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 artwork and dialog are the stars in this (longest-ever) 22-minutes Popeye animated short. This is one of three "longer" Popeye cartoons that were made in color back in the '30s and it's just beautiful to view. It reminded of the beautiful water color look of Bambi. I also loved all the puns and misused words that make Popeye always fun to hear. He and others use the wrong words in here frequently. I'll tell ya: you can;t beat the Technicolor of the '30s and '4- s.

Other, the main story is only so-so, about the battle for the magic lamp with the genie who grants powers. In here, it's the battle between our hero and some evil-looking dude with a Dracula-like cape. Olive Oyl, as always, has to be rescued.

The last five minutes was excellent Popeye having to use at least FOUR cans of spinach to defeat what the bad guy was using the genie to repel him. The genie was good, but you can't beat Popeye's spinach!

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.

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.

When this show was on I watched it every time I could! I thought that the characters were really funny and all had great personalities. The animation in My opinion was crisp, clean, and really clear. Not to mention beautiful! Most of the characters in this show are hilarious like the Looney Tunes characters that we all love. in My opinion these characters are the funnies and talented ever seen. In fact, The things that goes on in this series' cartoons are in My opinion nuts which that is what makes them hilarious! There are so many to like and laugh at and the silly things they do! If you like the original Looney Tunes then I strongly recommend that you watch this show!