Little Mosque on the Prairie

This is a new CBC sitcom that just started last week and that’s been creating a bit of a buzz in the US too, in spite of the fact that it’s not on US television yet. It’s a pretty standard character driven sitcom and there is nothing very special about it other than the fact that it’s centred on a Muslim community in a small town on the Canadian prairie. The ads leading up to the show were things like, “Little Mosque on the Prairie ... coming Sunni!” It’s also been called halal-arious and “mosque see tv,” so you get the idea of the level of humour it’s shooting at. The first episode is on Youtube now if any of your are interested in watching it. I’m interested in what the Muslims here think about it and how it handles the various Muslim issues it touches on, if any of you would care to comment.
First half (15 minutes)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtLh-fkOUE4&mode=related&search=
Second half (note that there’s an ad at the beginning)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jti2pJ77q8I&mode=related&search=

 

It’s good to hear that people like it and that it’s not offending the Muslims here. It's had a very positive response generally. The CBC ordered 8 shows this year so it’s on for only the next couple of months, but if that goes well they will be ordering 13 more for next year, and US networks have expressed an interest in it so you could see it on US TV next year.

It’s interesting, though, and troubling, that there are a few non-Muslims who are attacking the show. This article I found to be simply disgusting. It’s so factually untrue and is such thinly veiled hard core bigotry that it truly shocked me.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTQwY2UyMDgxMWFjYjE3YTlkMDY5ZWFjYjA0NDgyMWM=

Here’s the website for the show, btw, and as a trivia note the guy who plays Yasir also plays a main character on 24 this year as Chloe’s ex-husband.
http://www.cbc.ca/littlemosque/

 

Here's a higher resolution version of the first episode and the first part of the second episode.
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=asifnana

 

I find it very funny, but it’s a certain style of humour and I’m not surprised that not everyone finds it as funny. One fairly unique thing about the show is that it doesn’t use a laugh track. The most popular comedy series in Canada for the past several years, a show called Corner Gas, doesn’t use a laugh track either, so that wasn’t a big difference for me, but I can’t think of a US comedy off hand that doesn’t use a laugh track so that might be a bit different for you folk. (Corner Gas is full of Canadian references and guest appearances by Canadian celebrities, so I’m not sure it will ever show up on US television. Other Canadian comedies that have used a limited number of distinctly Canadian references, like the Red Green Show and Kids in the Hall, have done well in the US, though).

The big issue with the show is not how funny it is, however, it’s the subject matter and how it handles the issues it touches on. I’ve only seen a few articles like the NationalReview one I posted above. I’m not that familiar with that site but that article exposes that author as a true bigot, and the other similar articles that I’ve seen have also clearly been based on bigotry and essentially an absolute refusal to see any Muslim as anything other than a terrorist. Thankfully those articles have been few in number.