Aladdin (the TV series) 20th anniversary -- Episode 19: "Sneeze the Day" (9/24/94)

It's easy to imagine that Motz and Roth came up with this episode during a "Hmm, what can we do with Genie?" writers' meeting during which their train of thought led them start to musing about how a genie "works" (physiologically, biologically, the quirks of their powers, etc.), somewhere along the line positing, "Do genies get sick? If so, what's it like?" In fact, it's logical to suspect my favorite line of the episode -- "Wait, is a hundred years a long time to you guys or not? Oh, I keep forgetting!" -- just may have been a byproduct of such a brainstorming session. Also, said line is a prime example of what distinguishes this episode: Genie's fantastical nature is given precedence over his default role as comic relief.

A good few minutes' worth of screen time is given to depictions of Genie's symptoms. In the sequence preceding Aladdin's search for the Orb of Machina, when we're first shown the guava juice-afflicted Genie, the assorted items -- a kitten, a set of false teeth, several swords flung through the air with their tips aimed at Aladdin -- that Genie's sneezes produce against his will and without premeditation individually aren't particularly imaginative or funny, but looking at the big picture, the random, non sequitur nature of this barrage of sight gags assures a silly, whimsical, energized episode. Moreover, the items and costumes generated are easy to imagine being used appropriately by Genie in good health, so his power going awry in this way is a very clever, fitting answer to the "If genies get sick, what happens?" question.

Aladdin's near-miss with the sword signifies that Genie's symptoms have turned perilous and prompts the story thread of Genie bemoaning the danger that he now poses to his friends. To reinforce that the swords weren't an isolated incident, the moment Al's survived the sword attack, Genie's next sneeze incites the launch of a rocket missile that carries Abu off into the stratosphere, a bit that is amusing in its elaborate, step-by-step execution. Later, just before Aladdin finally acquires the orb, we cut back to the palace, where we're shown that Genie's illness hasn't let up if not worsened, given the vile two-headed, fire-breathing serpentine atrocity preying on Abu -- which, though basic in design,is at least more original than a more standard dragon would have been. And insofar as reminding us of the problem Aladdin's trying to solve, it does the trick.

More impressive is the panning wide shot that opens the final act, efficiently establishing the substantial, imposing mountain of assorted objects and major structures in the middle of the desert, relating the severe degree to which Genie's condition has escalated in a way that's visually staggering. Additionally, these scene-setting sights are the last step in the gradual buildup to the most extensive, most calamitous manifestation of Genie's symptoms (and presumably, things would have only gotten worse yet had Aladdin not showed up with the orb): the apocalyptic abrupt generating of two old "friends", the Sultan of the Al-Muddi and Fashoom, along with a mobile contraption of Mechanicles from "Getting the Bugs Out" here increased (ballparking it) twenty times or more in size, so as to stand on par with the two monsters (indicating that these are replications, not the real deal).

As predictable as are both the "[*sniff*] My very existence threatens my friends' very lives -- as much as it pains me, I must isolate myself somewhere far, far away from them and anyone else!!!" characterization and [*coughahemcough*] the deus ex machina of the arrival of the orb, it's nice to see an episode in which Genie has his own character arc, not to mention in which he's characterized in any way at all. It's especially satisfying that Genie gets to be the hero at the end (I guess he was able to single-handedly defeat all three beasts in one fell swoop when previously, he proved helpless against each individually presumably because here, he conceived them involuntarily, as I speculated above), when I honestly wouldn't have been too surprised if Aladdin had gotten to be the one who thwarted them even after Genie were cured by the orb. 

Ah, and that brings me to the matter of said object of magic: Aladdin, Iago, and Carpet's adventure in Machina's cave is practically an episode-within-the-episode. They could have gone to, say, the moon to fight and defeat, say, an evil wizard in order to obtain the orb, and the rest of the episode would be no different. The cave sequence takes up approximately an entire third of the episode and pretty much completely sidetracks it, existing only to facilitate Aladdin bringing Genie the orb at what's the exact right moment, as necessitated by the story. As I've already alluded to, Motz and Roth acknowledged the function of the cave scene and its outcome with the name of the orb's guardian... and I'll leave their little in-joke for you to either pick up on or not yourself!

