New Omani animation show Tawasel airs on Oman TV
MUSCAT: A new Omani-produced animated show called Tawasel has started airing during the second half of the Holy Month of Ramadan.
Tawasel started airing on Saturday night, and features a cast of comedic Omani and non-Omani characters, tackling important issues that the Omani society grapples with in an entertaining manner.
The Times of Oman spoke to Tamer Al Abri of Innovation Smart Solutions, the production company behind the show.
“I serve as the full writer of the show, in terms of both scenarios and character descriptions. We had an idea to make the show since 2015, even though Innovation is an IT company that specialises in smart applications and website development. We took our time to create something that is of high quality, that we would be proud of. We wanted to provide important messages to the community, but in a comedic way,” Al Abri said.
The company had independently posted the first two episodes of the show on YouTube earlier this year, and reached out to the TV network in efforts to create a full length series for Ramadan. “We got the green light, but due to the short notice, we were only able to create 15 episodes for this year, which will run from mid-Ramadan till the end of the month.”
According to Al Abri, the story and characters are all based on Omani culture and themes, but hopes to tackle modernity and its effects on the country.
“Social media use is a prominent theme of the show, and other issues relating to how we communicate. The episodes usually start in a comedic manner, but end with important lessons for audiences to remember. For example, the first episode had a message that first poked fun at taking pictures of our food on Instagram, only to remind audiences that there are 700 million people who suffer from hunger and malnutrition around the world,” Al Abri said.
Social media as characters
Tawasel features social media icons, such as Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, as actual characters on the show. The main characters were carefully crafted by Al Abri to appear both entertaining and educational.
“Every character has its own personality and reasoning. Rashid, for example, is a social media influencer with 150 thousand social media followers. We also have the character of the grandmother, who is over 60 years old, but uses Snapchat. Reem, a young girl of six, already has experience with social media and ends up creating trouble in many of the episodes,” he said.
“We’re very excited for the episodes to come. The storylines are meant to invoke this feeling of, ‘yes this has happened to me,’ as they relate closely to our daily lives in Oman,” Al Abri added. Eighty-five per cent of Tawasel’s production is Omani, though the content creators reached out for global expertise to assist in developing the show for TV standards.
“The show spans a short five minutes for most episodes, as production needed to be limited for this year, due to the short notice. However, we also thought that shorter episodes would keep audiences engaged and (dissemination of ) the core message interactive,” Al Abri explained.
Catch the show at around 7:25pm on Oman TV. Each episode repeats several times every evening and during morning hours during Ramadan.