BOB GARFIELD:
In 1965 came the CBS debut of Hogan’s Heroes, a sitcom based unexpectedly in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp.
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The popular show had a six-year run, in spite of initial controversy on taste grounds. Many objected to the portrayal of German captors as good-natured buffoons, not to mention trivializing the horrors of Nazi Germany.

Well, now, 42 years later, a new cable channel debuts, and with it, a sitcom sure to raise similar questions. The show is called Jihad To Be There, billed – and this is a quote from the press release – as a “madcap romp through a terrorist training camp, set in the primitive tribal north of Pakistan.”

Joining us to explain the show is Rex Van Ommeran, the senior vice-president for programming on the brand-new Terror Channel, which will – again, the press release – “explode onto your television screen later this fall.” Rex, welcome to the show.
REX VAN OMMERAN:
Thanks, Bob. It’s great to be here.
BOB GARFIELD:
Okay, first of all – the Terror Channel?
REX VAN OMMERAN:
Well, I was in Fiji recently and picked up a local paper there, and you know what the top story was? Terror. It’s the same thing everywhere, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it’s a central fact of 21st century life.

So, if there’s a golf channel and a speed channel, why shouldn’t there be a terror channel?

BOB GARFIELD:
And what kind of shows exactly will you produce?
REX VAN OMMERAN:
Well, we’ve got a syndication deal with the producers of the Fox hit 24. We’ve got a morning program lined up called Confiscated. We’re doing this in cooperation with the Transportation Security Administration. It’ll include videos of security checkpoints at airports, and you’ll see some of the most astonishing things that travelers try to get past screeners.
BOB GARFIELD:
That’s potentially funny. Such as what?
REX VAN OMMERAN:
Well, how about a baby orangutan, or a jar of human eyeballs? We also have a hilarious one from Wilmington, North Carolina, with a surface-to-air missile.
BOB GARFIELD:
A missile?
REX VAN OMMERAN:
[LAUGHS] You can’t make this stuff up.
BOB GARFIELD:
Okay. Let’s talk about Jihad To Be There. What could possibly be funny about a terrorist training camp?
REX VAN OMMERAN:
[LAUGHS] Well, you’d be surprised. The characters in Jihad To Be There are really The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight. The key is, they’re very bad terrorists. They’re a bunch of bungling kooks and malcontents who just happen to want to kill westerners, but they could just as easily be the gang from Taxi or Welcome Back Kotter.

Those shows that were successful because they had the ethnic New Yorker, the Jew, the Italian. We’re hoping to recreate that kind of success with the ethnic Middle Easterner.
BOB GARFIELD:
The main character’s name is Abdul, a Saudi dentistry student who is obsessed with blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge. Can you see, Rex, how that might not be all that amusing to the residents of San Francisco, or Saudi Arabia, for that matter?
REX VAN OMMERAN:
[LAUGHS] Well, Bob, actually all the characters are named Abdul. It’s kind of a running joke of the show and in the opening episode, the Mullah commands “Abdul, your bomb belt,” and everybody springs up to grab their explosives, and they all knock heads. “Abdul, your bomb belt.” [LAUGHS] Every sixth-grader in America will be saying it. I guarantee it.
BOB GARFIELD:
Any backlash yet from the Muslim community or from the U.S. government about this kind of brazen ridicule and stereotyping?
REX VAN OMMERAN:
Bob, we have no intention of ridiculing anyone’s religion. As President Bush said himself, Islam is a beautiful religion, and it is. But at the same time, you have to be a little edgy. You have these goofy beards and hats and death to this, death to that, and that spells an opportunity for comedy, which is exactly what we plan to deliver.
BOB GARFIELD:
All right, Rex. Thanks for joining us.
REX VAN OMMERAN:
Thanks for having me.

BOB GARFIELD:
Rex Van Ommeran is senior vice-president of The Terror Channel.