Help translate an Iraqi homage to The Muppet Show

August 8, 2011 4:38 PM

Can anyone translate this Iraqi homage to The Muppet Show? (SLYT)

I forget how I found Jasim Show, but it was shortly after I started my own YouTube puppet show. I've talked some with one of the producers. Here is what he says about the show:

"I was born in baghdad and since that time i was watch the muppet show, I love comedy and love making funny videos... I do the voice of Jasim (Kermit the frog the Iraqi version) and I also do most of the puppet with scarfs of their heads. the stories are writen by me and they reviewed by my other firends. Jasim is the guy who want to sell his theater after he believed that art means nothing to Iraqis these days after the war, he met few guys who convinced him that art will never be worthless . Art is everything in life and together they can build the theater again."

I've asked a few times if they can translate it into English, but to no avail.

In the interest of international puppet-based understanding, are there any Arabic speakers out there who can help translate this show? It would be really cool if we could get subtitles on the YouTube channel, or some open-source subtitling venue. The US exports Sesame Street to many many countries. How often do we get our shows reflected back to us? I'm dying to know what they're talking about.

I don't want this to get so much attention that The Henson Company sues the life out of them for copyright violation... I'm hoping that acting in the spirit of Jim Henson would dictate that they support this as they support so many other puppeteers out there, anyway.

posted by gusandrews to media & arts (3 answers total)

Here's an interesting tidbit from another site talking about the show:

hmm. i don't know if they have a license from Henson for this sort of thing, but it is funny in Arabic, real funny :D
these are the same group of ppl who dubbed into Arabic the first batch of "spoof" movies:
Starwars Ep.I, Lethal Weapon 1, and Indiana Jones 2.
so anyway, i doubt you'd understand it if you can't speak the local Iraqi dialects, suffice to say, it is funny, and the imagery while needing improvement, is good enough :)

Wondering where we can find the other spoofs?
posted by gusandrews at 2:52 PM on August 14, 2011

I'd love to help, but unfortunately I speak "Diplomat Arabic" and I doubt I'd be able to do the nuances of Iraqi Arabic for kids justice.
posted by dougrayrankin at 6:04 AM on September 4, 2011

Thanks, doug. I'm told actually that the Arabic here is actually vernacular Iraqi (and the show is not apparently aimed at kids) -- yeah, probably still a mismatch. I've got a colleague from our anthropology department looking at it, which I hope will help; his expertise is Morocco, though, so this may still be tricky...
posted by gusandrews at 12:03 PM on September 6, 2011