AL SHAMSHOON THE RARE SIMPENS VAULT

:: CHARACTER NAMES ::

:: WHAT IS AL SHAMSHOON? ::

Al Shamshoon (آل شمشون) was an Arabic-language adaptation of The Simpsons produced by MBC (Middle East Broadcasting Center) in 2005. Dubbed in Egyptian Arabic with production in Cairo and Beirut, the show premiered on October 4, 2005 — the first night of Ramadan — airing at 7:00 PM after al-Iftar in a prime viewing slot targeting 22 million Saudi Arabian viewers and the wider Arab world.

The show was heavily localized — Homer became Omar Shamshoon (voiced by Egyptian comedian Mohamed Heneidy), Bart became Badr, and Springfield became Rabeea (ربيعة). All references to alcohol, pork, and other culturally sensitive topics were removed or altered. Duff beer became soda. Hot dogs became Egyptian beef sausages. Donuts became kahk (كعك), traditional Arab cookies. Moe's Tavern was cut entirely. The church became a mosque.

The show was cancelled after only 34 of 52 dubbed episodes aired. Arab audiences who already watched the original with subtitles on Showtime Arabia rejected the heavily censored version. As Simpsons executive producer Al Jean put it:

"If Homer doesn't drink and eat bacon and generally acts like a pig — which I guess is also against Islam — then it's not Homer."

This vault contains 29 recovered episodes, salvaged from the decaying infrastructure of an overseas streaming service before its servers went offline forever. They are presented here for preservation and cultural study. The show is classified as partially lost media by preservation communities. The search for the remaining 23 episodes is ongoing.

:: CULTURAL ADAPTATIONS ::

• Duff Beer → soda / fruit juice (عصير)
• Hot dogs → Egyptian beef sausages
• Donuts → kahk (كعك) Arab cookies
• Bacon removed from all scenes
• Moe's Tavern → cut entirely
• Church → mosque
• Rev. Lovejoy → removed
• Rabbi Krustofski → removed
• Smithers' romantic subplot → removed
• Ned Flanders stripped of religious identity
• Homer still says "D'oh!"
• Badr's catchphrase: "rewesh!" (رويش) = "cool!"
• Source material drawn from Seasons 4–6
• "Homer the Heretic" excluded (too religious)
• Springfield renamed Rabeea (ربيعة)
• Setting: "an American town with a major Arab population"

:: PRODUCTION ::

MBC 1 • October 4, 2005 (1st night of Ramadan) • 7:00 PM after al-Iftar • Egyptian Arabic • Writer: Amr Hosny • Cairo & Beirut
52 dubbed • 34 aired • 29 recovered • 23 still missing

:: RECOVERY LOG ::

For nearly two decades these episodes existed only as fading memories and a handful of low-resolution YouTube clips. The original MBC broadcasts were never released on home media. No DVD. No digital storefront. Nothing.

In the mid-2010s, a Spanish-language cartoon streaming site — whose name we will not publish — quietly ingested a large volume of dubbed and localized content from Middle Eastern and Latin American distributors. Among the thousands of files sitting on their unprotected CDN infrastructure: 29 complete episodes of Al Shamshoon, catalogued under a garbled transliteration and never linked from any public-facing page.

The files were identified through systematic endpoint enumeration and metadata analysis. Extraction required navigating legacy authentication layers and undocumented API paths that had been abandoned but never decommissioned. The full set was pulled over the course of several weeks before the domain lapsed and the servers were finally deprovisioned.

Had the operation been delayed by a matter of months, these files would have been lost permanently.

The remaining 5 aired episodes were not present on the server. Their trail has gone cold. The 18 unaired episodes have never surfaced anywhere. The search continues.