The premise of the show is simple: The Oblongs are a not-so typical family who live in a valley, downstream from an industrial waste site. As a result, the townspeople possess a number of obvious physical and emotional defects. There's Bob Oblong (Will Farrel of SNL provides the voice), the father figure who has no limbs. His wife Pickles (Jean Smart of Designing Women) is a bald alcoholic chain-smoker who wears a beautiful wig.
Then you have the sons Biff and Chip, Siamese twins who share a leg and a buttock, but rarely agree on anything. There's a very funny shower scene where they argue over who is supposed to wash the third buttock.
Beth is the little girl in the family who is almost perfectly normal, except for a phallic-shaped protrusion on her head. When she goes for a swim, Pickles reminds her that her "thingy" is not allowed in the water and asks her to put on a shower cap. Pickles then pulls out two unopened condom packages and asks what'll it be, regular or ribbed.
Arguably, the main character in this comedy could be Milo because he carries a certain "Bart Simpson" quality that the other siblings don't have. He has one hair protruding from the top of his little round head and he has been diagnosed with several emotional and behavioral problems, including ADD. Come to think of it, he's actually the most normal one of the family. Milo used to go to a special school for "the pathologically high-spirited," but now enjoys going to "normal" school with his friends.
Other characters include "The Debbies", a bunch of lookalike sisters genetically cloned to perfection and all named Debbie. They live in the hills away from the contamination. They're supposed to represent the in-crowd and they frown upon anybody who doesn't look like them.
The show doesn't try to moralize issues but it doesn't resort to degradation either. The Oblongs just are who they are. There's a funny scene where Pickles tells Milo to help his father stir a bucket filled with clothes because, after all, he can't do all the work himself. The viewer then sees a limbless Bob bouncing around while grasping a stick with his teeth. The scene doesn't make fun of the handicapped nor does it try to make us sympathize to the needs of the handicapped. It's just plain funny.
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