YAKKETY YAK IN IRAQ

I always enjoy getting the chance to tout the true global nature of Toobworld, beyond the shows produced in the United States and Great Britain. And now there's a new comedy show being broadcast in Iraq that helps expand one of the sub-universes.

That would be "Skitlandia", my term for the world in which comedy sketches form the basis of its existence.

The show is called "Hurry Up! He's Dead", which is a translation of an Iraqi slang term. It's a fake news broadcast, perhaps very similar in its way to 'The Daily Show', but I liken it more to an unsold pilot which was broadcast on CBS April 14, 1972, 'This Week In Nemtim'. (I still remember seeing that show, but had to refresh my memory thanks to Lee Goldberg's book, "Unsold Television Pilots".)

All of the main characters in the show are played by only one actor, Saaed Khalifa. The show takes place in the year 2017, when there's only one man still living in Iraq, and yet the Americans are still there!

As an example of its humor, the anchorman Saeed reports that American Secretary of Defense"Rums bin Feld said the American forces are leaving on 1-1," referring to Jan. 1.

For a little while, he's so happy to report that news, throwing his hands up in the air to do a little "Go Saeed! Go Saeed!" And then he realized that he read the report wrong - The soldiers are leaving one by one, not on 1-1. Figuring out the calculations in his head, he realized that the soldiers would finally be gone in 694 years.

And he begins to cry.

The Iraqi audience find that side-splitting for some reason......

The nightly newscast from the future also includes weather, sports and business segments which all lampoon various aspects of the Iraqi situation, including the Americans, the Iraqi government, the militias and the head of Iraq's state-owned media company.

I'm not sure if Iraqi-Americans will ever be able to see this show over here in the USA, but it doesn't matter to the fabric of Toobworld. Having been broadcast, it is officially a part of the TV Universe.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby