Rania Khallaf bonds with her daughter "Mum," my five-year-old daughter exclaimed, "when is Ramadan coming?" I could tell she was not longing for the fast. Rather, she was anticipating Zaza wa Gargeer -- the puppet show at the top of her TV watching list, which also included Temon wa Bomba and Bakar. Launched last year, the show had held her in thrall, and it was only natural that she should look forward to its return. Ramadan TV, it seems, is finally embracing children. Still, compared to some 40 adult dramas produced by the Television Production Sector, children continue to have the tiniest portion of the cake. "You know what's amazing about Zaza and Gargreer," my daughter went on. "They are really funny. And where they live, all the tiny things around them. They have lots of colours." Independently produced and directed by Khaled El-Khamissy with support from the Francophone Organisation -- and submitted to Egyptian television as a gift -- the programme proved so successful the television has purchased its second part this year. While last year's series was relatively simple, depicting the two brothers quest for work, this year Zaza and Gargeer have decided to open a community-service office. Some deemed the topic too complicated for the target audience of three- to six-year-olds, but according to script-writer Abdel-Rahman El-Khamissy, the target bracket is in fact aged six-11 -- a rather unusual choice of audience for this kind of show. "When the first part was broadcast, I realised the parents were as keen on the show as their children, so I thought the second part should address everyday problems of the whole family, discussing issues like TV competitions -- the perceived way to a quick and easy fortune -- or excessive use of computer games." With the show broadcast only five minutes after the sunset azan, however, when most parents are busy with their Iftar feast, that aim was largely frustrated. Though they have maintained their sense of fun, the episodes have also been modified, with the grandfather assuming an increasingly moralistic tone in addressing the two children -- advice on problems and how to solve them. "In dealing with specific, daily problems," Abdel-Rahman says, "you cannot avoid a certain directness. The important thing is how Zaza and Gargeer solve their clients' problems." But with the competition soaring between this show and its older, animation predecessor Bakar (broadcast on channels 2 and 1, respectively), one has to ask how old the two heroes are. Surely their unspecified age makes it difficult for the audience to identify, whether it is made up of children or adults. "The idea," Khaled El-Khamissy cuts in, "is to make them accessible to all ages, breaking the child-adult barrier." Besides, he adds, success in the puppet medium is a priority in itself, regardless of the target audience. In Egypt, well trained technicians are few and far between, he explains, which made controlling the movement of puppets a true challenge during shooting. And regardless of all that, for Abdel-Rahman, the medium is a challenge to the scriptwriter, limiting the scope of fantasy and imagination in a way that it wouldn't were he writing for 2D or 3D animation. Already children's TV viewers have been divided into two camps: the Bakar loyalists and the Zaza and Gargeer supporters. With Zaza and Gargeer lasting no longer than 20 minutes per episode, however, even the latter are complaining. "But it only goes to show how interesting the show is," Khaled interjects. Is argument and discussion always a sign of popularity, though? Yes, Khaled would seem to insist, at least in this case. He refers to the lively colloquial lyrics of Ahmed Haddad -- indeed many children, and parents, now know the songs by heart -- who for his part is equally keen on the show. "I made an effort to make the lyrics appealing to the public at large," he says, "not just children." One unequivocal glitch is that the show, songs and all, is written in Egyptian Arabic -- making selling it to Arab satellite channels (MBC3, for example) difficult. "They obviously didn't want Arab children to fall prey to Egyptian dialect," Haddad observed, "which is weird considering how they are full of foreign shows that are full of violence. A remarkable production like this should not be blocked just because it is Egyptian."
