Ahmed and Salim

Last updated

Ahmed and Salim
Genre Black comedy
Blue comedy
Created byOr Paz
Tom Trager
No. of seasons2
No. of episodes22
Production
Running timeseason 1:1-4 minutes season 2:6-9 minutes
Original release
Network Cartoon Network (Adult Swim)
ReleaseJanuary 20, 2009 (2009-01-20)

Ahmed and Salim is an animated web series created by Or Paz and Tom Trager. The series is a satirical parody on religious fundamentalists, or, as the creators define it: "a sitcom about terrorists."[ citation needed ]

Contents

It debuted on January 20, 2009 and has since become an Internet hit with over 2 million views and worldwide fans.

There was an attempt to adapt the web series into a TV show. The creators produced a 22-minute pilot episode, which is a longer version of the 7th web episode, for the Israeli cable channel Bip on October 19, 2008. The pilot was rejected. [1]

Creators

Tom Trager and Or Paz, AKA Sugar Zaza, are Israeli animators and comedy writers, born in 1988. The two met during a high school film production in 2006. Since then, the two have been producing web sketches (both live-action and animated) in Hebrew, and posting them online. [2]

Most of their productions are independent, and they used to write, story board, animate, edit and voice the characters from an apartment in Herzliya.

Description

The Jerusalem Post describes the show as a "controversial animated series about two clueless characters who surf the Net and bungle terror attacks." [1] The episodes revolve around two nerdy Arabs, Ahmed and Salim, whose father, Yasser, is a fascist anti-Semitic terrorist who wants them to follow in his footsteps, while all they want to do is play video games and surf the internet. The episodes will often feature Yasser sending them on a suicide mission ending with dire consequences to his own people due to Ahmed and Salim's naive and childlike nature.

The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer describes the series as depicting "young Arabs who spend their afternoons trying to bomb Israeli buses, gun down Jewish girls and incinerate crowded cafes". [3]

Trager and Paz claim that although the show might look very anti-Islamic at first, they have no real political agenda other than just "making people laugh". The satire in their show is not aimed at Muslims, but at all the fundamentalists who take religion to an extreme place.[ citation needed ]

Another of their series, The Shtreimels, pokes fun at ultra orthodox Jews in a similarly crude manner.

Language

Though the characters have an Arabic accent, actual Arabic is only used occasionally. One of the most common word during the episode is Fudge and Banana. Ahmed and Salim's language is a combination of gibberish, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Ukrainian and Arabic.

Running gags

Cursing
Ahmed and Salim use American and British slang when cursing. The British slang-word "wanker" is one of their favourite curse words, along with "dicko", "fudge-packer", "butt-burglar", "pussy", "cock-pirate" and "looza" (slang for "loser").
Shooting a wife
Yasser, the father, has a catchphrase, "Jar-fill mousa ya pussy!" ("Shut your mouth, you pussy!"), after which he usually shoots one of his wives without even looking.
Top spin shout
Most episodes end with someone yelling "Ahmed and Salim" in top shot while the camera spins. From Yasser to Habub, a father whose son was thought to have been killed, and even Israel's "Big- Brother" host Erez Tal.
Celebrity References
Often the "language" used by characters in this show substitute words for other things (e.g.. iPhone=Expensive Shit, Doctor=House). However the most prominent are references to celebrities (e.g. Talentless Shemale Bitch=Lady Gaga, Gay=Elton John, Ass Face=Alec Baldwin, Suicide=Kurt Cobain).[Ahmed and Salim, iPhone 5]

Popularity

According to The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, the show has a "cult following" in Israel. [3] The debut episode, in which the father "bemoans the fact that his sons haven't gone off on a suicide mission and killed lots of Jews," attracted 600,000 viewers on YouTube. [3]

Controversy

The series includes extreme scenes, which many viewers find offensive. In one of the episodes, Ahmed falls in love with a Jewish girl, who in turn develops a crush on younger brother Salim; their father resolves the conflict by shooting the girl dead. In another episode, which was taken off YouTube following complaints by shocked viewers, the father dreams he has become a "stinking Jewish rabbi" and his sons do what they were taught to do when encountering a Jew, namely shoot him in the testicles.

The show has drawn the critical attention of the Arabic press. [4] The United Arab Emirates has banned Ahmed and Salim. Palestinian bloggers have denounced it. [3] YouTube removed one of the first six episodes and warned the creators that it could ban the entire series if new episodes are too offensive. Despite the show's offensive nature, many of Ahmed and Salim's Facebook friends are in fact Muslims and many of the show's fans are in Arab countries.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yasser Arafat</span> Palestinian political leader (1929–2004)

Yasser Arafat was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004 and president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994 to 2004. Ideologically an Arab nationalist and a socialist, Arafat was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ahmed Yassin</span> Palestinian political and religious leader (1936–2004)

Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin was a Palestinian politician and imam who founded Hamas, a militant Islamist and Palestinian nationalist organization in the Gaza Strip, in 1987.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maxim restaurant suicide bombing</span> 2003 Palestinian terror attack in Haifa, Israel

The Maxim restaurant bombing was a suicide bombing which occurred on October 4, 2003, in the beachfront "Maxim" restaurant in Haifa, Israel. Twenty-one civilians were killed and 60 were injured. Among the victims were two families and four children, including a two-month-old baby.

Tanzim is a militant faction of the Palestinian Fatah movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salah Khalaf</span> Palestinian Fatah senior official (1933–1991)

Salah Mesbah Khalaf, also known as Abu Iyad, was deputy chief and head of intelligence for the Palestine Liberation Organization and the second most senior official of Fatah after Yasser Arafat.

