ALADDIN AND THE WONDERFUL LAMP is a brief black and white cartoon from 1934 which charts the brief adventures of the titular character. He lives an impoverished life but discovers a magic lamp that gives him the ability to woo a princess and escape the clutches of his cruel boss. This is rather crudely animated in a familiar way, with too-smoth motion and exaggerated forms.

The film begins with a nasty trader trading folks new lamps for their old ones. He's not doing this to find the magic lamp...he just uses his little slave boy (Aladdin) to clean them up to resell them. However, as Al is wiping one of them clean, a Genie pops out and begins granting him wishes....and Al uses this to try to get the Sultan's daughter in marriage (which is odd since they both are kids). Unfortunately, the slave owner returns and fights Aladdin for the lamp.This is not a great cartoon by any stretch. But the animation and color are very nice and the film is modestly entertaining. And, fortunately, unlike Ub Iwerks' poorer films, it's not saturated by cute singing characters.

I found this Ub Iwerks cartoon on iTunes (Vintage ToonCast podcasts #03) and thought that this was a fairly cute cartoon from the time of the Depression.In this, Aladdin works for a man who exchanges 'new' lamps for old ones. The 'new' lamps are just old ones that Aladdin has polished to make new again. Aladdin is pretty much locked in a basement workroom and one day manages to see the beautiful princess pass by in a parade. She drops a rose by his barred window and before Aladdin can pick it up through the bars, an elephant steps on it twice. This was enough for Aladdin to fall in love with the princess.The man Aladdin works for then dumps a large sack full of old lamps for Aladdin to polish. One is the magic lamp. Aladdin polishes this lamp and a giant genie appears offering to grant his wishes. He wants to be in the palace.Then, in the sultan's palace, what appears to be a huge meal is brought to the sultan. He takes the lid off of the meal tray and there appears Aladdin wearing the same rags that he was working in. He rubs the lamp and is finely dressed. There are a few more wishes and the man Aladdin worked for tries stealing the lamp.The lamp ends up inside the sultan and Aladdin cleverly deals with his former boss with the use of a blow torch. Aladdin then wishes to be with the princess and suddenly, he lands in her bathtub. She falls in love with Aladdin (you couldn't expect otherwise, could you?) and as the happy couple are together, you can hear the man yelling, "New lamps for old." He then gets plenty to work with.

Don't confuse this story and the Popeye cartoon labeled "Aladdin And His Wonderful Lamp." This is another early 1930s Celebrity Productions Comicolor cartoon based on a famous novel.They did a number of these takeoffs such a this one, Don Quixote, Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba, Jack And The Beanstalk, Robin Hood, etc.Whatever, this one doesn't measure up to any of the above cartoons. It has a few quick moments of humor but nothing memorable and it's more a "cute" little story than a comedy. Unfortunately, it's supposed to be the latter so I can't really recommend this one. The color is decent, especially for a cartoon so old, but it just isn't funny nor entertaining. There is a lot of action in here but not the kind that will keep you enthralled. It winds up being more noise than anything else. It's not of the company's best.