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 & Dave Fleischer for Fleischer Studios, Inc. and directed by Dave Tendlar , with musical supervision 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.
Plot
This short features Olive as a screenwriter 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. As she types, her adaptation of Aladdin comes to life on the screen, with Popeye having to use his wits agains 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 movie is out...and so are you! [signed] Surprise."
As in many Popeye catoons, 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!!"
Release and reaction
This short was the last of the three Popeye Color Specials, which were, at over sixteen minutes each, three times 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 Disney-esque in plot and pacing, and does not make use of the Fleischer Tabletop 3D background process. Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp takes some liberties with the source material; notably, the 1992 Walt Disney Feature Animation version of Aladdin took many of those same liberties, including simplifying the numbers of genies and removing Aladdin's family frm 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, are in the public domain, and are widely available on home video and DVD.
