Fox says it plans to develop an Americanized version of the show for U.S. audiences.

More later…

Executive Producers Mary Darling and Michael Snook will also participate, along with the two of the series’ lead actors Sheila McCarthy and Manoj Sood.

Their participation is part of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television’s Canada Award Screening Tour — part of a road show that attracted audiences in Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary and Vancouver.

The screening series showcases diversity in the show, encouraging discussion and promoting multiculturalism. The series will feature episode screenings and a question and answer period with the show’s producers, creator and several cast members.

The screening is free to the public and will be at the NFB Cinema (150 John Street) at 6:00 p.m. ET.

He notes that while the first line of the CBC’s mandate says all CBC shows should “be predominantly and distinctively Canadian,” the popular sit-com Little Mosque on the Prairie deliberately excludes any references to Saskatchewan, where the show is filmed.

Justin quotes from an interview in the Regina Leader Post in which LMOTP producer Zarqa Nawaz tells an NPR reporter that they write out any Canadian references because “they hope an American audience will reference it as taking place in North Dakota and because ‘sales are important.’ ”

Just feels this practice should be banned. “No program that receives tax subsidies should be able to do alternate takes to disguise the fact that it is Canadian.”

The issue, I think, is whether or not Canadians are seeing programming that references Canada. I don’t have a problem if the show shoots different takes for different audiences (“That’s why it’s always cold in Saskatchewan” for the Canadian version; “That’s why it’s always cold here” for the American version).

I would have a problem if the show shoots one version sans Canadiana then airs it here. Does anyone know which way it is?

What do you think?

Previewed programs include immigration drama The Border, sitcom Sophie, Douglas Coupland’s jPod, lifestyle series The Steven & Chris Show, reality program The Week the Women Went, and the much-anticipated MVP – “a sexy look at a fictional NHL team of hunky players and the women who love them.”

Special programming includes The Englishman’s Boy, Project X, The Confidential Series, plus the returns of H2O, Test the Nation and Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister.

(Aside: I kept stumbling upon tidbits about the tapings of these shows back in July, when I last did this blog – including jPod, The Border and The Week the Women Went – so I’m looking forward to seeing them on air.)

Today’s Globe sees the lineup as an effort to attract “a younger, more female audience.” And the media has been quick to draw a correlation between CBC’s push and the ongoing American screenwriters strike. CBC executives admit there’s certainly an opening.

“All I see is opportunity – we have a shot,” head of network programming Kirstine Layfield told the Canadian Press. “People are going to be looking for something to watch, and I always find when people watch Canadian television, they are pleasantly surprised. It’s hard, it’s really hard, to make a mark and this is really going to help us.”

A day earlier, Layfield reported interest from U.S. networks in CBC programs . She confirmed that The Border was one of them. Westwind Production’s Mary Darling says Little Mosque on the Prairie is another.

But Writers Guild of Canada president Rebecca Schechter, who also had a hand in Little Mosque, said optimists like Darling are “dreaming in Technicolor.”

“It’s a weird pipe dream,” she said. “American giant conglomerates, they’ve not come across the border to Canada. They have consistently showed no interest in putting Canadian programming on American network television.”

The WGC plans to participate in an international display of solidarity on Nov. 28.

If you are really pining for American content, you’ll be able to get that on CBC too. According to CP, “CBC also said Tuesday it has acquired the rights to Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune from CBS Paramount International. Both shows will begin airing in September 2008.”

As for the Canadian stuff – well, the launch, and its fortuitous timing, managed to create a certain level of optimism. Prolific television blogger Denis McGrath, also a writer on The Border, had this to say of the event:

The impression I walked away with? When Layfield and the new regime started at CBC they took a lot of heat for saying they wanted to redefine and remake what the broadcaster was, and the kind of programming it did. This looks like a pretty vibrant schedule — it definitely has energy and a potential for big pop. I hope the stuff all works. It would be nice for CBC to get a win.

And if the WGA strike is still on, Canadians might actually get a chance to fairly sample their homegrown wares. It’s the best slate I’ve seen from CBC in a while.

