Suddenly that running joke about never revealing Springfield’s host state makes sense: It turns out that the town is located somewhere in the Middle East, and its most famous family is “The Shamshoons”.

Omar Shamshoon,” as he is called on the show, looks like the same Homer Simpson, but he has given up beer and bacon, which are both against Islam, and he no longer hangs out at “seedy bars with bums and lowlifes.” In Arabia, Homer’s beer is soda, and his hot dogs are barbequed Egyptian beef sausages. And the donut-shaped snacks he gobbles are the traditional Arab cookies called kahk.

An Arabized “Simpsons” – called “Al Shamshoon” – made its debut in the Arab world earlier this month, in time for Ramadan, a time of high TV viewership. It uses the original “Simpsons” animation, but the voices are dubbed into Arabic and the scripts have been adapted to make the show more accessible, and acceptable, to Arab audiences.

Homer without his beloved Duff? DOH-HA! (My best guesstimate of a Semetic “d’oh”…)

I wonder if any other alterations have to be made, specifically with characters. If Homer — er, Omar — isn’t hitting the bar anymore, then Moe isn’t going to be seen much (especially in that first season, which is the only one being Arabized so far). And who knows how they’ll handle Krusty, aka Herschel Krustoffski, Springfield’s resident Jew? Once again, doh-ha.