is a meth cook who took advantage of Jon and ran off with his money. As the credits roll, we see Jon sobbing in the limo that was supposed to pick up his "granddaughter", while the outfit he picked out for her sits, unworn, at his side.
• Dead Guy on Display: The series ends with Jon playing mini golf at his cabin in Russia, while Sergei's corpse hangs upside-down in the back, his knife still plunged into his chest.
• Death by Cameo:
  • In the pilot, Jon runs into Paul Rudd at a clothing store. He says exactly three lines before getting shot to death.
  • John Hodgman hosts the reunion episode, which doubles as the Season 3 finale. He is killed when Sergei, Jon, and Qi-qang pull off a deadly escape.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Jay the Doorman. Poor Jay.
• The Dreaded: Sergei, full stop. Jon gets genuinely terrified every time he’s around, which is real jarring since he’s usually so outgoing and confident.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The pilot has Jon engaging in some Office-style interviews in between scenes. This is the only episode where he does this.
• Election Day Episode: “Dog Mayor”, in which Jon and Ryan vie for the office of, well, “dog mayor of New York City” (it’s like a regular mayor, but for dogs).
• Ensemble Dark Horse: In the fictional world it's set in, recognizes Susan & Yvgeny as this.invoked
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Both Sergei and Yvgeny love their papa very much. Sergei in particular acts much more genuine when he's around his dad, especially when they celebrate his birthday at the prison.
  • Pavel Mirminsky has a teenage daughter, Tatiana, and treats her as lovingly as any father should.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • The Mirminskys adore dogs, so much so that Gregor is actually offended when Jon accuses them of murdering his pup. Jon later takes advantage of this when he saves a kidnapped Nicky wearing a coat with live puppies in each pocket; while the Mirminskys point their guns at him, nobody bothers pulling the trigger, as it would risk hurting the animals.
  • Yvgeny gets genuinely upset when Sergei decides to kill Jon’s parents, though partly because it was ruining their “brothers’ weekend”.
• Eviler than Thou: Sergei is a straight up cold blooded murderer who got right to work forcing Jon into a breakdown, and then kept trying to shatter him. Compare that to Yvgeny who did try killing Jon, he just sucked at it.
• The Faceless: Everyone in the pilot, but later just Jon. Soon transcended in that Jon's ski mask itself has become the face of his fame. He eventually removes it in the series finale.
• Fauxreigner: Eun Mi. When Jon first meets her, she has a thick Chinese accent and doesn’t know much English. It isn’t until their first date when she reveals that she was just messing with him; not only is she actually Korean, she speaks perfect English.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: In “Jon He Does It”, nobody in the coffee shop seems to panic after the angry customer that Jon pranked pulls a gun on him; that’s how you know the whole thing was a setup.
• The Fool: Mishka generally has little understanding of what's going on around him. However, he ultimately comes out better than most of the show's principal characters in the season 3 finale.
• Full-Name Basis: Played for Laughs; Todd Barry is always referred to by his full name, even by Sergei.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: The final showdown between Jon and Sergei is a fistfight to the death, though Sergei does use his knife at one point (which ironically ends up killing him).
• Guns Akimbo: Both Sergei and TB whip out two guns whenever the situation calls for it.
• Heel–Face Turn: Yvgeny gives up his life of crime after the Time Skip, having successfully converted the family business into a vodka company.
• Hypocritical Humor: In the episode "David's Girlfriend", David runs away with a girl from the Mirminsky family. Mighty Joe Jon, The Black Blonde comes up with the idea to hire Hollywood writers to think of places that they might have gone. Jon eventually angrily dismisses the writers.
  Jon: "This isn't a Hollywood movie, this is life! I don't need a bunch of writers coming up with fake lines, I need someone to GIVE ME BACK MY SON!"
