Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context WesternAnimation / ScoobyDooInArabianNights

Go To

1[[quoteright:193:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Scooby_Doo_Arabian_Nights_9635.jpg]]
2
3''Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights'', also simply known as ''Arabian Nights'', is a 1994 animated telefilm produced by Creator/HannaBarbera, yet unrecognizable as one of their own productions. Despite the film often being billed as a ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' movie, the titular Great Dane and his human friend Shaggy scarcely appear in the movie!
4
5The story consists of Scooby-Doo and Shaggy traveling to Arabia to be royal food tasters for a caliph. However, when they eat the caliph's entire lunch, they chicken out and hide in the RoyalHarem, where Shaggy [[DisguisedInDrag disguises himself as a young maiden]] and, to avoid certain doom, tells the caliph two very long stories. The first story features a [[TheMockbuster knock-off of Disney's Aladdin]], but with a gender reversal to the plot and featuring WesternAnimation/YogiBear and his sidekick Boo Boo as genies, and the second is a reimagining of ''Literature/SinbadTheSailor'' featuring WesternAnimation/MagillaGorilla.
6
7This movie is noteworthy for being the final time Creator/DonMessick voiced Scooby-Doo and Boo Boo (he passed away in 1997). For all intents and purposes, it was also Creator/CaseyKasem's last time fully voicing Shaggy until ''WesternAnimation/WhatsNewScoobyDoo'' in 2002.[[note]]Kasem temporarily retired from the role after refusing to play Shaggy in a Burger King commercial due to Kasem being a vegetarian. He did voice Shaggy in the ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo'' crossover episode "Bravo Dooby Doo", but that was only for a few lines.[[/note]] It was also the final time Allan Melvin voiced Magilla Gorilla as well as the last time Creator/GregBurson voiced Yogi Bear[[note]]Both have mainly been voiced by Creator/MauriceLaMarche and Creator/BillyWest respectively since[[/note]].
8
9Followed by ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooOnZombieIsland'' (Mystery Inc.'s 1997 guest appearance on ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo'' notwithstanding), which effectively relaunched the franchise. Short films, guest appearances, and cameos aside, Yogi Bear's next substantial production was [[Film/YogiBear his 2010 live action movie]], while Magilla Gorilla is best known since from appearances on ''WesternAnimation/HarveyBirdmanAttorneyAtLaw''.
10----
11!! This show provides examples of:
12* ActionGirl: Aliyah-Din when she has to save her prince. She also shows how a rock can break shackles.
13* AnatomyAnomaly: The majority of human characters in this movie [[FourFingeredHands have only four fingers]] (if you include the thumb), obviously due to the Creator/WarnerBrosAnimation influence seen in the film. However, Shaggy and the Chef both have ''five''-fingered hands, which makes for a rather distracting error. Even Aliyah-Din manages to switch between four and five fingers in some shots.
14* ArabianNightsDays
15* ArrangedMarriage: The Prince in the gender-flipped version of Aladdin was supposed to marry the Princess of Serendibe but she disappeared back when she was a little girl.
16** [[spoiler:PerfectlyArrangedMarriage: Aliyah-Din was revealed in the end to be the Princess of Serendibe]].
17* AteTheSpoon: The Vizier's potion does this.
18* BedlahBabe: The harem girls in the Young Caliph's palace are examples of this. They seem to lounge about all day in the palace rather than do any actual dancing.
19* BellyDancer: Haman, dressed as the Prince in disguise, enjoys a dancer's movements in the royal palace, all before Aliyah-Din interrupts the session in order to present herself for marriage.
20* BenevolentGenie: Yogi grants all of Aliyah-Din's requests, including the ones where she didn't say "I wish" and merely commented on the situation. This works in her favor; when Haman takes the lamp, Aliyah-Din is able to wish for everything to be back to normal.
21* BewareTheNiceOnes:
22** Aliyah-Din is said to be selfless, PureOfHeart, and generous. She's also the one who overthrows Haman merely by using her wits to reclaim the lamp.
23** The prince in the meantime is shown to be a NiceGuy, who falls for a random girl from the marketplace. When he realizes that Haman tried to usurp him and poisoned his father, Haman gets furious when he regains consciousness and tosses the advisor into the dungeon.
24* BiblicalBadGuy: Haman is at least named for (and might be!) the villain from the Literature/BookOfEsther.
25* BigNo: Haman, when storm clouds block the moon and close up the cave of treasures; and again when he is falling and fails to catch the lamp near the end of the story.
26* BlindWithoutEm: When the caliph breaks his glasses and doesn't even try to get them fixed or replaced. He just remains blind and squinting for the rest of the film.
27* CaptainErsatz: Haman, the villain of the Aliyah-Din story, borrows a lot from Jafar of Disney's ''Aladdin'' who himself is a CompositeCharacter from the original story. Haman fills multiple roles as did Jafar.
28* CoversAlwaysLie: The video and DVD covers of this movie depict Shaggy and Scooby with a magic lamp which Yogi Bear the genie emerges from, and even the description on the case makes it sound like he's ''their'' genie (instead of Aliyah-Din's genie), and it does not mention that Shaggy tells the Aliyah-Din and Sinbad stories to the Caliph.
