Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp

This cartoon is one of the best made by Ub Iwerks in the few years he spent helming his own studio. It's a jazzy take on the ALADDIN fairy tale, with a gorgeous score and great animation, one of the most distinctive cartoons ever produced. It was often aired as filler between movies on the American pay-cable network HBO in the early 1980s. A few seconds of this public domain cartoon were used in the introductory sequence in FUTURAMA episode PARASITES LOST, 3ACV02, originally aired 1/21/2001. There are some genuinely bizarre, sexually suggestive images in this cartoon, as there were in many Ub Iwerks cartoons produced before the Hayes Office began its obnoxious censorship.

Ub Iwerks was the creator of Disney's MICKEY MOUSE, and, as such, is one of the unsung heroes of animation.

Director: UB IWERKS
Producer: UB IWERKS
Production Company: UB IWERKS
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Provided by Prelinger Archives (Public Domain)

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Cartoon
• classic
• animation
• Iwers
• Aladdin
• magic
• lamp

[Titchbert]

how interestingly racist.

a white white princess in the middle east.

one thinks most peculiar.

[EternalMessiah]

"A magic lamp....it's colossal!"

XD

[Liebling05]

Long live Ub Iwerks' legacy! Without him there would be no Disney :)

[KelticNuts]

Disney was involved in his "Alice" series of "cartoons" for Universal (pre- Disney studio days) when Oswald was born, thanks in large part due to Ub Iwerks. Universal didn't like having a middle man, regardless if it was the creator, in anything they didn't have full control of...so they organized a take over of Oswald and Alice and took many of Disney's artists with them.

At this time, Disney knew what was going on but actually powerless to stop it.

[KelticNuts]

He tried to reason with Universal, even going back east by train to talk with the company...the trip was a failure. On the way back...details are a bit fuzzy...Mickey was born. Once back in LA, Disney went to Ub who took up the project of Mickey, who at the time was called Mortimer. (Mrs. Disney liked the name).

While finishing up work on the last of the Oswald and Alice installments they were contracted to do, Ub would work on "Mortimer" key frames....

[KelticNuts]

...the man was incredible. He would work on "Mortimer" all day, but have drawings of Oswald on his desk to throw over his work in case any employee would walk by and see it...Universal couldn't own "Mortimer", but they could damn sure make life difficult for Disney to get "Mortimer" launched. Since Disney had absolutely no idea which artist were helping Universal everything Ub was doing had to be kept secret...

[KelticNuts]

...but as Disney's number 1 artist Ub couldn't hide out anywhere without causing suspicions.

By the time the contract for Universal were completed, Ub had key framed and roughed out entire "Mortimer" cartoons, all that was needed was for a clean up artist to flesh them out.

[KelticNuts]

Disney Studios was born thanks to the efforts of this man. He walked from Disney of his own, because another company years later was trying to copy Disney's success and knew they needed a Disney artist of Ub's calibre to do it with...the birth of Comi-Color cartoons. Unfortunately, Ub was deceived and used and ended back up at Disney anyway, but the damage to the relationship was done.

[5star555555555]

Chriddof sent me here.

[HyperSonicXtreme]

WTF Aladdin was a maid?

Cinderella much?

[lolanimations]

looks like some perfect YTP material. did anyone get to this yet?

[TomPreston6]

@klownie I'd like you to cite sources. As someone with a BFA in animation I would think that I would've heard that story before. All the stories I've heard were about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, not Mickey Mouse. iwerks stole the rights to Oswald from Walt, and in desperation Walt created Mickey Mouse as a replacement. That's what all the animation history books and sources I could find say...