• Identical Stranger: Season 3 introduces Mishka, a Russian guy who resembles Jon and masquerades as him online. He is also played by Jon Glaser.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Downplayed, but still horrifying nonetheless; while Sergei isn't a cannibal, he still swallows some of Jon's mother's ashes just to spite him.
• Irony: Throughout the whole series, Jon's in the witness protection program yet goes on reality show pretty much negating the whole purpose of it. In the finale, by the time his show's cancelled and his family and friends dead. He decides to go into hiding to escape show business not that his network really cares.
• Jerkass:
  • Jon, who milks his popularity for all its worth, even at the expense of his family's safety. He has proven that he's not completely heartless on occasion; he honestly loves his son, and is even shown to care for Susan despite their animosity.
  • Mighty Joe Jon, The Black Blond is a worse jerkass in any case, as shown in the season 2 finale.
• Killed Off for Real: See Anyone Can Die above.
• Knight of Cerebus: Sergei in his season 2 introduction makes the show's tone much darker. Though more like a darker shade of Black Comedy as the show didn't actually cease being one. This is lampshaded when he first meets with Mighty Joe Jon.
  Sergei: "Is no longer quirky comedy. Is quirky drama."
• Lame Comeback: Jon, a lot.
  Ross: "You might wanna think about changing that mask before the big tournament next weekend. It'd be a shame if my driver accidentally slipped out of my hands and hit you in the head."
  "Jon": "(Beat) Yeah it'd be a shame if my driver slipped out of my penis and hit YOU in the hands."
• Laser-Guided Karma: In the finale, Sergei brainwashes Jon into becoming a highly-trained killer, and forces him to murder David and TB. In return, Jon uses his newfound skills to kick Sergei's ass and kill him. He even lampshades it.
  Jon: You're about to be killed by the killing machine you created, asshole!
• Laugh Track: Parodied; after Jon adds a bar to the Wang Cho warehouse, he has someone play canned laughter from a stereo as a sendup to Cheers.
• Long List: By multiple people after Paul Rudd’s death, of all the movies he has been in.
  • Sergei lists all of Jon's loved ones that he has killed near the end of the series.
• The Mafiya:
  • The Mirminsky Family, whose crimes put Jon and his family into hiding in the first place. Their ruthless hunt for Jon is what drives the show’s main conflict.
  • Comedian Todd Barry counts too, though he pretty much just hangs out at their social club. It is implied that he joins them for real after gaining a taste for killing people under Sergei's tutoring.
• Manchurian Agent: Sergei turns Jon into one during the series finale. He kills his son, TB, and ultimately breaks free to kill Sergei himself.
• Mood Whiplash: Many episodes tend to swing wildly between utterly ridiculous and darkly shocking. A few standouts:
  • "Sick of It!" has a touching moment where David and Kim seemingly reunite with Jon, who's really Mark in disguise. The moment is cut short when Yvgeny snipes Mark along with a few crew members.
  • "Conversion": Mike is kidnapped and eventually murdered by the Mirminskys. Jon is so devastated that he admits himself into a mental institution, where he develops dissociative identity disorder. Mighty Joe Jon does manage to cure him... by putting Mike's corpse on a wheelchair and tricking Jon into thinking he's still alive.
  • "Tap" ends with Sergei killing Jon's brother and swallowing his mother's ashes on video, which he sends to Jon just to mess with him. It's utterly terrifying, but Jon just scoffs and asks "What else is on?" before turning off the TV.
  • "Reunion Show": the cast watches a humorous montage of Greg flossing his teeth everywhere. In the middle of the clip, gunshots go off in the studio, the host is killed, and Sergei escapes with Jon and Qi-qang. Later on, we get a flashback of Reggie Watts annoying the hell out of the Wang Chos; we imediately cut back to the present when Sergei shoots Qi-qang in the head.
• Mushroom Samba: Jon gets kidnapped by a crazy hillbilly couple In "Camping". They force him to swallow (what appears to be) a suicide pill... which trips him out so much that he has a threesome with them.
