Watch A-Lad-in His Lamp For Free

That was an excellent one.

Sick Product of a Sick System

not horrible nor great

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

. . . Bugs Bunny says to scimitar-wielding Caliph Pheffer, in Warner Bros.' prophetic warning to Saddam Hussein not to mess with the Bushes (aka, shrubs) during this 1948 release from their Animated Shorts Seers division (aka, The Looney Tuners), A-LAD-IN HIS LAMP. Robin Williams might have said G'Day to Vietnam, but 89% of Millennial Animation experts agree that his performance in Disney's over-rated feature cartoon ALADDIN is totally derived from Jim Backus' "Genii with the light brown hair" here, to the level of extreme (if second-rate) plagiarism. Of course, the lame-brained folks forming the Pack of the Rat at Disney seldom if ever provide clairvoyant touches with their moving pictures, while Warner Bros. often if not always can be counted upon to be Warning the World of its upcoming Calamities, Catastrophes, Cataclysms, and Apocalypti. If a young Saddam Hussein had only seen A-LAD-IN HIS LAMP, surely he'd refrained from harassing the Bushes with a ten-foot pole (or even a Seven-Incher). But no, he had to insult them at some backyard Texas BBQ in honor of the Bin Laden Family, suffering the penalty of being strung up and Lynched (not to mention getting more than ONE MILLION of his constituents killed, along with 5,000 U.S. troops, at a cost of THREE BILLION BUCKS to America, 10 billion plus to the world economy, and counting, of course)!

Before Jim Backus voiced Mr. Magoo or played Thurston Howell III, he provided his voice to Robert McKimson's Bugs Bunny cartoon "A-Lad-in His Lamp", in which Bugs finds Aladdin's lamp and releases the genie (Backus). They both return to Baghdad, where evil Hassan Pfeffer - living in a palace built by GI loans - wants the lamp and will stop at nothing to get it. And it turns out that the genie isn't so eager to help Bugs.Obviously, it's a little harder to laugh at this cartoon given everything that's happened in the real Baghdad (and the rest of Iraq) during the past few years. But the cartoon itself is sure a hoot. It just goes to show that, contrary to his detractors, Robert McKimson did in fact turn out some good work as a director. I recommend it, and I wouldn't mind getting what Bugs gets at the end.Veronica Lake, Turhan Bay, and Persian-to-Persian. Ha! PS: Jim Backus later guest-starred on an episode of "I Dream of Jeannie".

Bugs stumbles upon a magic lamp and finds a somewhat annoying genie, voiced by Jim Backus. While the genie is able to grant wishes, he's also a bit snippy and after a while tells Bugs to leave him alone OR ELSE--even though through the genie's own ineptitude he's put Bugs into harms way with the dangerous Hasan, who is intent on killing Bugs. Again and again Bugs tries to get help but the genie tells him to go away (he's taking a shower or on a hot date, etc.). Finally, after receiving his last warning, Hasan inadvertently bothers the genie--who responds by pulverizing him! A cute cartoon with very high production values and a lot of laughs.

Robert McKimson is an often overlooked Warner Brothers Cartoon director, but he created some of their funniest hits, such as "Ham in a Role", "A Fractured Leghorn" (easily the best of the Foghorn Leghorn series), "It's Hummer Time", and "Early to Bet". McKimson's use of Bugs Bunny was sometimes disappointing ("Rabbit's Kin") but he more often used Bugs to good effect. Instead of the too-clever Bugs who is smarter than anyone else in the room, McKimson's Bugs got into real jams. "Hillbilly Hare" (where Bugs finds himself caught in the midst of a feud); "Hot Cross Bunny", where a doctor tries to change Bugs' brain with that of a chicken; and "Easter Yeggs", where Bugs is conned by his good heart to help out the Easter Bunny, are three of Bugs' greatest hits. Another McKimson gem is "A-Lad-in-His-Lamp", where Bugs Bunny happens across the famous lamp of Aladdin and finds himself caught between a ruthless potentate who wants the lamp (an early Saddam) and an increasingly unhelpful genie. Another plus to this nearly-perfect cartoon with non-stop action and laughs is Jim Backus doing an uncredited turn as the voice of the genie.