Had Motz and Roth gone through the motions with the cave scene with a couple action-based set pieces (a collapsing bridge over a bottomless pit, a cave-in, a runaway boulder, etc.), as such a substantive and distinct segment, it would be very, very damaging to the episode as a whole. However, the predominance of witty verbal sparring and the "punny" riddles and trick questions that serve as the three obstacles between Al and the orb spice up the proceedings considerably. ("I was expecting something a bit more dangerous, like, like fighting a dragon or something!" Aladdin exclaims -- yet another wink-and-nod to those of us paying acute attention.) The ironic revelation of Machina's true identity (recalling Motz and Roth's nebbish worm from the previous episode who turned out to be behind the thundering voice in the Witches of the Sand's lair) puts the comedy-preferring orientation of this adventure in italics, and an exclamation point is added by the sequence's gag-based coda -- a grumbling, griping Machina getting a replacement orb from his warehouse with a seemingly endless supply of them) -- which feels an awful lot like an episode-capping bit. As isolated as the cave sequence is from the rest of the episode, the episode steadily retains its flavor of smartly, sharply written comedy. (Also, I'm no expert, but with Machina's irate nature and his "chirpy", dandy-ish voice and speech patterns, would I be correct in suspecting a homage to something in Monty Python?)

There are consistent factors visually, too: 1. The squash-and-stretch animation, which like in most episodes where it's used, offers the eye numerous delights and the occasional awkward, rushed-seeming pose -- and is generally befitting of a Genie episode, given the character's nature as sort of a cosmic-powered Roger Rabbit. 2. Just like Genie's "mountains" of unwanted objects and that of the vengeful trio of Gargantuas, Machina, in his three false guises, is very impressive and imposing in scope. Although the sleek, stark, more modern and hip design style used for these visages and the atmospheric backgrounds aren't comparable to anything in the Agrabah and desert sequences (except maybe perhaps Mechanicles' contraption, which in its enhanced size, appears more slender and angular), it still counts as one of those aspects of the tangential cave sequence that make it so strong in its own right, the episode's disjointed structure just doesn't matter. Motz and Roth are right to have been so confident in their plot shortcuts, loose stitching, and cliché of a character arc as to include the grinning aforementioned in-jokes, for the episode holds together in exceptionally well and is thoroughly entertaining. In other words, they're doing things that a bad writer would do, but by embracing and owning these things, playing them off so nonchalantly, they "flip" these pitfalls and turn out something that's actually good. Perhaps because they're good writers, they are only capable of doing bad by doing it good? 

Iago being used as a the source of exposition re: the Orb of Machina, recollected from his days of "Jafar always dragging [Iago] around looking for some magical thing or other", is a great touch, logically taking into account his past and easily evoking the Jafar we remember. Characterization-wise, his reluctance to share this information, as he fears getting roped into the quest for the orb, and his inevitable one-liners of grief and misery once he has indeed been roped into said journey, are dead-on.

Lastly, circling back to the episode's beginning, it was nice to briefly see Amin Damoola again, in all his rubber-limbed, ill-fortuned, unmerited confidence-displaying glory. His butt-of-all-jokes, slapstick-facilitating qualities promise a comedic episode -- which proves true, even though he's only seen in the first couple minutes. The purpose of his altercation with the palace guards is to have Genie incidentally get infected during the fracas. This elaborate, ultimately irrelevant way of getting the plot moving is worthy of some of The Simpsons' infamous epic, excessive, extraneous setups. And in existing just for fun,

Genie Watch: ...HEY!!! I've covered that with more than two-thirds of what I've already written, haven't I? That better be good enough for you! Sheesh! ;)

-- Ryan

Aladdin (the series) 20th anniversary -- Episode 6: "My Fair Aladdin" (4/3/94)

To my delight and relief, the apprehension that I felt toward reviewing this episode, indicated at the end of my previous post, was baseless – the episode I was actually thinking was “Moonlight Madness”, which I remember as an absolutely lifeless, banal “Aladdin and Jasmine’s romance”-oriented episode. “My Fair Aladdin” is in fact a Mechanicles episode, an episode in which Iago is well-characterized and Genie is decently-characterized (at least at certain points), and an episode with just a smidgen of social satire – it’s all of these things, all of which are good. That said, it’s not by any means a perfect episode … but for me, what’s likable about it wins out over its flaws.

