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Little Mosque on the Prairie

Watching BBC America news this morning, there was a story about a Canadian situation comedy that is apparently quite popular with our neighbors north of the border. The show is Little Mosque on the Prairie (an obvious play on the old US show "Little House on the Prairie"). I got on YouTube and watched the first 3 episodes, and quite frankly, I thought it's great - laughed my ass off. Yes, it has a number of stock characters such as the bumbling husband, the perplexed and young imam (who is a friend of and commiserates with the head of the Xtian church congregation), etc.

The one thing that bothered me while watching BBC is that apparently no US station or network will pick this show up. The commentator iindicated there is a reluctance on the part of US TV execs to portray Muslims as normal persons with all the same problems and foibles the rest of us have. They (US TV Execs) are worried about the backlash from right wing Xtian groups and hate mail coming in, which might scare advertisers.

Has anyone here in the US seen this on American TV. I get satellite TV (with hundreds of mostly crappy stations), and had never heard of this show till this morning.

P.S. After watching the first episodes on YouTube, I ordered the first several seasons on DVD, through the link to Amazon.com on the right side of the screen. Support A|N.

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Permalink Reply by annet on September 8, 2011 at 7:37pm

I heard them talk about this on NPR yesterday. It sounds hilarious. Sick that they won't show it here yet. Thanks for the tip, I'm going to check it out on youtube.

We need an atheist sitcom. Ricky Gervais is working on one but he can be harsh at times. There is a hilarious xmas episode of "Community" that gives us an excellent shout out.

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Permalink Reply by Pat on September 8, 2011 at 8:09pm

Did you hear about it on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, or some other program? I'd like to read or hear what NPR said about it.

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Permalink Reply by NeuroTox on September 10, 2011 at 7:44pm

The atheist version is called Big Bang Theory

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Permalink Reply by annet on September 8, 2011 at 9:52pm

I could not remember so I checked. Not surprisingly I heard it on the bbc portion of my local daily npr programming.

However, NPR did do fresh air and morning edition stories back in 2007. So long ago. It does not seem very well known at all down here.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6898775

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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on September 8, 2011 at 10:09pm

Thank you Pat for telling us about this. I will have to check it out.

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Permalink Reply by Pat on September 10, 2011 at 10:03pm

Quick update. I was in a Barnes & Noble bookstore today in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. I went to the audio book, and video section and asked the clerk if she had the DVDs for Little Mosque on the Prairie. She looked it up on the store computer. Been there before, and even if they're out of stock of something, the clerk tells me I can order it. Well, guess what. They don't even have it listed, and had no idea what I was talking about. Glad there's no censorship by corporate America.