Ellen Sandler and the future of Arab Sitcoms

American sitcoms are my favorite TV shows, from Seinfeld to That ’70s Show, to Scrubs, Becker, My Name is Earl, Grounded for life, Mad About You, to Saved By The Bell, and Step by Step, I enjoy watching it, it’s really funny and entertaining, pretty stupid as well, but it goes easy, each episode is like 20 minutes long, no need to think or follow-up to stay engaged, which makes it the perfect solution for someone who seeks some entertainment after a hectic day.

In the Arab world, few sitcoms appeared in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, but frankly it’s really really bad, not even close to being funny, I believe it should be called sickoms, it made me think, why can’t Arabs do a simple comedy show like those we see in America? Egypt has a great history with comedy, whether it’s TV, cinema or on stage, even their TV Commercials, you won’t stop laughing, but with sitcoms, Egyptians didn’t succeed to create present good stuff.

Few reports talked about a planned visit of the co-producer of Everybody Loves Raymond, Ellen Sandler, to Dubai in November, where she will be conducting a workshop on scriptwriting during the Media and Marketing Show. The workshop, Everybody Loves Sitcoms, will give insights on Hollywood producers’ techniques in short-format and long-format comedy shows. The workshop will teach the participants how to manage the whole process of creating a television show, from pitching to financing and managing the crow, all the way to creating buzz around the show.

Sounds promising, but will it help in changing Arab’s idea of light comedy shows?

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