Underplayed Gems

Ben & Izzy

Ben & Izzy poster
Country
Jordan
Length
1 season, 13 episodes
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

Two preadolescent boys from the United States and Jordan become friends and go on adventures with a desert genie named Yasmine. The show teaches about Arab history and its connections to Western culture.

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What happens

Ben & Izzy (Arabic: بِنْ وعصام) is a Jordanian animated children's television series. It was produced by Jordan's rising educational and CGI animation company Rubicon. This series follows the adventures and developing friendship of two preadolescent boys known as Ben and Izzy (Issam), who are from the United States and Jordan respectively, as well as a desert genie known as Yasmine, who takes the form of a young girl closely resembling the age of the boys. Despite the fact the series was produced in Jordan, it was primarily released in English for international purposes before its official Arabic dub in 2008. The series was created primarily to entertain, but it was also created as an educative experience about certain aspects of Arab history, and how it affected Western culture, which is also the forming of the bond between the Western Ben and the Eastern/Arab Izzy. This in turn represents a comprehensible and possible union of Western and Eastern/Arab cultures, in spite of the current prejudice views of each culture in the other. There are currently 13 episodes created, although 26 were originally planned. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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