''A-Lad-In His Lamp'' is a 1948 Warner Bros. ''

Looney Tunes ''Looney Tunes'' is an American media franchise produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The franchise began as a series of animated short films that originally ran from 1930 to 1969, alongside its spin-off series ''Merrie Melodies'', during t ...

'' cartoon. The short stars

Bugs Bunny Bugs Bunny is a cartoon character created in the late 1930s at Warner Bros. Cartoons (originally Leon Schlesinger, Leon Schlesinger Productions) and Voice acting, voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his featured roles in the ' ...

, and features the

Genie GEnie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange) was an online service provider, online service created by a General Electric business, GEIS (now GXS Inc., GXS), that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. In 1994, GEnie claimed around ...

and Caliph Hassan Pfeffer, who is after Bugs and the

genie GEnie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange) was an online service provider, online service created by a General Electric business, GEIS (now GXS Inc., GXS), that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. In 1994, GEnie claimed around ...

in his lamp. The voices of Bugs Bunny and Caliph Hassan Pfeffer are voiced by Mel Blanc, and the voice of the

is played by Jim Backus. The cartoon is a takeoff of the story of '' Aladdin's Lamp''. Elements of this short would later be re-used for the Arabian era in '' Bugs Bunny & Taz: Time Busters''.

Plot

Bugs finds Aladdin's lamp while digging a rabbit

hole A hole is an opening in or through a particular medium, usually a solid Body (physics), body. Holes occur through natural and artificial processes, and may be useful for various purposes, or may represent a problem needing to be addressed in m ...

; believing that it is junk, he starts to clean it, rubbing off the dirt so that he can use it as an ashtray. A

appears and tells him to make a wish. Calling him "Smokey," Bugs reluctantly starts to make multiple wishes, only to be interrupted by the genie each time. Bugs ultimately requests two carrots, which the genie produces. "Smokey" remarks that he wants to return to his home in

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

, and Bugs, imagining how fabulous it must be, remarks to himself that he wishes that he could go to Baghdad. Interpreting it as an actual wish, the genie then puts Bugs in the lamp and fires him from it like a cannon, and the two fly off to Baghdad. As they arrive, Bugs sputters and 'conks out,' and he and the lamp fall into the Royal Palace of Caliph Hassan Pfeffer, angering the caliph, who then wants the lamp. When Bugs refuses, the caliph threatens Bugs at swordpoint, and a chase ensues, during which Bugs' attempts to enlist the lazy genie's help fail. Bugs eventually tries to escape from the caliph by taking a magic carpet rigged with an outboard motor. When Bugs tries to draw the genie again he drives the genie's date (a female genie) away; the genie becomes extremely angry and warns Bugs saying, "If you disturb me once more, I'll beat you to a pulp." The carpet's motor runs out of gas, and Bugs crash-lands back into the palace, and the caliph now has possession of the lamp. When the caliph tries to draw the genie out of the lamp, in spite of Bugs' warning not to try this, the genie emerges, larger and angrier than before, and beats the caliph to a pulp, making good on his threat if he was bothered again. Cheering Bugs on his victory, he grants Bugs a wish as a celebration. He whispers to "Smokey," who produces a ball that becomes a puff of smoke when dropped. The scene concludes showing Bugs as a caliph himself, surrounded by a harem of female rabbits, and wondering "what the poor rabbits are doing this season."

Home media

''A-Lad-In His Lamp'' has been released on the Warner Home Video

laserdisc LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA Inc., MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United State ...

''Wince Upon A Time'', and the VHS releases ''Bugs Bunny's Hare Raising Tales'' and ''Looney Tunes Collector's Edition: Daffy Doodles''.

Depiction of Middle Easterners

This short was the earliest in the Bugs Bunny series to be set in either the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

, and the first to feature

Arabs Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

. In this case, the setting is

, depicted with

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

-style flashy signs and desert-like streets. Also depicted is the used rug lot of Mad Man Hassan, where people can sell their magic carpets.Sensoy (2010), p. 113-123 The scene soon shifts to the palace of

Caliph A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of ...

Hassan Pfeffer, built on a G.I. loan, a

mortgage loan A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners t ...

for

veteran A veteran () is a person who has significant experience (and is usually adept and esteemed) and expertise in an job, occupation or Craft, field. A military veteran is a person who is no longer serving in the military, armed forces. A topic o ...

s guaranteed by the

federal government of the United States The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct ...

. The caliph is depicted as a lazy man, reclining on pillows and smoking a hookah. When he discovers the magic lamp of Aladdin, his expression turns to "child-like glee" and his motive for the rest of the short is greed. His facial expressions during the pursuit of the lamp tend toward the grotesque, while he is waving a big sword and growling. As do Middle Eastern villains in other Looney Tunes shorts, he has bushy eyebrows, moustache and beard which enhance his physically intimidating presence. Such shorts reinforce stereotypes concerning Muslims and Middle Easterners, depicting them as lazy, hedonistic, pleasure-seeking, easily angered, and indiscriminately and irrationally violent. Punishments for various offenses are depicted as too severe, Draconian in favoring

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

for the most minor of offenses. "Death is the default punishment" is a concept used to reinforce such stereotypes. The G.I. loan that financed the building of the caliph's palace fits another stereotype: that of Muslim men deriving their power from the support of the

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...

. These shorts tend to make no distinctions among

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

s, and

Persians Persians ( ), or the Persian people (), are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia that came from an earlier group called the Proto-Iranians, which likely split from the Indo-Iranians in 1800 BCE from either Afghanistan or Central Asia. They ...

, terms which in popular culture tend to be depicted as "interchangeable". For all the menace of their weapons (often swords), they are inept in using them and easily manipulated by the "Western hero" Bugs. Also lacking are depictions of diligence and productivity in the Middle East, thus portraying the Middle East as being a cultural backwater, unaffected by modernity. In 1991 when the short was one of 120

being shown in

AMC Theatres AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (doing business as AMC Theatres, originally an abbreviation for American Multi-Cinema; often referred to simply as AMC) is an American movie theater chain founded in Kansas City, Missouri, and now headquartered ...

nationwide prior to, and during, the

Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...

; Warner Bros. responded to criticism from Casey Kasem, voice artist and radio personality of Arab descent, by issuing the following statement:

"To see the short is to recognize it as simply a classic cartoon, produced 43 years ago, satirizing a classic children’s fairy tale, intended - as all our cartoons are - only as good-natured fun".

Vivian Boyer of Warner Bros. further clarified that "it was never intended to be a racist cartoon".

Sources

References

External links

*
''A-Lad-In His Lamp'' on the Internet Archive
{{Robert McKimson 1948 films American children's comedy films American fantasy comedy films 1940s English-language films 1940s fantasy comedy films Films scored by Carl Stalling Films directed by Robert McKimson Films set in Baghdad Genies in film Looney Tunes shorts Warner Bros. Cartoons animated short films Bugs Bunny films 1940s children's comedy films Animated films based on Aladdin 1948 comedy films 1940s Warner Bros. animated short films Animated films set in palaces Animated films set in the Middle East Films with screenplays by Warren Foster Films produced by Edward Selzer English-language comedy short films English-language fantasy comedy films 1948 animated short films