First off, with Aladdin’s “street rat” background, it’s logical that a culture clash would unfold when playing him off against some refined, mannered, hoity-toity types, and its fair game to exploit such a scenario to get an episode out of it. However, much like I thought that Abu was mis-characterized in a less-than-flattering way in “Much Abu About Something”, Aladdin’s lack of confidence here doesn’t sit well. What happened to the quick-witted, smooth-talking Aladdin from original feature film? Also, by the time the end credits of the latter had begun rolling, hadn’t he largely broken through the class barrier? True, that doesn’t mean he has the education or lifelong grooming in propriety that those in the royal echelon would, but he’d been getting along fine in the episodes we’ve seen so far, so this seems like an abrupt step back. Steve Roberts’ script would have come off better had it emphasized that Daru Tavelevil’s arrival on the scene had reminded him of his supposed cultural deficiencies.

Daru Tavelevil, who in this episode, a misled 

Aladdin sees as his doppelganger.

Perhaps the reason that I’m willing to overlook this awkward characterization is because by the end of the first act, the episode largely lets it go by the wayside. Besides Aladdin remaining in his fancy duds (the same as his “Prince Ali” get-up, which I actually had totally missed until Disney Wiki pointed it out to me), most of the episode is standard Aladdin-and-the-gang-take-on-Mechanicles-and-his-latest-scheme-and-contraptions fare. There’s really no through-line from Daru subplot through most of the Mechanicles scenes. Once Jasmine points out that Genie has taken a long time in returning from his investigation, Aladdin is initially reluctant to even pursue the matter – after all, traipsing off and getting his hands dirty on some rough-and-tumble adventure isn't for NPR listeners like him and Daru. Aladdin stubbornly avowing this change in disposition is exactly what I would’ve expected, but once Jasmine forces him onto Carpet, it’s pretty much dropped – from thereon out, Aladdin does the standard hero thing, without any hesitation or protest. After all, once the episode was moving, it had to go through its paces and wrap itself up in 22 minutes – feeding the machine, as Tad Stones put it (and I seem to reference in virtually every post that's part of this ongoing project).

Apparently, Aladdin has forgotten the lesson he learned from

going through that whole big musical number in the movie.

The Daru subplot does wrap up with the rest of the episode, but practically as an afterthought – it comes out that his elitism was a farce (isn’t it always?), and that he in fact was the source of the material Mechanicles used to build his giant mechanical centipede, a deal which Daru saw through with little to no ethical qualms. The “Daru wasn’t all he was cracked up to be”/“Aladdin’s a real, genuine, person, and Daru was just a big faker” lesson was inevitable, but what’s surprising is that it plays out with Daru completely off-screen. As his transaction with Mechanicles is past-tense, I don’t know how a “caught in the act” moment would’ve worked, but it certainly seems like it would’ve been more dramatically effective. And Aladdin’s self-realization would’ve had more gravitas if Daru had been present for the whole ordeal with the centipede, with the two psychological rivals somehow competing. Of course, Daru would never see fit to soil his dainty little hands with such boorish undertakings, and if he were at hand, his cowardice and his likely lacking physical prowess would be readily apparent, so how he would’ve been able to continue making Aladdin look inferior would’ve been a trick … and that’s probably why Roberts had him stay behind at the palace in the first place. Still, the revelation that he’s a fraud and a dirty dealer barely registers when he hasn’t been in play since the end of the first act. The way that this crammed-in game-changer information is very succinctly (to the point where it’s no more than a blip) imparted only through dialogue, and we only see Daru again in a hurried, closing gag depicting his punishment, feels much like the accelerated endings to many Silver Age comic book stories, the type that would occur when the writer and/or artist realized that they were quickly running down their allotted page count.

