Hercules and the Arabian Night

"Hercules and the Arabian Night" is an episode of Disney's "". It is also a crossover with "Aladdin".

ummary

As Hades goes through his usual job of bringing fresh souls in, Pain and Panic tell him that one of the souls is not cooperating. The soul approaches Hades, introduces himself as Jafar and all but demands to be sent back. Hades is at first unconcerned, but they find a common ground: Jafar tried to overtake Agrabah, Hades is trying to overtake Mount Olympus and they both have been defeated by "upstart boys" but each thinks his nemesis is superior. Then they make a bet of if they could defeat each other's respective hero. So Hades gives Jafar a new snake staff, which makes him flesh and blood so long as he holds it, and tells him to attack Hercules while he's training on Phil's island.

At said island, Phil is trying to teach Herc not to "barrel through" and to "use his noodle" from time to time. Suddenly, Jafar pops up and creates a griffin and a minotaur to go after Hercules. With Phil tied up, Herc does his best to wrestle the beasts. Jafar laughs at how slow Herc is...until Herc picks up Phil's "statue head" house, bashes the beasts and proceeds to smash it on Jafar, who gets knocked all the way back to the Underworld.

Hades decides to send Pain and Panic to Agrabah to take Aladdin out. When the minions arrive in the Arabian city, they first mistake Abu for Aladdin... but the real Al, along with his wife Princess Jasmine, arrive on Carpet. After a scuffle, Pain and Panic are about to finish Aladdin off... but Aladdin convinces them to look into his lamp (by telling them not to look into it). Genie's hand punches them all the way back to Greece and down into the Underworld.

Hades admits that Aladdin is tough, but wants to concentrate on beating Hercules first. Then Jafar offers an idea: what if Herc and Al had a misunderstanding between them and get into a fight? Hades likes the idea and puts the plan into motion.

The first part is kidnapping Abu from Agrabah and Icarus from Prometheus Academy (both using bananas as bait). When Herc can't find Icarus, an old man [a Jafar in disguise) fools Herc by telling him that a "young rogue named Aladdin" kidnapped him.Herc gets angry and runs off to find Al. Later, in Agrabah, Al and Jasmine can't find Abu... and Pain and Panic disguise themselves as Herc and tell him that Herc kidnapped Abu.

When Herc, Phil and Pegasus arrive in Agrabah, Al, Jasmine and Carpet give them a not-so-warm welcome. Herc and Al start the fight, Herc barreling in and Al sidestepping each blow. Al gets Herc to chase him through the alleyways of Agrabah to an old abandoned building. He gets Herc to punch enough holes in the walls to bring most of the house down on top of Herc. When Herc holds it up, Al demands Herc to tell where he hid Abu. Herc responds by wanting to know where Aladdin took Icarus. Before they can work it out, though, the building collapses on both of them.

While Jafar and Hades believe the heroes have been destroyed, Herc gets himself and Aladdin out of the rubble. They piece together that it was a setup and that Hades and Jafar are holding Icarus and Abu in the Underworld. Aladdin wants to charge in to rescue them, but Hercules thinks of another way.

While Hades tells Jafar of his plans for Olympian domination (and offers Jafar the 'Lord of the Dead' title when he does), Pain and Panic yell that Herc and Aladdin are coming their way. So Jafar is sent to stop them. He blasts Aladdin in an ice block and creates a giant scorpion to take on the slow Hercules. But there's one problem: the man in the ice is Hercules, disguised as Aladdin. And the one fighting the scorpion is Aladdin disguised as Herc. Freaked, Jafar can't stop Aladdin from nabbing the snake staff and tossing it to Herc, who snaps it in half. The spirit of Jafar is dragged down into the River Styx for good.

Herc and Al congratulate each other before Al takes Jasmine and Carpet back to Agrabah. Aladdin tells Herc that he'll make a great hero someday.

Chronology

An unusual aspect of this episode is that it indicates that Aladdin and Hercules existed around the same time, though one would logically conclude that they lived at least a millennia apart (Hercules being from ancient Greece, while Aladdin is from the era of Islamic empires). On the other hand, some of Aladdin's enemies, such as Mechanicles, Queen Hippsodeth and Dominus Tusk, could easily be the same vintage as Hercules.

Princess Jasmine mentions that she and Aladdin are married, indicating this episode takes place after the events of "Aladdin and the King of Thieves", which would explain Iago's absence in this episode. This is a bit strange, though, since the episode seems to indicate that Jafar died recently, though there was an entire movie, and indeed a TV series, between his death in "The Return of Jafar" and this episode. It could have been possible that time went by differently in the underworld and that Jafar had to go through a waiting line before meeting up with Hades as it is even mentioned in many ancient scrtiptures such as Virgil's Aenead that souls have to wait a long time to cross the river.

Notes

* When Jafar says "I was even an all-powerful immortal genie, briefly" he means that he lost his status as a genie when he died. This can also be known when he faces Hercules and says "I am Jafar, the greatest sorcerer the world has ever known", meaning he was not a genie in this episode, presumably to avoid having to deal with an invincible Jafar.

* Genie only appears once, as a hand, and does not speak. It is likely that neither Dan Castelleneta from the series and second movie or Robin Williams from the first and last Aladdin movies were available.

* In this episode, Jafar's sorcery did not seem to be as powerful as when he became the world's most powerful sorcerer, since he is powerless without his snake-staff.

* This is the first time Jafar and Hades are seen together. Other times this occurs include the Kingdom Hearts series and the Walt Disney World Resort version of Fantasmic!, as part of groups of Disney villains in each of these.