<i>M.K. 22</i> Israeli TV series or program

M.K. 22 is an Israeli animated sitcom, revolving around the adventures of soldiers in a fictional IDF military base hosting the so-called "Israeli doomsday weapon". The show was created for the cable channel Bip and debuted in March 2004, becoming the first prime time animated series in Israeli television, and was later rebroadcast partly censored on Channel 2. The show won the Israeli Television Academy Award for Best Comedy Series and is considered by many a milestone in the history of Israeli animation. Despite gaining popularity and critical acclaim, the negotiations for a second season seem to have failed, making the first 10-episode season the only one thus far.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palestinian political violence</span> Violence with political ends in the State of Palestine

Palestinian political violence refers to actions carried out by Palestinians with the intent to achieve political objectives that can involve the use of force, some of which are considered acts of terror, and often carried out in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Common objectives of political violence by Palestinian nationalists include self-determination in and sovereignty over Palestine, or the "liberation of Palestine" and recognition of a Palestinian state, either in place of both Israel and the Palestinian territories, or solely in the Palestinian territories. Some perpetrators of these acts support the dismantling of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Arab state. More limited goals include the release of Palestinian prisoners or the Palestinian right of return. Other motivations include personal grievances, trauma or revenge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dolphinarium discotheque massacre</span> 2001 nightclub bombing in Tel Aviv, Israel

On 1 June 2001, a Hamas-affiliated Islamist terrorist blew himself up outside the Dolphinarium discotheque on the beachfront in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing 21 Israelis, 16 of whom were teenagers. The majority of the victims were Israeli teenage girls whose families had recently immigrated from the former Soviet Union.

<i>You Dont Mess with the Zohan</i> 2008 film directed by Dennis Dugan

You Don't Mess with the Zohan is a 2008 American satirical action comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan; written by Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel, and Judd Apatow; produced by Sandler and Jack Giarraputo; and starring Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Nick Swardson, Lainie Kazan, and Rob Schneider with supporting roles by Kevin Nealon, Ido Mosseri, Dave Matthews, Michael Buffer, Charlotte Rae, Sayed Badreya, and Daoud Heidami.

<i>Tomorrows Pioneers</i> Television program

Tomorrow's Pioneers, also known as The Pioneers of Tomorrow, is a Palestinian children's television show. The series was broadcast by the Hamas-affiliated television station Al-Aqsa TV from April 13, 2007 to October 16, 2009, and featured young host Saraa Barhoum and her co-host Farfour, a large Mickey Mouse-like costumed character, performing skits and discussing life in Palestine in a talk show fashion with call-ins from children. Presented in a children's educational format similar to such other preschool shows as Sesame Street or Barney & Friends, Tomorrow's Pioneers is highly controversial as it contains antisemitism, Islamism, anti-Americanism, and other anti-Western themes.

<i>Arab Labor</i> Israeli TV series or program

Arab Labor is an Israeli sitcom television series, created by Sayed Kashua.

Yousef "Joe" Sweid is an Arab-Israeli actor and dancer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yitzhaq Shami</span> Palestinian Jewish and Israeli writer

Yitzhaq Shami was a Palestinian Jewish and Israeli writer, who wrote both in Arabic and Hebrew. He is one of the earliest modern Hebrew literature writers in Palestine, prior to Israeli statehood. His work was unique for his period, since in contrast with the vast majority of Hebrew writers of the period he crafted his art based on characters who were either Arabs or Sephardic Jews, residing in the Ottoman Palestine, and his literary influences were predominantly Arab and Middle Eastern. Shami published short stories, one novella, several poems and a number of essays.

Events in the year 2002 in Israel.

Some families of Jews and Arabs killed in the Israeli-Arab conflict have chosen to donate organs to transplant patients on the "opposite side". Examples are Yoni Jesner, a 19-year-old student at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Gush Etzion, and Ahmed Khatib, a Palestinian boy shot by Israeli Defense Forces soldiers who mistook his toy gun for a real one. The generosity of families prepared to donate the organs of their loved ones under such circumstances has been praised. Their story was also made the subject of an award-winning BBC World Service program, Heart and Soul, in 2007.

Events in the year 2004 in the Palestinian territories.

Events in the year 2003 in the Palestinian territories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine</span> Palestinian Marxist–Leninist organization

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization, the largest being Fatah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henrique Cymerman</span> Portuguese journalist

Henrique Cymerman Benarroch is a Portuguese journalist of Israeli and Spanish origin who works as a correspondent in the Middle East for SIC, La Vanguardia and Mediaset España, among others. He works in five languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Hebrew. He is the President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry between Israel and The GCC.

Sugar Zaza is the nickname for the Israeli comedian duo of Tom Trager and Or Paz. The two began working in 2006 as part of "Flix" website run by Tapuz, later creating television productions and beginning a YouTube channel for comedy sketches and web series.

References

  1. 1 2 Guarnieri, Mya. "No ordinary cartoon", The Jerusalem Post , 4 June 2009.
  2. ↑ Rosen, Ido (12 October 2023). "Independent Content Creators Online: A Paradigm Shift in Film Aesthetic and Production, the Case of Israel". Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Cambridge. doi:10.17863/cam.101964.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Nissenbaum, Dion. "Humor or hate? Groups see Israeli cartoon differently" Archived 3 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine , Columbus Ledger-Enquirer , 23 April 2009.
  4. ↑ Ronen, Erex. "Sitcom about terrorists' makes waves", Israel National News, 14 April 2009.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.