What do you think of the winter lineup? Does the U.S. strike present an opportunity for CBC?

Instead, the Royal Canadian Air Farce and This Hour Has 22 Minutes will be up against CTV’s Corner Gas, Showcase’s Rent-A-Goalie and Comedy Network’s Odd Job Jack for the Best Comedy award.

Kirstine Layfield, head of CBC TV’s network programming, told The Globe and Mail she’s not bothered by the nomination lineup. “Geminis are great to have and it’s nice to have that industry recognition, but to us, the recognition we’ve gotten from the Canadian people, that’s a real measure of success.”

Little Mosque is currently the subject of a bidding war between two American television networks.

What do you think? If you were deciding the nomination list for the Gemini’s Best Comedy award, what five Canadian shows would you list?

Yes, turns out an American network comedy bears a striking resemblance to the CBC’s Little Mosque on the Prairie.
Aliens in America is about a Muslim who finds himself living in a community of white North Americans in a Midwest, heartland setting. Although in this case, the plot revolves around a 16-year-old Muslim exchange student from Pakistan sent to live with a suburban family in Wisconsin, not an imam trying to establish a mosque in Saskatchewan.

The producers of Aliens In America admit that Little Mosque was on their radar as early as 2005, while they were developing their own series. “We had finished the script when we first read a blurb in Variety about them developing a show up in Canada,” executive producer David Guarascio (“Just Shoot Me”) said.

Suuuuuuuuure.

The program airs on the CW network (Copied Wildly? Comedy Withheld?)

Canal Plus, a French pay television service, has become the first international network to buy the CBC-TV series Little Mosque on the Prairie.

The French broadcaster plans to unscramble the show, allowing it to be widely accessible to viewers at no charge. France has suffered tensions in the past few years between predominantly Muslim immigrants and other citizens.

More at CBC.ca

Corner Gas has grown to be incredibly popular, pulling and average of 1.6 million viewers since Januaryl

The Globe and Mail has the deets:

Paul Mather, who oversaw the series’ day-to-day workings; and story editor Rob Sheridan, who has also worked on Showcase’s Naked Josh. In an interview, Mather said he jumped ship primarily because he couldn’t resist the challenge of trying to nip at Corner Gas‘s heels in season two.

CBC will renew the sitcom when the first season ends shortly.

Fatima plays the same role in the show as Babur. Two characters who play exactly the same role does not work in Comedy. You don’t need two Dumb Joeys…you don’t need two space cadet Phoebes, and you don’t need Fatima and Babur, both. One’s gotta show a different side or it’s gonna be a bitch trying to service them both. It’s not enough that she’s a person of color. What makes her distinct and unique? She was useful as a plot point (she’s a woman and wants the barrier too!) but useful as a plot point does not a good character make.

Denis’ blog, called Dead Things On Sticks is always a compelling insider’s read about his line of work, and it’s at http://heywriterboy.blogspot.com

And CBC gave them plenty to talk about. Episode two was slated to air on Monday night, but to the confusion of viewers and pundits alike, the first episode was repeated instead. The replay pulled in 606,000 viewers, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Episode two ended up airing on Wednesday night instead, and drew 1.2 million viewers. (CBC employees: audience numbers for the past three days are available on the intranet.)

A decline from the debut was expected, and any Canadian series that pulls in over a million is good. According to the Globe’s Guy Dixon

A CBC spokesman said yesterday that “we’re very pleased with the way the program is doing.”

In comparison, CTV’s hit sitcom Corner Gas has drawn an average audience of 1.4 million so far this season.

But the big question being asked in the newspapers is, why the switcheroo?

Their consensus opinion seems to be that CBC didn’t want to put the second episode up against the Golden Globes and the debut of 24. (Who would? Those shows pulled in 2.5 million and 1.5 million for CTV and Global on Monday.)

The Toronto Sun posits this theory that CBC was surprised by the huge debut numbers, and worried about how to follow up:

But because Little Mosque opened so huge, the CBC is wary that the numbers for the second episode are going to seem disastrously small by comparison. They’re worried that practically every newspaper in the country is going to write about how Little Mosque went up against the Golden Globes and 24, and lost three-quarters of its audience, or whatever.