More of a plot device than even an incidental character (especially given his lasting invisibility), where the episode comes up short in using him as a foil for Aladdin, he is used wonderfully to facilitate Iago’s role in the episode. The endearingly surly parrot’s “Awww, don’t sweat it, kid, this stuff is all about FAKING it!” approach to coaching Aladdin’s in the ways of the aristocracy is a very fitting, sharp bit of characterization. I extend my kudos to Roberts for glomming onto and running with this take on the character, and to Gottfried for bringing Iago’s lines to life with such, er, zest. (Iago/Gottfried detractors might call it something else…) To anyone from a working class background who went into their 20’s thinking that hipsters, academia, and Northampton, MA-area earthy-crunchy types just had to be the bee’s knees, only to later come out of their 20’s utterly disillusioned with such parties, Iago’s observations are aglow with more than just an ember of truth. (Iago’s flippant response to Jasmine’s horror at learning of Daru’s betrayal, “Yeah, but think of all those jobs he created!”, is far and away my favorite line of the episode. While he meant it facetiously, it reminds me of how the demographics alluded to above see “their” politicians as squeaky-clean, when they’re in reality just as corrupt and dirty-dealing as their supposed foes. Harry Reid’s fake moral outrage at the Koch Brothers, and how his naïve supporters believe he means it, is the kind of thing that I have in mind here…) (I know, I know, per the laws of time and space, that can’t possibly be what Roberts had in mind; just some free association on my part…)

"Stick with me, kid, and you'll have 'em 

eatin'outta your hand!"

Iago letting it slip that Aladdin isn’t the first ill-mannered boor that he’d gifted with the Scroll of Witty Quotations, but that he’d also exposed Daru to it is one of those “Man, Iago really can be a bastard” moments. His redemptive moment – dropping the rock on the only remaining and functioning part of Mechanicles’ centipede, its head – is both ham-fisted and (like so much else in the final act) rushed and under-developed. (Would that one little pebble REALLY put that formidable, iron-wrought machine on the fritz? Well, I guess, from what’s shown – the rock strikes the head’s protruding “stickler”, throwing it off balance, jamming it stickler-first into the ground [seems to be a running theme…], forcing Mechanicles to push some sort of “eject” button, sending the off-axis contraption careening off into the sunset … but it all happens so fast,  before a close re-viewing, I was under the impression that the rock basically “took out” the whole kit and caboodle…) 

Really?

Presumably, Iago’s off-screen backstory encounter with Daru took place even before the original feature film (because of the wording, I actually didn’t even at first realize that he meant he’d given Daru the scroll before the events of this episode), so can’t we write it off as having happened before Iago had reformed anyway?

A prime Iago-Abu moment transpires at the episode’s climax, right after Iago rescues Abu, and the former quickly sees fit to renounce the relief he’d expressed a moment earlier, as the latter in kind renounces his corresponding gratitude. 

"I'd rather not have been saved at all 

than be saved by YOU!"

Let us not forget that this is a Mechanicles episode. Obsessed with turning the desert to glass so that it's surface is smooth, much like he can't stand wrinkles in his clothing, Mechanicles is more unbalanced and volatile in his obsessive-compulsive neuroses than he was in "Getting the Bugs Out".

 I do wish that there were more intricacy and finesse in the design and animation of the centipede. Those stubby little legs and their stunted walk don’t do justice to what’s supposed to be Mechanicles’ ingenuity or to the aesthetic I believe that the production team is going for. But, I suppose we can’t expect full-on Hayao Miyazaki-type visual splendor in a `90’s weekday American TV cartoon.

(One of the episode's better rendering's of the 

giant mechanical centipede, IMHO.)

 (Yuck, those legs. Must've been a bitch to animate.)

The opening scene, set at a sand dune under the desert moon, where two nomads have a run-in with the centipede, is rich with that mystic, ancient-desert-of-legend ambience that the series has knack for imparting. Most of what follows isn’t so as atmospheric, alternately concerned with mundane situations and standard good guys-versus-bad guys kidvid fare. 

