The Arabic news network Al Jazeera has signed a five-year distribution deal with Munich-based Studio100 Media to broadcast the live-action children's series "Bumba the Clown." Bumba is a moon-faced circus harlequin who plays the drums and imparts pearls of wisdom to the pre-K set (see YouTube here.) One Belgian IMDB reviewer with a 9-month-old who can't get enough raves: "The show revolves round a yellow dressed clown and his friends. There's another clown, a bear, a rhino, an elephant, an Asian girl and I think there's a bird somewhere as well. Maybe a monkey. (You can't blame me for not remembering, I hardly watch it)." So goodbye cycles of violence in Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Sudan, where Bumba will now appear regularly.

The Middle East has wanted for quality kids programming. The last big name the region had was Hamas TV's Islamist mouse Farfour, an obvious Mickey rip-off, whose voice sounded like a Kate Bush orgasm and whose mission was to drive the Jews into the sea. Once Farfour was "martyred" at the hands of a Mossad agent (see below), his cousin Nahoul the Bee buzzed in to replace him as the cuddliest little jihadist that could. It probably doesn't bode well for the Palestinian biology curriculum that insects can be related to rodents, but there you have it.

[Variety]