The article goes on to quote a response from CBC executive director of programming Kirstine Layfield:

“We knew it was going to confuse the press, and we knew some people would just assume that the CBC messed up, but this was a thought-out decision that was made for the benefit of the show,” Layfield said.

Another Sun article (they’re enjoying this) described the reaction of Carlos Rota, who stars in both Little Mosque and this season’s 24 (talk about a career year!)

“Are they out of their minds?” he said on the set of Fox’s 24, where Rota has a key role this season as CTU analyst (and Chloe’s ex-husband) Morris O’Brian.

Like all the Canadian critics on the press tour, Rota, who plays Yasir on Little Mosque, was flabbergasted by CBC’s programming strategy. “First of all, they premiere it on a Tuesday, then move it immediately to Monday, then show the wrong episode…?” Rota vented.

For the record, according to the Little Mosque website, the show will continue to air on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. (8:30 NT), with repeats on Mondays at 9:00.

Speaking of the web, the first episode of Little Mosque is making a bit of a splash on YouTube (even though it was not posted there by CBC; the online version starts two minutes into it, and includes commercials.)

The YouTube episode is broken into four parts. The first part has already had more than 30,000 views, with the other parts receiving over 17,000 each. Even the news story promoting the series has had more than 14,000 views.

Finally, the Royal Canadian Air Farce has plans to cash in on some of the Mosque mania tonight. According to the Sun:

Coincidentally, CBC’s long-running comedy program Royal Canadian Air Farce will continue the network’s unique tradition of making fun of its own with a short Little Mosque-themed bit tonight (8 p.m.).

The theme is that the CBC is so overwhelmed by the success of Little Mosque that all of the public network’s shows are going to adopt Little Mosque stylings (everything from Don Cherry and Ron MacLean to The National).

And Air Farce also points out that Little Mosque‘s debut audience was “the equivalent of two years total of The Hour With George Stroumboulopoulos.” Funny stuff.

Well, here’s a question: What do you do with a 300-lb shawarma machine when it’s all over?

Answer: sell it on Craig’s List.

Here’s the ad:

Giant Shawarma Machine – Used Once – in Perfect Condition – purchased for promotion of new TV show – Little Mosque on the Prairie.

Location: Hamilton

According to The Hamilton Spectator, the job of cooking the world’s largest shawarma fell to Joshua Hendin of Hamilton’s BBQ Catering:

Normally a corporate events expert, he bought a mega-machine to cook the world’s largest shawarma (63.5 kilograms of chicken) in Toronto’s Dundas Square at the Little Mosque premiere party….But Hendin admits the machine was a one-off purchase. He doesn’t need it for his usual work: large corporate events.

Asking price for the giant shawarma machine: $2,200, “substantially less” than what he paid for it.

(Photos courtesy of Christopher Bird at Torontoist. He enjoyed the free food, but complains that it wasn’t really one big sandwich.)

[Editor's note: If I win this week's 6/49, I'm buying the shawarma machine for installation in the Barbara Frum Atrium. Then people can just come by at any time and cut themselves a big hunk of halal meat. CBC'ers, design students, folks lined up to see an Air Farce taping – just help yourself!]

Some blog reaction:

• Blast Furnace Canada: “My first impressions are quite high. This is definitely the show that’s needed in a post-9/11 world.”

• Pample the Moose: “CBC’s answer to Corner Gas tried very hard, but in my opinion, came across as far too earnest. It got a few genuine laughs from me, but most of the jokes were forced and obvious, and the tacked on feel-good ending made me feel vaguely nauseous.”
• My Prairie Gazette: “This show or, at least, the first episode was a refreshing half hour. Healthy humour and irony (including self-irony), good dialogue and funny characters.”
• Cathie from Canada: “I liked it, a lot. Mercy isn’t quite Dog River, not yet anyway, but I think it will come close.”
• Dust My Broom: “The first episode has proven somewhat underwhelming. In part, this is because in Muslim-only settings, people make the same jokes regularly, so much so that they’ve become overused and lame.”