Cairo -

Despite presenting dozens of characters on the cinema and television screens in addition to the theater, the characters Fatouta and Samoura remain the most famous of what the late artist Samir Ghanem presented, an idea that he initially rejected when director Fahmy Abdel Hamid presented it to him in the early eighties.

After the end of 7 seasons of Nelly's Fawazir, directed by Abdel Hamid, he decided to use Ghanem - whose death anniversary falls on May 20, 2021 - to present a new type of fawazir, not based on dance performances, but on cartoon characters. To compete with Nelly and Sherihan in presenting the Fawazir?

The idea

The idea was initially to present Fawazeer revolving around the travels of the traveler Ibn Battuta in different countries, where he takes Fattota Samoura on a trip around the world, and soon the idea developed to present the comedic character “Fattuta” of short stature with a wide green suit, big yellow shoes, thick hair, and a huge black bibbon. (Created by fashion designer Wedad Attia.)

The late Egyptian artist Samir Ghanem, his late wife Dalal Abdel Aziz, and the character of Fatouta (communication sites)

The director was also inspired by the wide suit that Fattuta wears from his son when he saw him wearing wide clothes, and he appears next to Fattuta Samir Ghanem in his natural form, presenting the character of “Samoura.”

Batoota instead of Batoota

Ghanem rejected the idea of ​​Fawazeer at first, and met with the director in his attempts to persuade him, and they did not agree on a name for the character during the preparations, and chose Sayed Makkawi to compose the program’s music, and Shawky Abdel Rahman wrote the episodes, and the name “Fattuta” was proposed instead of “Battuta” and the character of Fattuta approached the Aragoz. In the popular comedy, where the dialogue takes place with the doll that represents the arajuz, but Ghanem presented the folk tale in a different way.

Al-Fawazir Tatter has become one of the most important things that attach to the minds of the viewers, as it presents the character simply. These Fawazir are the hero of “Fatouta, an antique director, I learn Sima in America, he dances Tango and Chika Pika” and phrases such as “Ramadan Kareem in which he did not eat. "Papa jay when? It's six o'clock.. Rider or not? Rider on a bicycle."

The first part came in your season 1982, and with the great success of Fawazeer, it was followed by two parts in 1983 and 1984, and then it was re-presented in the animated series "Fatouta and Tita Mazbouta" in 2010, and then presented by Samir Ghanem on the radio in 2016.

When Ghanem moved away from Fatota, he presented other fawazirs, such as “Married People in History” in 1992, “The Laughing Persons” in 1993, and “Ahl al-Mughni” in 1994.

lost son

Ghanem tells about his love for the “Fatouta” character and his personal connection to it. He feels towards him as if he is his “lost son,” recalling what the late Salah Jaheen wrote in Al-Ahram newspaper and drawing the “Fourth Pyramid” and wrote on it “Fatouta,” adding, “This was a beautiful word and I sat with him afterwards and thanked him for his compliment on The work and this cartoon character that I was presenting and he asked me at the time about Fatota, and I told him I consider him like the international Mickey Mouse cartoon, but this time he is an Egyptian Mickey Mouse and a symbol of Egypt.”

Cuteness of Tota

Ghanem re-presented Fattota again, and presented it to the Egyptian radio, during which he was afraid of presenting the caricature without the viewer seeing it, as he saw that the secret of its great attractiveness is its strange shape, so does the audience accept to hear her voice only on the radio?

The challenge was for Ghanem to adopt the wit of "Fatouta", the charisma he possessed, and the "slanders" he said, which made people laugh.

Ghanem asserts that he relied on improvisation in presenting Fatota, where the author's task is to open the dialogue to be completed by Ghanem with the humor of Fatota, because the beauty of the whole story is in the quarrel between the two personalities, Fattuta and Samoura.

Filming Fatouta was also exhausting due to the simplicity of the tricks used in the early eighties, where Ghanem is exposed to a large amount of light during filming to reduce his size in the montage, and he speaks loudly and very slowly to turn into Fattuta's voice as the audience knows him.

Between theatre, film and television

Ghanem, born on January 15, 1937, is considered one of the most famous comedy stars. He graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture at Alexandria University, and formed with George Sidhom and guest Ahmed the "Three Lights of Theater" group, which was famous for its theatrical comedy sketches, which moved from the theater to the cinema.

After the death of the guest Ahmed, Ghanem worked alone or accompanied by their master in successful plays, the most famous of which are “The Married People” and “Welcome Doctor.” His cinematic participation varied in many films, most notably “Keep in mind from Zozo, Viva Zalata, City Lights, modern marriage, Lord.” Born” and starred in many films at the end of the eighties in what was known as the contracting cinema, which is produced at a low cost and sold to television channels, including “Kill my wife, but my regards, the man who sneezed, the captain arrived, the quorum and the dog, the groom in the lottery.”

In addition to cinema and theater, Ghanem presented a number of famous series such as "The Story of Mizo" and continued his artistic giving until the last years of his life, where he appeared in the works of his two daughters, artists Donia and Amy Samir Ghanem.

On April 30, 2021, Ghanem and his wife were transferred to the hospital after being infected with the Corona virus, until he died on May 20, 2021, before Dalal joined him on August 7, 2021.