Hercules and the Arabian Night

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Hercules and the Arabian Night is an episode of Disney's Hercules: The Animated Series. It is also a crossover with Aladdin.

[edit] Summary

As Hades goes through his usual job of bringing fresh souls in, Pain and Panic tells them that one of the souls is not cooperating too much. The soul approaches Hades, introduces himself as Jafar and all but DEMANDS to be sent back. Hades tries to ditch him... 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. So Hades gives Jafar back his snake staff, claiming that he's 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 (literally), 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.

When Hades finds out that the boy Jafar had problems with in Agrabah, named Aladdin, was a mortal, he decides to shut Jafar up by sending Pain and Panic to Agrabah to take Aladdin out. When the minions arrive in the Arabian city, they first mistake a monkey named Abu for Aladdin... but the real Al, along with his girlfriend Princess Jasmine, arrives on a flying carpet. After a scuffle, Pain and Panic are about to finish Al off... but Al convinces them to look into a lamp of his (by telling them NOT to look into it). A giant Genie hand punches them all the way back to Greece and down into the Underworld.

Hades admits that Aladdin is a tough cookie... but wants to concentrate on beating Hercules first. Then Jafar offers an idea: what if Herc and Al had a misunderstanding between them and start to exchange blows? 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 (Jafar in disguise) tells Herc that a "young rogue named Aladdin" kidnapped him. And, sure enough, 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 and 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 AL 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 set-up 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 Al 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 guy in the ice IS Hercules, disguised as Aladdin. And the one fighting the scorpion is Al disguised as Herc. Freaked, Jafar can't stop Al 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. Al tells Herc that he'll make a GREAT hero someday. And Icarus... he tries to convince Herc to get him a monkey like Abu.

[edit] 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 live at least a few centuries apart (Hercules being from ancient Greece, Aladdin from the era of sultans). On the other hand, one of Aladdin's enemies in Mechanicles, who 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. This is also a bit strange, 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 is possible that time went by differently in the underworld and that Jafar had to go through a waiting line before meeting up with Hades. That would also explain Iago's absence in this episode as well.

[edit] Trivia

• 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.

• This is also the only appearance of Genie where he does not speak, and is in fact not even seen outside his fist early on.

Disney's Aladdin
Films, TV & game	Aladdin | The Return of Jafar | Aladdin and the King of Thieves | Aladdin (TV series) | Video game
Soundtrack	Soundtrack | A Whole New World
Main Characters	Aladdin | Princess Jasmine | Genie | Iago
Villains	Jafar | Abis Mal | Mozenrath | Mirage | Mechanicles | Saluk | Amin Damoola
Minor Characters	Arbutus | Chaos