Ali-Baba Bound is a 1940 Looney Tunes short directed by Bob Clampett.
Title[]
The title is a play on the 1924 song "Alabamy Bound."
Plot[]
In the Sahara Desert, where it is so hot even the fan dancers use electric fans, Porky Pig works for the French Foreign Legion. While leaving the Brown Turban restaurant, he receives a message from a spy that Ali-Baba and his dirty sleeves are going to attack a desert fort. Porky must reach it before the bombing begins. He goes to U-Drive Rent-a-Camel, rents Baby Dumpling the camel, and races to the fort.
When he arrives, he discovers that all the Legionnaires have gone to the Legion convention in Boston. He is thus alone with Baby Dumpling when Ali-Baba, "the mad dog of the desert," attacks the fort. After several failed attempts, one defeated desert warrior marches about with a sign saying, "This fort unfair to Arabs". Ali-Baba enters the fort and menaces Baby Dumpling, the camel. Baby Dumpling blows a nearby bugle and calls for help.
Back at the rental store, Blondie hears Baby Dumpling's call and begins running into the desert to rescue him and Porky, but then changes course back to the rental store and gets a full tank of water from the nearby filling station. With a full hump, she races to the fortress and knocks Ali-Baba over the fortress wall, saving Porky and Baby Dumpling.
Finally, a suicide warrior, who has been sitting on the bench that says "Reserved for Suicide Squad" with the attackers' secret weapon, a bomb tied to his head, runs toward the fort. Porky sees him coming and throws open the fort's front door and he charges through, as Mother Camel and Baby Dumpling open the fort's rear door, redirecting him to the oasis, where he runs right into Ali-Baba, turning Ali-Baba and the Dirty Sleeves into tents that are easily sellable.
Caricatures[]
- George Raft
- Joe Penner - "You nasty spy!"
Availability[]
Censorship[]
- Two scenes were cut when the redrawn version of this cartoon aired on Nickelodeon, though these were edits done due to the poor quality of the redrawn version and not because the scenes were in violation of any Standards and Practices rules: one scene where Porky looks back and sees Ali Baba and his men bearing down on him, and another where Ali Baba's men ask him if he is okay after getting thrown from the fort.[1]
- Cartoon Network and Boomerang initially ran this short unedited when they acquired the rights to the short in 1999. Following the September 11th attacks in 2001, the scenes referring to one of Ali Baba's men who has a bomb strapped to his head as a member of the "suicide squad" was cut, along with the scene of the bomber sitting next to a building.[1]
- Even since Cartoon Network pulled Looney Tunes from its programming lineup, this cartoon has since seldom aired on American television due to Arab stereotyping that would be deemed offensive to modern audiences.
Notes[]
- "Baby Dumpling" was the nickname of the Bumsteads' son Alexander in the comic strip and film series Blondie.
- In the redrawn colorized version, the Brown Turban is misspelled as "Brown Lurbon".
- Some prints of the redrawn colorized version use poorly-edited 1950 Color Rings and use the 1955-1964 version of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down".
- This cartoon entered the public domain in 1968 as Warner Bros.-Seven Arts didn't renew the copyright in time.
- The shot of the Dirty Sleeves running towards the camera is recycled animation from "Buddy of the Apes", with the Dirty Sleeves in place of the African Natives.
- This cartoon premiered with Granny Get Your Gun.