Free for All is a 2003 animated series that aired on Showtime. The series was created by Brett Merhar. It featured a bitter, cigarette smoking grandmother, an innocent and naive grandson, and a coarse, sometimes-violent, alcoholic father, in a rather dysfunctional family

Dysfunctional family

A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...

. Also included is the attractive girl next door, the rich best friend and his drug-addicted ferret, and a warm Indian friend.

Characters

• Johnny Jenkins, the main character of the series, is a quiet, shy, blond nineteen-year-old and the main character of the show. Johnny sports bluejeans, sneakers and a black T-shirt whose anthropomorphic smiley face mimics Johnny's real expression or emotion (which goes completely unnoticed by other character). When the naive Johnny isn't getting into trouble through his own fault, he is usually being bullied or pressured into dangerous, reckless and bizarre rituals of immature privilege by his rich best friend, Clay Zieman.

• Clay Zieman is a tall, charismatic, cunning, and evil friend of Johnny's. Having become filthy-rich before the story plot by faking an accident at Taco Hell (an obvious parody of Taco Bell restaurant chain), Clay now lives with his ferret Angus in a luxury penthouse apartment on top of a skyscraper. Yet, he repeatedly commits insurance frauds and tax evasion to further increase his fortune. His obsession with money drives him to attempt to bribe and blackmail IRS employees and beat up his own friends just because they don't argue in favor of tax cuts like he does. Clay prefers to spend his masses of leisure time either playing video games and consuming drugs with Angus or with women in his Ferrari. He has tall, spiked, red-brown hair that resembles that of an anime character.

• Angus is Clay's manic, attitudinal and violent drug-addicted pet ferret. Angus regularly consumes any drug imaginable (vicodin, marijuana, wood glue, cocaine, and experimental fertility drugs to name a few). He is typically worn like a stole around Clay's neck much of the time when he is not in a social setting. He is physically cruel to Johnny, and his actions include defecating into his shoes and biting his genitals. In each episode, Angus goes into a drug induced fantasy which usually alludes to his sub-plot.

• Sylvia Jenkins is Johnny's ancient, wrinkled, nymphomaniac and chain-smoking grandmother, who is ashamed of her entire family, particularly of her son Douglas (Johnny's father). Sylvia, Douglas and Johnny live in the same house, which is a cause for frequent tensions. Sylvia has lusted over and successfully had a large number of men, some of which include Clay Zieman, Eminem, an army ranking officer, an ogre, a doctor's husband and Tom Jones. She frequently torments Johnny about him having the room upstairs that she wants deeply, even to the point of being willing to quit her 100 year record of smoking. Her menacing cackle is usually cut short due to an attack of smoker's lung.

• Douglas Jenkins, Johnny's father, is an overweight vigorous alcoholic, suffers from incontinence and is occasionally prone to violence. He carries out his job as an office supplies salesman with a particular lack of success and, due to his chronic bankruptcy, constantly attempts to get Clay Zieman to invest in useless business ideas. Clay, however, always rejects due to his lack of respect for Douglas. In the seventh episode, he finally gets Clay to invest in the idea of a bar exclusively for tall people (Clay was bullied for his height as a child). However, Clay ends up firing Douglas due to his instability, questionable behavior towards guests and overall incompetence. Douglas has blonde hair (like his son Johnny), a mustache, and a round belly. At all times, he is either drunk or depressed; nonetheless he is always helpless and dependent. Douglas hates (or at the very least has absolutely no respect for) Johnny, as in his eyes, Johnny ruined his life when Johnny's mother got pregnant with him, skipped town after giving birth, and left Douglas to drop out of college and raise Johnny alone. His mother always seems to be solving all of his problems, even if it means by arranging a date or handling the excesses of his incontinence.

• Paula Wisconsin is Johnny's next door neighbor, his childhood friend, and object of his desire. Johnny is hopelessly in love with Paula that is unrequited due to Johnny's reluctance of admitting his love and Paula's obliviousness. Most episodes revolve around Johnny getting himself into awkward situations as an attempt to impress Paula. While Paula is supportive of Johnny's escapades, she still remains completely in the dark about his true intentions. It is somewhat implied that Paula is not liked by most people, as some scenes have shown that many people she encounters (including Sylvia) refer to her as a, "tree-hugging bitch" due to her vapid pretentiousness.

• Omar is an Indian and Johnny's best friend. He attends the same college and is just as immature, naive and shy, sometimes even more extremely than Johnny. The two of them frequently become victims of violence, mostly by Johnny's father or by their "classmates".