However, there are traces of an effort to build a sense of mystery and intrigue: Razoul and the other guards are put to nice use in the very fleeting scene in which they follow up on the reports of “glass sand”, only to quickly be sent by the mechanical centipede hightailing it back to Agrabah. I like the idea of them as a defense squad on a reconnaissance mission to determine the existence and viability of a supposed external, possibly encroaching threat. They’re played as buffoons for comic relief here (in sharp contrast with how bloodthirsty Razoul was in Return of Jafar and, to a lesser extent, in “Mudder’s Day”), and so the opportunity to pile on the sense of a looming unseen menace is largely squandered. But I do approve of this conception of how the kingdom is run, even if it’s only suggested here.

(Note the similarity in the guards' first reaction shot -- the wide shot, not the 
half-shot that follows -- and that of the nomads, further up. 
Not sure if the parallel was intentional, or if it was just laziness, 
falling back on what's known to work.)

Genie watch: He has his down moments here, for sure, but this is may just be his best performance in any of the episodes we’ve seen so far. In his first scene, he actually plays it straight for a couple lines, trying to console, reassure, and pep-talk Aladdin; we see far too little of their friendship in the series.

His subsequent earnest assuming of the role of butler to the newly-debonair Aladdin’s butler is both funny and charming … mainly because it stems from Genie’s affection for his friend, rather than being just another generic impression.

"HOLD IT!!! My master knows which 

forks are for what now!!!:

Later, as expected, he indulges in the kinds of impressions and “costumes”/alternate forms that he’s prone to, but on not just one but several occasions, he actually uses them circumstantially in trying to achieve something that’s actually logical, and a few times, actually succeeds! He even gets a “solo” scene, tasked with investigating the mystery of the-sand-that’s-turned-to-glass. Donning the guise of first a weather-tracking helicopter, then a traffic cop, and finally, a TV news reporter are actual intelligent and purposeful choices. 

His intermittent moments of incompetence throughout the very same bit – diving headfirst from a cliff and getting lodged head-first in the sand, getting burnt to a crisp in classic Looney Tunes/Tex Avery-fashion by the fire-blaster in the centipede’s mouth, and being duped into the glass bottle – are painful to behold … and the former two are completely unnecessary, as there already is sufficient humor in Genie’s more typical antics; and Roberts could have actually had it be difficult to trick Genie into the bottle.

But Genie in good form, as he is in the aforementioned “good” examples, is so rare in this series, that I’m practically ready to celebrate this sequence.

It seems to be a rule of the series that any Genie can be trapped in any bottle or oil lamp, but I do wish they’d have spelled this out at the get-go. At least in having Genie’s disappearance be what spurs the rest of the gang to go look into matters for themselves, he’s actually for once a character that the others care about, and not just a walking provider of gags. 

Finally, he is absolutely on his A-game (in more ways than one), when at the episode’s climax he takes on the visage of a basketball player and takes out the centipede’s now-separated segments by slam-dunking rounded rocks into their, er, smokestacks with complete competence, grace, and success. 

If only he were to have more frequently been written using his shape-shifting/impersonation powers as competently and effectively as he does here.

-- Ryan

Aladdin (the series) 20th anniversary -- Episode 3: "Fowl Weather" (2/20/94)

Overall, "Fowl Weather" is a nice showcase for Iago, even if the character arcs do have some faults, and yet another example (as are the majority of episodes, really -- I suspect this will be be an aspect of most of my future reviews) -- of the series' flair for world-building ... or, more appropriately, world expansion. 

Some episodes, or at least certain elements of such, have a historical basis (as we saw in "Getting the Bugs Out" with the Greek aesthetic of Mechanicles' home base and garb), while others indulge in pure fantasy (as did "Mudder's Day"). The premise of a tropical valley from whence all of the planet's rain originates that is the domain of an avian goddess who directs and controls said rain has a decided mythic bent. As such, this is a more whimsical and -- despite the furious Thundra's assault on Agrabah -- light-in-tone episode. The "phantasmagoric" mud beings and their colorful realm in "Mudder's Day" certainly exhibited their share of whimsy, but with the heroes' captivity in the Al Muddi Sultan's palace and his attempted Godzilla-like rampage on the surface, that episode had a more perilous, sword-and-sorcery, heroic quest angle.

