Homer Becomes Omar

geekster writes "With Omar as Homer, and Badr substituted for Bart, The Simpsons is now playing on Arab television. But in order not to risk offending an Arab audience, the characters in Al Shamshoon, as the show is now called, have modified some of their most distinguishable traits." And you thought internationalization was hard for software!

Comments

Doki Doki Panic

[Oxen]

This reminds me of the Doki Doki Panic/smb2 incident. Super Mario 2 was originally a Fuji Television promotion starring an arabian family called Doki Doki Panic. The people at Nintendo USA thought the Japanese version of SMB2 was too difficult, so they changed the Arabian characters in Doki Doki Panic to Mario and his friends. It's a really interesting story. Check out more here.

Re:The show will need local humor appeal

[EnronHaliburton2004]

You could ask Salman Rushdie, who has a Muslim background. He wrote a parody which was not well received by fundamental Muslims, and has been sentanced to death for abandoning the Muslim faith.

The book was so horrible, that even Cat Stevens agreeded somewhat that Salman should be killed. He later appologized, but the point is-- you're not supposed to agree with the ravings of a lunatic religious leader in the first place.

My post may have a humorous tone, but the events described above are real.

Re:My karma can stand it

[VoiceOfRaisin]

Melon Farmers is a reference to the BBC TV cut of "Repo Man" where the words Mother-fucker were replaced by Melon farmer

On Canadian television, "mother fucker" is often censored to "*blank* fucker". yes, they cut out mother and leave the fucker. Im totally serious.