THE HAT SQUAD: WALID HASSAN

Toobworld is global; it's not just the shows created in the United States and Great Britain.

And the same goes for the variations on Toobworld, like the Tooniverse and Skitlandia, the sketch comedy dimension. Sketch comedy routines come from all over the world, and Toobworld has lost someone who was making a contribution in that area over in Baghdad.

Comic Walid Hassan, known for his "Caricature" sketch show on the Sharkiya channel in Iraq, was killed by three bullets to the head on his way to work. He was the latest of dozens of broadcasters and journalists to be killed.

Hassan was famous for mocking everyone from the Iraqi government to U.S. forces to Shiite militias to Sunni insurgents.

"We feel we're all at risk," a journalist at Hassan's station said. "We all think of quitting the station."

Hassan's sister Nadia Hassan Ja'az said his death was incomprehensible. "Why did they want to kill him? He didn't hurt anyone," she told the Sharkiya channel.

"He has nothing to do with Sunni or Shiite; he doesn't recognize these things. He's just an actor defending Iraq, its people and his family," she said through tears.

BCnU....
Tele-Toby