Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp
Encyclopedia
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp is a two-reel animated cartoon
short subject
in the Popeye Color Specials
series, produced in Technicolor
and released to theatres on April 7, 1939 by Paramount Pictures
. It was produced by Max
, and directed by Dave Fleischer
for Fleischer Studios
, Inc., with David Tendlar
serving as head animator, and music being supervised by Sammy Timberg
. The voice of Popeye is performed by Jack Mercer
, with Margie Hines
as Olive Oyl
and Carl Meyer as the evil vizier
.
for Surprise Pictures ("if it's a good picture, it's a Surprise"), working on a treatment of the story of Aladdin
that will feature herself as the beautiful princess
and Popeye as Aladdin, all the while speaking in rhyme. As she types, her adaptation of Aladdin comes to life on the screen, with Popeye having to use his wits against an evil vizier
who seeks to control a magic lamp
inhabited by a powerful genie
. After completing the script, Olive gets a termination of employment
notice from the front office, which reads "Your story of Aladdin is being thrown out...and so are you! [signed] Surprise."
As in many Popeye cartoons, many of the gags are conveyed using dialogue
. As Princess Olive awaits Popeye/Aladdin's declaration of his love, he turns to the camera and remarks "I don't know what to say...I've never made love in Technicolor before!" During the climatic battle between Aladdin and the vizier, Olive screams out "Help! Popeye—I mean Aladdin—save me!!"
-esque in plot and pacing, and does not make use of the Fleischer Tabletop
3D
background process. This Popeye Color Special is also the only one produced at the relocated Fleischer Studios location in Miami, Florida
.
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp takes some liberties with the source material. The 1992 Disney
version of Aladdin took many of those same liberties, including simplifying the numbers of genies and removing Aladdin's family from the plot.
Today, this short and the other two Popeye Color Specials, Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor
and Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves
(both of which were also adapted from a story featured in One Thousand and One Nights), are in the public domain
, and are widely available on home video
and DVD
. Warner Bros.
has fully restored this cartoon with the original Paramount
mountain logo opening and closing titles and is included in Popeye the Sailor: 1938-1940, Volume 2
which was released on June 17, 2008. It also includes a documentary on the making of this cartoon as a bonus feature in this collection.
Animated cartoon
An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...
short subject
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
in the Popeye Color Specials
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929...
series, produced in Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
and released to theatres on April 7, 1939 by Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
. It was produced by Max
Max Fleischer
Max Fleischer was an American animator. He was a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon and served as the head of Fleischer Studios...
, and directed by Dave Fleischer
Dave Fleischer
David "Dave" Fleischer was an American animator film director and film producer, best known as a co-owner of Fleischer Studios with his two older brothers Max Fleischer and Lou Fleischer...
for Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an Animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York...
, Inc., with David Tendlar
David Tendlar
David Benjamin Tendlar was an American animator. He is best known for his work with Fleischer Studio and its successor, Famous Studios....
serving as head animator, and music being supervised by Sammy Timberg
Sammy Timberg
Sammy Timberg was an American musician and composer who was perhaps most famous for the music he wrote for the cartoons of the Fleischer Studios, such as Popeye, Betty Boop, and Superman...
. The voice of Popeye is performed by Jack Mercer
Jack Mercer
Jack Mercer was an American animator, storyman and voice actor. He is best known as the voice of cartoon character Popeye the Sailor...
, with Margie Hines
Margie Hines
Margie Hines is an American film actress. She is best known for her work as a voice artist at Fleischer Studios, where she voiced Olive Oyl in the Popeye the Sailor cartoons from 1938 to 1943....
as Olive Oyl
Olive Oyl
Olive Oyl is a cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar in 1919 for his comic strip Thimble Theatre. The strip was later renamed Popeye after the sailor character that became the most popular member of the cast; however Olive Oyl was a main character for 10 years before Popeye's 1929...
and Carl Meyer as the evil vizier
Vizier
A vizier or in Arabic script ; ; sometimes spelled vazir, vizir, vasir, wazir, vesir, or vezir) is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in a Muslim government....
.
