Canada has never been known for its television, in fact, chances are, their highest rated programming is American produced. (That’s just a guess I have no facts to back that up and I’m too lazy to go fishing for those stats)

But our neighbors to the north have finally hit on something–something that unfortunately would probably never make it to the air in the US. Its a sitcom called Little Mosque on the Prairie and it follows a young Imam (Muslim equivalent to a priest or rabbi) from the big city who moves to a small town to lead their new mosque. The program is full of politically incorrect jokes about Muslims and in turn makes fun of how ignorant and uninformed many of us are about Islam.

What makes this show great, and I think important, is that its Muslims poking fun at the stereotypes that they live with. Muslim characters are getting caught in misunderstandings that lead to unfounded terrorist fears and find themselves in situations and in discussions of where they have to explain that they are just normal citizens who follow a normal religion.

But above all, its a sitcom and the pilot was pretty funny. I’m not sure how they’re going to keep up this gimmick and the running gags, but hopefully they will. And if it does succeed, I’m hoping it gets adapted for American TV.

A show like Little Mosque on the Prairie, showing Muslims as just normal people, could do for Islamic Americans what the Cosby Show did for African-Americans in the 80’s.

You can watch the entire pilot episode of Little Mosque on the Prairie at the amazingly entertaining site that first brought this show to my attention. Click onto Popped Culture to read a real life Canadian person’s view on this program and to watch the first episode. Then come back here and let us know what you thought.