Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp

I agree with others here that this is the best of the three Arabian Night Shorts that were produced (the others being Popeye Meets Sinbad and Popeye Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves). It's fast-paced and Popeye, as usual, mutters some great lines under his breath ("I've never made love in Technicolor before"). Popeye is never thought of as a funny cartoon character, but he really is extremely funny ("Can you show me the entrance to the exit?").

There are also quite a few similarities to Disney's Aladdin, which would be made over 50 years later: the villain looks a bit like Jafar, the Genie is blue and a fun character, and the way Aladdin looks once disguised as a prince looks exactly like the Prince Ali sequence.

Some Popeye fans will be upset to not see Bluto or Wimpy, but at least it's great to see Popeye have a new villain for once. And finally, at just over 20 minutes, this is the longest Popeye cartoon that I know of.

A classic!

The last of the triple-length Technicolor Popeye featurettes, this one is a retelling of the story of Aladdin, written by Olive Oyl as a screenplay for Surprise Pictures. "Aladdin" has less accomplished animation than the other two featurettes, but it features a better-moving and more balanced storyline. Popeye's best ad-lib, while being pressured into romance by a love-struck Princess (played by Olive): "I never made love in Technicolor before!"

This, the last of the three Fleisher Studios 'Popeye' colour 'features', opens with Olive Oyl writing a script for an Aladdin film starring herself as the princess and Popeye as Aladdin. This meta-reference morphs into a stereotypical 'Arabian Nights' town with Aladdin working in his "Junke Shoppe" when the lovely princess, with whom the humble shoppe-keeper is in love, passes by in a sumptuous litter. Also watching is her villainous vizier who plans to steal the kingdom (never trust a vizier!). The evil one tricks Aladdin into retrieving a magic lamp but his scheme backfires and Aladdin ends up with the thaumaturgic treasure. The genie-of-the-lamp makes Aladdin into a prince so he can court the princess, who instantly falls in love with him. As they are about to wed, the cunning vizier tricks one of the ladies-in-waiting into giving him the lamp, kidnaps the princess (castle and all), and becomes so powerful that Aladdin need to ingest three (3) cans of spinach (!) to save the day. The film is full of meta-humour and the fourth wall is broken a couple of times. Unlike the other two previous Arabesque Popeye features (Sindbad (1936) and Forty Thieves (1938)), Popeye and Olive don't play themselves (other than in the prologue), the villain is not a costumed-Bluto, J. Wellington Wimpy is absent, and the film doesn't use the Fleischer Studios Tabletop 3D background technique; otherwise, the story is typical Popeye shtick, and is pretty funny at times, especially the genie (some of the gags are similar to those in Bugs Bunny's hilarious "A Lad in his Lamp" (1948)). The Arab stereotypes may offend some modern-day sensitivities, but other than that the film is an entertaining outing for the iconic spinach-eating hero and a good example of the high-quality 'classic' animation that was done in the 1930's.

For me, it remains the best version of Aladdin adventures. And, after decades, it is just lovely to see , again, a touching, amusing and heroic animation, admiring the wise craft , the silly situations and one of most interesting evil guys. And, no doubts, popeye .

Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1939)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Classic Popeye short has Olive working at a movie studio where she's typing screenplays. One day she writes a story dealing with Aladdin, the magic lamp and of course her and Popeye have major roles.

ALADDIN AND HIS WONDERFUL LAMP had Popeye going from his usual 7- minute B&W shorts to twenty-two minutes and in Technicolor. I must admit that I love the B&W Popeye shorts and I'm glad that the majority of them were shot that way but there's no denying that this story just screams for color and we're given something very special. The story is wonderfully charming and is perfectly suited for Popeye and Olive. There are some great visuals throughout the film but the highlight is the final battle where Popeye is climbing some stairs with one obstacle after another. This one here is certainly a very entertaining one.