29* {{Crossover}}: WesternAnimation/YogiBear and WesternAnimation/MagillaGorilla appearing in a WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo movie.
30* DamselOutOfDistress: Aliyah-Din is locked in the dungeon with her shackled Prince. She quickly frees him using a rock, and then slips out of the enlarged cells by squeezing between the bars. Cue her toppling the lamp from Haman's grip and saving everyone.
31* DependingOnTheArtist: This movie was drawn by a different team of animators from the standard Hanna-Barbera fare (due to the resurgence of creator-driven cartoons by this time), thus resulting in off-model characters and strange-looking designs.
32* DeusExMachina: In the "Sinbad" story, just as the high-class cyclops has Magilla and the captain cornered on a palm tree and starts to read a book, the geyser he's sitting on [[WaterGeyserVolley erupts and sends the cyclops flying]].
33--> '''Magilla:''' "Amazing how things happen right on cue [[MediumAwareness in a cartoon]], isn't it?"
34* DisguisedInDrag: The plots (such as it is) revolves around Shaggy being disguised as a harem girl.
35* {{Disneyesque}}: The film tries to be like this, especially during the "Aliyah-Din" segment.
36* Franchise/DisneyPrincess: Aliyah-Din is a parody of this.
37* TheDitz: Magilla Gorilla.
38* EatTheCamera: Done with Scooby after the opening credits, when the FlyingCarpet he and Scooby are riding on flies towards the camera.
39* ElevatorGag: The cyclops in the Sinbad segment has an elevator in a cliff.
40* ExactWords: Aliyah-Din never actually used any of her wishes in the cave; she just said ''what'' she would wish for (saving the Sultan from death and to become a princess), and Yogi complied without asking her to say "I wish". This means that when Haman steals the lamp, she's able to undo his wishes by asking for things to return to normal.
41* FearlessFool: Magilla Gorilla as Sinbad the Sailor. When the Rukh attacks them with stones, he catches them and comments on how fun the game is.
42* FlyingCarpet: Scooby and Shaggy arrive on one, with its' pilot acting like a taxi driver.
43* FramingDevice: The plot involving Shaggy and Scooby as royal food tasters serves as this for the Aliyah-Din and Sinbad stories.
44* GenderFlip: Of the original Aladdin story, with the female Aliyah-Din.
45* TheGlassesGottaGo: After the Caliph accidentally falls over and breaks his eyeglasses, he doesn't bother with them anymore, but ends up [[BlindWithoutEm suffering vision problems]] for the rest of the movie.
46* GotTheWholeWorldInMyHand: Haman "literally" has the whole world in his hand subsequent to his second wish.
47* HonorBeforeReason: Aliyah-Din offers the lamp to whom she thinks is the Prince, because he asked for it as a token of her dowry. Thing is it's a lamp of great power.
48* InsultBackfire: When Shaggy and Scooby apply for the royal food taster job, the guard calls them suckers. Shaggy's reaction? "Did you hear that, Scoob? Suckers for dessert!"
49* LarynxDissonance: Initially when Shaggy is seen disguised as a harem girl, he speaks in a very high and shrill (and not to mention poor) falsetto voice. But as the movie goes on, his disguised voice gets less feminine and closer to his normal voice.
50* LighterAndSofter: More politically correct and "easy to understand" than the original "Arabian Nights" stories.
51* LimitedAnimation: The animation in this film, while trying to pass off as full WB-esque animation, is very sloppy, even for 1994!
52* LoveAtFirstSight: The prince [[LampshadeHanging lampshades this]] when he first meets Aliyah-Din...
53--> "How could my father expect me to marry some girl I just met? It's ridiculous!" ''(sees Aliyah-Din)'' "Except for ''you.''"
54* MamaBear: The mother Rukh keeps chasing after the captain for the egg that he stole. As a final BrickJoke, the egg finally ''hatches'' and the mother and baby reunite.
55* MediumAwareness: "Amazing how things happen right on cue in a cartoon, isn't it?" Magilla Gorilla says when a geyser lifts the rich Cyclops up in the area, allowing Magilla and the Captain to escape from the palm tree they were sitting in to avoid said Cyclops.
56* MickeyMousing: The music score to the film, complete with a full Warner Bros.-esque orchestra. It keeps stopping and starting constantly as a result, and instead often functions more like musical sound effects rather than a traditional underscore. It could be because an ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' music composer scored the film.
57* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Haman uses his second wish to become ruler of the universe, which enlarges the palace. It enables Aliyah-Din to leave the cell she and the Prince were locked in and eventually reclaim the lamp.
58* NonstandardCharacterDesign: Shaggy and Scooby had to be slightly modified to fit with the designs of the other characters in the cartoon. Needless to say, it still looks rather awkward.
59* OffLikeAShot: Done quite a bit during the opening scene when the guards are chasing Scooby-Doo and Shaggy.
