Sony's Wheel Of Fortune And Jeopardy! Head To The Middle East

Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune are two things people take for granted in the United States. Like Wonderbread and Mountain Dew with high fructose corn syrup, it's hard to imagine a world where Alex Trebek never shaved his mustache and Vanna White aged. Now, just like Pepsi products in the Middle East, Egypt and Arabia will be giving the Sony programs their own flavor.

U.S. versions of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune have already become iconic in the Middle East. Sony plans to infuse the iconic aspects of the two shows with the needs of a more localized market. THR reports Sony Pictures Television’s Arabia unit plans to produce 240 episodes of Wheel of Fortune for audiences in Egypt. The show will be shot in Arabic for Hayat TV. Twenty full-hour episodes of Jeopardy will also be shot for channel MBC1. I know it seems like Jeopardy! fans are getting a raw deal here with only 20 episodes; however, they get a full hour of the program. Lucky bastards.

Other countries have already made different localized versions of both Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, so the Arab World giving either show a go is not really much of a surprise. If only all of these various language spinoffs of the original would overdub their episodes of Jeopardy! in English and throw them onto a brand new network, maybe an offshoot of GSN. The network could be called J!24/7. If I could watch Jeopardy! whenever I wanted, I think I could die a happy woman. Anyone with me?