Aladdin: We're just gonna ignore Genie having a girlfriend for this one.

10:30 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "[abu voice] hewwo"

I'm gonna level with you. I thought this show was going to be boring, and maybe it's watching it after Marsupilami, but I had a surprising amount of fun with this one.

9:14 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "okay so the first episode of aladdin.... it's good....... i'm actually liking it. will the vibe stay the same though?"
9:46 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "man was not expecting the aladdin cartoon to be good but tad stones is there so like."
11:58 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "sometimes the show is cheesy and poorly done but the ep i just watched where jasmine got kidnapped by a plant monster has a lot of beauty in it..... it really worked with what it had and i understand why i liked it so much as a kid!"

Sadly Tad Stones does not necessarily a good show make, but we'll learn more about that down the line.

Like The Little Mermaid, I watched this show as a child, but I have more vague memories than nostalgic connections to the show. Also Mirage may have been the imprint that lead to me being a gay furry. Sadly I don't think I saw her in the 13 episodes I watched. Abis Mal, Haroud Hazi Bin and Mechanicles were the ones who usually showed up. Which, not complaining because they're all really fun villains too.

12:58 PM · Dec 18, 2020 "i think the worst part about the aladdin cartoon is the fact that this guy is fucking kin bait."

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd also watched The Return of Jafar rather recently... Er... Sometime in the decade of my 20's. For work I was handed Return of Jafar and Antz and had to have kids vote on them. Overwhelmingly the kids picked Return of Jafar, which is great because I did not get paid enough to watch Woody Allen movies. (And I still don't!)

Everyone talks about how lousy the Disney Sequels are, and Return of Jafar, being one of the first, probably makes it prime for mocking.

But it was good? There's some fun songs. Iago gets a redemption arc. Maybe it's not cinematic level animation, but for what it is, it's very enjoyable.

10:25 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "iago is bald"

Iago joining the team is something I really enjoyed about the series on its own. Perhaps it was an excuse to get Gilbert Gottfried back (Rest in Peace), but it was worth it. He brought a lot of attitude to the series, and worked as great comic relief.

Speaking of, the series has four comic relief characters. Some may argue that is overkill, but ultimately, each one brings different comedy. Iago's brand of comic relief comes from being the black sheep character. Since Aladdin is basically rich now, his one morally ethical trait is essentially gone and he's a good royal person. Meanwhile Iago, who was drenched in being a nasty little thing is slowly learning about kindness, so he still gets to be snarky as hell. 

Then we have Genie, with his improvisational referential comedy. A lot of jokes for adults and older kids come from Genie, but he's also wacky and silly enough for younger kids to enjoy too. He's also overwhelmingly Homer, due to being voiced by Dan Castlevania. No Robin Williams of course, but he is serviceable. 

Carpet and Abu bring a certain silent humor to the series, with Carpet being more of a silent type like Snoopy, and Abu being partially able to speak like Rufus. These two are more subtle, which I think allows them to get away with having more joke characters. Not that I'm complaining I love joke characters.

However, I do think some jokes the series uses are questionable. Most notably, the series sticks to "As Long As It Sounds Foreign" pun names for some of its characters. Though Abis is an Arabic name, the family name Mal, is would be German, if anything. Haroud meanwhile isn't a name at all. One episode features a child king who controls the weather (yes. like encanto.) named Mahmoud, which is an Arabic name, but it is pronounced incorrectly.

Also a bit of a tangent but Mahmoud canonically is for prison emancipation, but since we can't have radical beliefs at Disney, Aladdin and Jasmine tell him to tone it down a bit.

9:27 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "GOING A LITTLE CAZY OVER THIS KID WHOSE IMMEDIATE THOUGHT WHEN DOING GOOD THINGS IS PRISON EMANCIPATION. HE GETS IT."
9:45 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "he gets it because he is in a political position of power and is aware the prison system exists to punish instead of reform, and that is its intended purpose"

Though back to the racism, I think the animated series still deals with a lot of the racism that 90s film did. Worth noting that while Aladdin the series is not on Disney plus, Aladdin and both its sequel movies have the racism disclaimer on them (something I discovered was a thing when my pal and I watched Peter Pan). I think there's a lot of writings on these. Primary concerns are of Arabic writing being essentially scribble scrabble, and Aladdin and Jasmine having European features while the more villainous characters are stereotypical. I do know for a fact that the latter is true for this series.

Also Abis Mal is voiced by Jason Alexander, who is, in my mind at least, the exemplar white boy.

Overall Rating for Aladdin: B Tier