Thursday, August 24, 2006

Rolf's Blasphemous Cartoon Time

Some time ago Michelle Malkin reported on a BBC "comedy" show called Time Trumpet which featured a sketch called the Terrorism Awards. The subject matter included a plane being flown into the Houses of Parliament, a Tel Aviv suicide bombing and the assassination of the Prime Minister. The BBC did not withdraw this tasteless skit claiming that "The clips have to be seen in the context of the whole series". Sure.

Well, when a comedy group called The Franz Kafka Big Band decided, on their radio show, to have a sketch featuring Rolf Harris drawing Mohammed (on a radio show) the BBC sprang into action and pulled the show-

The corporation said the programme's "bold" subject matter required some "fine-tuning" before it could go on air.

Which I'm assuming means "cuts will be made". Now, the makers of the program claim that they were hired by the BBC to be "bad boys"; and the Beeb obviously knew what they were getting; this is the group's second series.

Other sketches in the show include a discussion between Jesus and Peter at the Last Supper, in which Peter admits he is allergic to fish, and a musical number to the tune of Sammy Davis Jr's The Candy Man in which the group sings "Who can start a jihad? The Taliban can".

They also had some material on the Palestinian situation, but the story doesn't go any further than that.

So there we have it- the BBC is more than happy for a major television comedy to show to create a sketch on Terrorism Awards but when a radio show creates a sketch about drawing Mohammed; well, that's not on, is it? I guess there are still some people that the Beeb don't want to offend.

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