60* OhCrap:
61** Aliyah-Din when she gets trapped in the cavern
62** Also Aliyah-Din when she gives the lamp as a token of her dowry to the "prince," only for him to turn into Haman, the vizier from earlier.
63** Haman when he realizes he's not holding the lamp.
64* OneTrackMindedHunger: Yogi the Genie Bear.
65* OverlyLongGag: Quite a bit of this is present throughout the movie. One bit in the Aladdin parody includes Yogi Bear constantly hoping Aliyah-Din or Haman will make a food-related wish. The attempts to steal a rukh egg, precious gems and a golden toothbrush in the Sinbad segment also go on for quite long.
66* PureOfHeart: This is why Aliyah-Din can enter the cavern with the lamp, because she is pure of heart. This is also shown when she just wants to use her wishes to serve her prince, not for self-gain.
67* ReallyRoyaltyReveal: [[spoiler:The Sultan won't allow his son to marry someone of low class. However, when the Sultan hears Aliyah-Din's name, he mentions that's the name of the missing Princess his son [[ArrangedMarriage was supposed to marry]].]]
68* ResetButton: After Haman is defeated, Aliyah-Din wishes for her genies to restore everything back to normal.
69* RoadRunnerVsCoyote: Done earlier on when the two guards chase Shaggy and Scooby throughout the palace. One of the [[WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadrunner Road Runner]]'s "zooming" StockSoundEffects is used for Shaggy and Scooby as well.
70* RoundaboutShot: A brief one happens when Aliyah-Din and the Prince hold hands for the first time in the marketplace. But since it's a Creator/HannaBarbera TV movie, it's [[LazyArtist not animated very well]] (the two rotate on a WraparoundBackground that does not have a three-dimensional "rotating" look to it.)
71* RunningGag:
72** Yogi's hungry and wants his master(s) to wish for food, but Haman keeps turning it down.
73** The evil captain's boat sinking followed by the cruise ship that Magilla was supposed to board sailing by during the Sinbad segment.
74* RunningOnTheSpot: This classic Hanna-Barbera device is seen a few times during the Sinbad segment when Magilla and the Captain run from potential danger.
75* ScheherezadeGambit: How Shaggy tries to get out of marrying the Caliph.
76* SeenItAll: Yogi is unphased when Haman asks for world power and immortality. He says that it happens every time a megalomaniac gets the lamp.
77* ShaggyDogStory: The captain in "Sinbad the Sailor" [[RunningGag keeps getting sunk]] every time he tries to hunt for treasure.
78* {{Shapeshifting}}: Haman magically transforms himself so he looks like the prince in the "Aliyah-Din" story to take over the throne.
79* ShoutOut:
80** The high-class cyclops complains that Sinbad and the Captain's antics are going to make him miss seeing ''Theatre/{{Cats}}''.
81** The Stream of Precious Gems log ride is a loose parody of Disney's ''Ride/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' dark ride, complete with animatronics (including a robot shark, octopus and hydra that torment the Captain.)
82** During the rukh egg sequence, the Captain falls from the very high rukh nest to the ground a couple of times very much like [[WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadrunner Wile E. Coyote]] would, complete with identical camera angle, distant puff of dust, and impact sound effect.
83* StatingTheSimpleSolution: After his attempts to get the lamp fail, Haman simply drugs the sultan and prince unconscious, locking the latter up in the dungeon so that he can impersonate the Prince. He lampshades it's the only one of his plans that worked.
84* StockSoundEffects: The famous Hanna-Barbera sound effects are barely used in this movie; instead, many of the WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes sound effects are utilized, along with many of the same modern stock sounds most cartoons made during this era were using.
85* SuddenlySuitableSuitor: [[spoiler:When the Prince introduced Aliyah-Din to his Dad, she was told she couldn't marry the Prince because of her lower class. However, when the Prince mentioned her name, the Sultan said that was the name of [[ArrangedMarriage the Princess of Serendibe]].]]
86* TrouserSpace: Magilla Gorilla pulls an enormous telescope out of his very tight trousers. (Insert your own joke about having a phallic shaped object that expands in your pants here.)
87* WasntThatFun: Sinbad reacts this way to every dangerous antic that the Captain makes him endure. The only justified one is when they go on a log ride.
88* WheelOFeet: Whenever anyone is running really fast.
89* WrittenSoundEffect: Occurs once, during the Sinbad segment.
90* YankTheDogsChain: The Captain set off to steal a Rukh egg, precious gems and a golden toothbrush. By the end, the former hatches and flies off, the second is taken by Magilla as his prize and the latter gets reclaimed by the owner.
91* YouDontLookLikeYou: Shaggy and Scooby, not drawn in their usual style in this movie.
92* YouMustBeThisTallToRide: The Literature/SinbadTheSailor segment has the captain (who is depicted as a dwarf not unlike [[WesternAnimation/TheJetsons Mr. Spacely]] or [[WesternAnimation/MagillaGorilla Mr. Peebles]]) being too short for [[ItMakesSenseInContext a log ride filled with the treasure he's after]]. He reacts by destroying the measurement sign and gets on the ride anyway.

Top