Anyone with a cursory knowledge of history knows that many ancient civilizations and cultures had a pantheon of specialty gods. Many of these did indeed include a rain deity, although some fleeting Googling hasn't turned up any of an ornithological orientation. Thus, as far as I know, Thundra is a fairly original -- and conceptually well-defined -- creation. True, her snobbishness, temper, and her reactionary hostility toward her visitors are one-dimensional and prima facie, but it gets the job done in regards to carrying out the plot. Her Romani/gypsy accent (complementing the garments she's adorned herself with) is a bit over-the-top, but at least it exemplifies the creative team's continued dedication to locales and cultures of the real ancient world, even as part of such a fanciful palette. Or, it could just be the creative team falling back on a stock caricature type.

Unwittingly finding himself the object of Thundra's passion, this isn't so much a character-defining or character-building episode for Iago as it is just an episode in which something happens to him in particular and he reacts to it. In fact, the whole reason Thundra's a bird may just be for the purpose of "something happening" between her and Iago! He's his irate, recalcitrant, grumbling self throughout, and I, for one, enjoy the angle he adds, as I always do. His revulsion toward Thundra and protests against her advances are highlights, and ring true to character and are sympathetic, given how overbearing Thundra is. But I don't buy his softening toward her when she descends upon the palace -- it seems like a forced way to bring about a resolution and to vindicate and not contradict all of Jasmine's "it's wrong to mess with a woman's heart" admonishing. On the other hand, Thundra's "a rain bird's work is never done!" declaration is a clean out in terms of the writers getting her out of the picture and keeping Iago at home for the rest of the series.

Jasmine's aforementioned objection to the boys' encouraging Iago to lead Thundra on so that they can make off with a storm cloud while she's distracted is not only forced and preachy in delivery, but it's a fairly transparent case of the writers finding a role for the one of the main cast members who otherwise would just be along for the (carpet) ride. Still, it's a necessary one, and for the deceit not to be addressed and to have been maintained through to the episode's close would've made for a sour note. While there's a certain logic to Jasmine identifying and sympathizing with Thundra, was it really so necessary to play it up as a gender-dividing matter, as if it's a "guy thing" to play others for suckers and a "girl thing" to object to such? 

The production values are notably lesser than the preceding two episodes and the OVA before it. The backgrounds are stark and blunt. Even the animated storm clouds and the thunder bolts that they generate are minimal and underwhelming. This is even the case throughout Thundra's vengefully turning her wrath on the palace, which should be a cataclysmic spectacle, but comes off nondescript and even casual. In fact, upon further consideration, the rudimentary visuals, along with the sunniness of most scenes, may account for the episode's light-heartedness more than anything.

Don't think that (quite) all is fun and games, though; the peasant boy seen at the very beginning and tail end and the gang's efforts to aid him during the drought are an exception. They bring a down-to-earth realism and sense of palpable need to the episode, much like the villagers in "Getting the Bugs Out" and the character interplay in "Mudder's Day".

Genie watch: Overall, he comes off better than usual. He has some extended impersonation bits -- a TV weatherman and a door-to-door vacuum sales cleaner -- that find him reveling in the role and function for which he's best-suited. He even is helpful at more than one turn, being the one to inform the gang of Thundra's valley and propose it as a solution to their drought woes, and later using his powers to eavesdrop long-distance on Iago and Thundra, to monitor if Iago's keeping the ruse going. However, they could've found a gag to carry his failure to hit water when in the form of a drill bit, hoping to help the little boy, without making it look like a result of his incompetence and making him look so undignified -- after all, it WASN'T his fault. His one true "dumb" moment of derailing the gang's efforts and taking an unnecessary amount of time to recovering, though, is when he crashes into the rain forest while attempting to rocket-propel Carpet over the valley. Oh, and he's not particularly helpful when the palace is flooding and the roof is caving in, but at least he's not shown actually TRYING to do, and thus not botching, anything.

-- Ryan