  Jon: The suicide pills turned out to be Ecstasy.
• Noodle Incident: Gregor Mirminsky's crime, which got Jon's family into witness protection in the first place, is never elaborated on. All we are told is that it was a murder.
• No-Respect Guy: Jon. Then again he is a Jerkass.
• Offing the Offspring: In the series finale, Sergei brainwashes Jon and trains him to kill his own son. He sadly goes through with murder against his will, and is rightfully devastated afterwards.
• Only Sane Man: Kim has the patience of a saint. Her patience runs out at the end of season 2 when Jon emphatically tells her that he'll never marry.
• Orgasmically Delicious: More of a “high” than an orgasm, but it’s the same idea; Jon loves the sandwiches at Nicky’s so much that they put him in a zen state. He tends to slowly savor each sandwich while describing the “experience”.
  Jon: Crack of the crust, coolness of dijon counterbalancing the snap of the pepper turkey, the pepper turkey cracking the whip on my taste buds, the oarsmen on the slave ship of my mouth…
• Papa Wolf: One of the few positive traits John has, he truly does love his son. So much so that he threatens Sergei when he vows to go after him next.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: The show parodies the hell out of this. For the first season, Jon's black mask and modulated voice are ridiculously conspicuous by themselves, in a "why do you even bother?" sort of way. Not only this, but as a celebrity with a reality show, witness relocation becomes meaningless, which Delocated lampshades. His ex-wife and son soon ended up taking off their masks as they had become pointless, but Jon kept his and flaunted it everywhere as the face of his fame. Season two added the Jon decoy program which flooded New York with masked decoys so that Jon would be harder to snipe in public, which would be a more effective solution if only Jon didn't constantly hang out in the same places. This became a literally paper thin disguise when Jon decided to wear a paper bag over his head as a disguise during the stand-up comedy contest, but then took off the bag in front of Yvgeny. Not that Yvgeny was all that dangerous anymore.
• The Parody: Of reality television. The show satirizes the genre with the absurd premise of giving a TV show to folks who are supposed to be in hiding.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Jon to Sergei in "The Frrt Identity":
  Jon: Your screams are like music to my ears, because we all know a scream is just a loud moan. Welcome to the Moan Zone.
• Put on a Bus: Kim leaves the show after Season 2, due to her and Jon's big breakup. Her brother also follows suit.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Jon gets possibly the most epic one in Season 3 episode 5 ending with "I hope the Mirminsky does all of us a favor and finally kills you!"
• Room Full of Crazy: Combined with String Theory; Jon starts questioning everything after Mighty Joe Jon pulls a vicious prank on him, and he spends an entire month covering his walls with crazy theories.
• Running Gag:
  • An in-universe example, Yvgeny's standup act consists entirely of jokes about vodka (but his audience never seems to care). This is Lampshaded by both Sergei and Jon.
  • At one point, he decides he needs some "fresh material" for his act. Later in the episode, we see him with what appears to be a vodka dummy.
    Mighty Joe Jon, The Black Blonde: "I don't know, Yvgeny, I mean...just keep doing vodka jokes, I guess. It never gets old."
  • Whenever Paul Rudd gets mentioned after his death, the person doing so will list a few of the movies where he appeared. Despite this happening several times between characters not having any contacts, they somehow avoid repeating titles.
• Sex God: The Glaze, Jon's exotic self-help guru from Season 3. He used to be a very successful sex therapist.
• Shout-Out:
  • Mighty Joe Jon's name is an obvious reference to the film Mighty Joe Young.
  • In “Warm-up”, Jon adds a Cheers-inspired pub to the Wang Cho headquarters. The end credits are also stylized like the show.
  • When Jon works at Nicky’s Grinders, he adds a bunch of movie-themed subs that are named after famous films, like “When Harry Met Salad”, “Salami Dog Millionaire”, and “My Big Fat Greek Sandwich”.