Plot
This short features Olive as a screenwriterScreenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
for Surprise Pictures ("if it's a good picture, it's a Surprise"), working on a treatment of the story of Aladdin
Aladdin
Aladdin is a Middle Eastern folk tale. It is one of the tales in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights , and one of the most famous, although it was actually added to the collection by Antoine Galland ....
that will feature herself as the beautiful princess
Princess
Princess is the feminine form of prince . Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or his daughters....
and Popeye as Aladdin, all the while speaking in rhyme. As she types, her adaptation of Aladdin comes to life on the screen, with Popeye having to use his wits against an evil vizier
Vizier
A vizier or in Arabic script ; ; sometimes spelled vazir, vizir, vasir, wazir, vesir, or vezir) is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in a Muslim government....
who seeks to control a magic lamp
Oil lamp
An oil lamp is an object used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps began thousands of years ago and is continued to this day....
inhabited by a powerful genie
Genie
Jinn or genies are supernatural creatures in Arab folklore and Islamic teachings that occupy a parallel world to that of mankind. Together, jinn, humans and angels make up the three sentient creations of Allah. Religious sources say barely anything about them; however, the Qur'an mentions that...
. After completing the script, Olive gets a termination of employment
Termination of employment
-Involuntary termination:Involuntary termination is the employee's departure at the hands of the employer. There are two basic types of involuntary termination, known often as being "fired" and "laid off." To be fired, as opposed to being laid off, is generally thought of to be the employee's...
notice from the front office, which reads "Your story of Aladdin is being thrown out...and so are you! [signed] Surprise."
As in many Popeye cartoons, many of the gags are conveyed using dialogue
Dialogue
Dialogue is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people....
. As Princess Olive awaits Popeye/Aladdin's declaration of his love, he turns to the camera and remarks "I don't know what to say...I've never made love in Technicolor before!" During the climatic battle between Aladdin and the vizier, Olive screams out "Help! Popeye—I mean Aladdin—save me!!"
Release and reception
This short was the last of the three Popeye Color Specials, which were, at over sixteen minutes each, three times(x) as long as a regular Popeye cartoon, and were often billed in theatres alongside or above the main feature. Unlike the first two films, Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp is more DisneyThe Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
-esque in plot and pacing, and does not make use of the Fleischer Tabletop
Multiplane camera
The multiplane camera is a special motion picture camera used in the traditional animation process that moves a number of pieces of artwork past the camera at various speeds and at various distances from one another...
3D
Dimension
In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a space or object is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus a line has a dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it...
background process. This Popeye Color Special is also the only one produced at the relocated Fleischer Studios location in Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
.
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp takes some liberties with the source material. The 1992 Disney
Walt Disney Feature Animation
Walt Disney Animation Studios is an American animation studio headquartered in Burbank, California. The studio, founded in 1923 as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio by brothers Walt and Roy Disney, is the oldest subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
version of Aladdin took many of those same liberties, including simplifying the numbers of genies and removing Aladdin's family from the plot.
Today, this short and the other two Popeye Color Specials, Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor
Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor
Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor is a two-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Popeye Color Feature series, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on November 27, 1936 by Paramount Pictures. It was produced by Max Fleischer for Fleischer Studios, Inc. and directed by Dave...
and Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves
Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves
Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves is a two-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Popeye Color Feature series, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on November 26, 1937 by Paramount Pictures. It was produced by Max Fleischer for Fleischer Studios, Inc. and directed...
(both of which were also adapted from a story featured in One Thousand and One Nights), are in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
, and are widely available on home video
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
. Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
has fully restored this cartoon with the original Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
mountain logo opening and closing titles and is included in Popeye the Sailor: 1938-1940, Volume 2
Popeye the Sailor: 1938-1940, Volume 2
Popeye the Sailor: 1938-1940, Volume 2 is the second of a series of DVD sets released by Warner Home Video collecting, in chronological order, the theatrical Popeye cartoons originally distributed by Paramount Pictures. Originally planned as a four-disc set like Volume 1, Volume 2 was announced and...
which was released on June 17, 2008. It also includes a documentary on the making of this cartoon as a bonus feature in this collection.