Not gonna lie, I didn’t have very high hopes for this episode when I started it. Abu’s not terrible but I don’t think he brings enough to the table to carry a whole episode aside from the fact that he’s Aladdin’s friend.
And after the Marketplace is attacked by thieves disguised as tornadoes, we learn why Abu is going to carry this episode: Because it’s time for another installment of Aladdin Might be an Asshole.
It begins with Aladdin lecturing the guards because they apparently never do anything. Leave alone that they were a good deal less capable of putting up a fight during the attack than he was because they couldn’t move. But now he expects they’ll do still more nothing (partly true because they assume the tornadoes are demons), said in a tone suggesting he thinks that’s pretty much all they ever do.
Leave alone that he spent most of his childhood being chased by them. And if that was so easy for him to do that he can accuse them of being lazy then what he was saying in his opening song from the original movie was that his ability to stay “one jump ahead” didn’t require any real skill at all.
Anyway, the guards bet he can’t prove they were thieves, and the price for losing is that Fizal, one of the guards, gets to keep Abu.
Now at first, Aladdin responds correctly. Abu is his friend and is not a possession he can give away.
But a little heckling from Razoul puts a stop to that right quick.
Quick sidebar: Razoul is interesting in that he shares similar design features with Pete and Lucky, two other Disney characters that Jim Cummings plays. He will pretty much consistently serve as “the cop who never listens” that is present in a lot of media, who has a personal problem with Aladdin because he spent so many years having to chase after him. He also serves as the “bad cop” because more than once in the series he will jump the gun on punishments and sentencing.
He will get an episode way down the line that allows him to develop as a character and for him and Aladdin to come to respect each other, all of which will be completely retconned by the third movie.
According to the IMDB page they had people on staff to keep an eye on continuity and fish-smack anyone that deviated from it, but I guess they were out sick when King of Thieves went into production.
But back to the story. He willfully bets Abu against the guards’ claims and has the nerve to be surprised when the monkey is pissed off at him for using him that way.
I sure hope he’s learned his lesson by the end of this episode because I will be really disappointed if this becomes a plot point again in the future.
Aladdin might be an asshole. Not an irredeemable one, but about as much of an asshole as you’d expect a teenager to be without meaning to.
Oh, and the lamp’s back.
The DVD Fairy 