  • Jon's prank show, "Jon He Does It", is an intentional ripoff of Howie Do It. The theme song is also a parody of "This is How We Do It" by Montell Jordan.
• Sleepwalking: Sleepcooking, to be precise. Jon becomes a master TV chef while non-awake in the episode "Midnight Munchingtons."
• Spin-Off: Both Susan and Yvgeny get (a fictional) one.
• Starter Villain: Yvgeny Mirminsky is the primary antagonist of the show's (rather short) first season, though his incompetence doesn't make him much of a threat. From Season 2 onwards, he takes a backseat to his much more menacing brother, Sergei.
• Suspicious Ski Mask: Jon wears a ski mask frequently. Subverted because he wears it to keep his identity hidden due to being in witness protection and not because he's up to anything criminal.
• Time Skip: The series finale takes place one whole year after Season 3.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Once the incompetent Yvgeny becomes "Igor Pachenko", he actually turns into quite the ruthless murderer.
  • Jon himself is all bark and no bite, and isn't much of a fighter. After he gets brainwashed in the finale, he becomes an even more dangerous killer than Sergei.
• Totally Radical: Jon sometimes talks in a manner used by nobody else, even in serious situations.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Jon loves sandwiches, so much that it gets him in trouble. He was actually featured in several Real Life Subway commercials for a while.
• Translation Convention: Averted with Gregor, who only speaks Russian in the show. Most of the scenes shared between him and his sons are spoken in Russian with English subtitles.
• The Triads and the Tongs: Season 3 throws a new gang into the fray: The Wang Cho Family, whom Jon pays for protection services. He also enlists them to kill Sergei, though they choose to kill Sergei’s father instead.
• Unexplained Recovery: "Jon" goes to the dry cleaners where Eun Mi works, where her mom explains to him that she died. He's very skeptical, as he thinks this is all a cruel joke that she set up. The episode ends with the implication that she is indeed dead… until she shows up in the next one alive and well. It’s never mentioned again.
• The Unmasking:
  • Downplayed with Susan and David, who remove their masks (and voice disguisers) offscreen in “Bar Mitzvah”. Their faces are shown for the rest of their screentime.
  • Played straight with Jon in the series finale, where he finally takes his mask off at the end, signifying that he no longer needs to hide from anyone.
• The Unreveal:
  • The true names of "Jon", "David", and "Susan" are never revealed.
  • Jon's face is completely blurred whenever he takes off his mask. This changes at the end of the series.
• The Vamp: Susan. She actually seems more sympathetic at first because Jon is such a jackass. But as the series progresses, she proves she could be at least as petty and glib as Jon.
• Vodka Drunkenski: Yvgeny's love for vodka takes it up to eleven. Every joke in his comedy routine is related to the drink, and he even launches his own vodka company.
• Word Salad Title: Jon's (unknown to him, but fake) prank show entitled "Jon He Does It". Lampshaded by Mighty Joe John, the Black Blonde after Jon finds out it was fake. "You really think I'd greenlight a show called 'Jon He Does It'?"
• Wham Episode: The season three finale. During the special reunion episode, Sergei stages an escape and takes Jon to an isolated area, where he intends to kill him nice and slow. The police manage to find the warehouse but by the time they bust in, Sergei has escaped with Jon.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Rob disappears completely after Season 2.
  • While Eun Mi does survive the attack in "Reunion Show", we're never shown her whereabouts afterwards.
  • Both the Glaze and Trish are not present during the series finale.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy:
  • Yvgeny, who just can't seem to make his dad/The Mafiya happy.
  • Hilariously averted when Sergei confesses to Papa that he thought about killing him once. Papa then congratulates Sergei, saying that he would have been disappointed if he hadn't thought about killing him.
• Witless Protection Program: Of the "you can't fix stupid" variety with Jon's decision to become a reality show superstar.

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"Frrt!"

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