Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights
Tags: psychedelic

Plot synopsis:
Scooby and Shaggy arrive in Arabia on a magic carpet to become royal food tasters for the young Caliph. They are initially hired, but after they eat everything in sight and leave no food for the Caliph, he gets mad and has his guards chase them. Shaggy and Scooby find a place to hide and Shaggy takes on the disguise as a harem girl. The Caliph, who is looking for a bride, falls in love with the disguised Shaggy and decides that they shall be married. Hoping to make the Caliph fall asleep so they can make their escape, Shaggy tells him two classic stories.
=== Aliyah-Din and the Magic Lamp ===
The first of two stories that involved a gender-bent version of Aladdin.
The Sultan of the land is worried as his son, The Prince, has not yet chosen a bride to marry, and has turned down almost every princess that seeks to marry him. The Sultan expresses his worry to his vizier, Haman and with his health failing, the Sultan keeps pressuring his son to choose a wife. He is even more upset as once long ago when the Prince was young, he was already engaged to marry a princess of a neighbouring kingdom; when she was born, everyone was filled joy and happiness, but sadly the princess had disappeared leaving the kingdom without an heir and the Prince heartbroken. Eventually the Sultan decides to have every eligible women arrive the next day so that his son may finally choose a wife to secure an heir to the throne. However, the Prince notices a young women near a river washing her clothes and immediately falls in love with her; the young girl notices him and becomes frightened and soon leaves. The Prince tries to stop her, but instead only finds a scarf she had left behind and decides to go into town to find her.
However, unaware to either the Sultan or Prince, Haman the vizier actually despises them and has a plan to finally gain control of the throne. He seeks guidance from a magical jewel known as the Lord of the Amulet, that helped once long ago and reveals that he had actually kidnapped the princess when she was a baby, as it was part of his plan to gain control of the kingdom. The Lord of the Amulet tells him of a magical lamp that is hidden in a cave that is only revealed every three years during a blue moon, but also reveals that only a person of pure of heart can enter the cave. The Lord of the Amulet reveals that a young woman named Aliyah-Din is the only person capable of entering the cave to retrieve the lamp (and who is also revealed to be the same woman the Prince has fallen in love with) before telling Haman to never seek his help again. Haman then goes into town and soon finds Aliyah-Din, where he explains that only she is capable of entering the cave to retrieve the lamp, but also lies to her saying that the lamp has special powers that will help heal the sick Sultan, to which Aliyah-Din agrees to help.
Later that day, the Prince is still searching for Aliyah-Din where he also attracts a lot of attention from many women who seek to marry him the next day, causing the Prince to discover of his father's plans. He is outraged of his father wanting him to marry a women he has only met as his heart only lies toward Aliyah-Din. Meanwhile, Aliyah-Din is late meeting with Haman, but on her way she discovers the news that the Prince shall choose a bride the next day; however, a women nearby tells her not get her hopes up as she believes that Aliyah-Din doesn't have a chance of gaining the Prince's love and affections. Aliyah-Din and the Prince then soon bump into each other, where Aliyah-Din in return falls in love with the Prince. However, remembering her duties to help retrieve the lamp, Aliyah-Din is forced to leave the Prince, although he attempts to stop her, The Prince soon loses sight of her, much to his dismay.
At night, Aliyah-Din meets with Haman where they witness the cave opening. Haman instructs Aliyah-Din to touch only the lamp and nothing else as she enters the cave. Aliyah-Din enters a room and despite Haman's warnings, she picks what seems to be an innocent flower, unaware that it's actually a piece of treasure. Aliyah-Din soon finds the lamp near a water fountain, but discovers that by picking the flower the cave has started to collapse and it soon closes, leaving her and the lamp trapped inside much to Haman's anger. Aliyah-Din is upset as she has no way out of the cave and that the Prince will eventually pick a bride to marry the next day. She then notices that the lamp has writing that reads "Rub Me"; she rubs it as it instructs which releases Yogi Bear, a fully powered Genie and his sidekick Boo Boo, a Genie-in-training, who reveal to Aliyah-Din that she is their new master and they are allowed to grant her three wishes.
Meanwhile, back at the Palace, Haman is creating a special potion to use on the Sultan that will make him fall into a deep sleep. He goes to the Sultan's chambers where the potion takes an immediate effect and he falls asleep; soon after the Prince arrives to talk to his father, unaware of the sleep spell. The Prince apologizes for not having selected a bride and wanting to put his father's happiness before his own, reveals he will choose a bride and marry whoever it may be the next day, despite the fact he still upset over losing Aliyah-Din. However, the Prince now notices his father's condition and soon Haman puts the Prince under the same spell, Haman then takes the unconscious Prince to the dungeons where he chains him and takes on the Prince's appearance.
Aliyah-Din goes to accept the Prince's hand in marriage unaware of who she's dealing with. Haman reveals himself, takes the lamp, (therefore making him Yogi and Boo-Boo's new master) and has Aliyah-Din thrown into the dungeon. Haman uses his first 2 wishes to become a sultan that has supremacy in front of all the universe. Aliyah-Din escapes from the dungeon and removes the lamp from Haman's grasp, leaving him without a third wish. Aliyah-Din finally gets a do-over of three wishes and uses her first wish to bring everything back to normal.
With everything fully restored, The Prince regains consciousness and orders the guards to arrest Haman. The Prince then soon reunites with Aliyah-Din and returns her scarf; after finally learning her name, The Prince asks Aliyah-Din to marry him. However, Aliyah-Din believes that he doesn't truly love her as she believes his love is mainly due to her wishing for it, but The Prince instead reveals to her that he has been in love with her ever since he first saw her. Aliyah-Din is delighted and The Prince assures her that they can be together. Soon the now awakened Sultan arrives and the Prince introduces his father to Aliyah-Din and reveals his desire to marry her. The Sultan, however, cannot bless their desire for marriage, as he reveals to his son that he can only marry a princess, Aliyah-Din rubs the lamp as she hears his words and Yogi appears. Aliyah-Din then wishes to become a princess again, and is soon transformed back into her princess attire. However, even despite the wish, The Sultan cannot allow Aliyah-Din and the Prince to be married.
Saddened, The Prince apologizes to Aliyah-Din as it appears that their love can never be. However, upon learning her name, The Sultan realizes that Aliyah-Din is the long-lost princess who the Prince was engaged to. Delighted, The Sultan allows them to be married. Aliyah-Din then asks Yogi for her final wish to be a huge wedding, which he gladly grants. The Prince and Aliyah-Din celebrate their engagement and share their first kiss, as Boo Boo finally becomes a full-fledged Genie and grants Yogi his own personal wish: a picnic basket.
=== Sinbad the Sailor ===
The second and final tale is about Sinbad the Sailor (played by Magilla Gorilla) and how he mistakes a pirate ship for a cruise ship, the latter being a running gag throughout the story.
Before Shaggy can escape, the Caliph decides to start the ceremony right away, but when the wedding cake arrives, Shaggy pigs out, and his ruse is discovered. However, the Caliph reveals that since he enjoyed listening to the stories, he has decided to make Shaggy and Scooby royal storytellers, which the duo happily accept (even if they lost the royal food tasting job).

Review: The worst Scooby Doo movie ever? Probably. I am really sorry guys, but I didn't like this film at all. I love Hanna Barbera and I love Scooby Doo, but this movie was not great at all. In fact a vast majority was awful in my opinion, which is a real shame as I genuinely wanted to like this movie. You see it had so much promise, Shaggy, Scooby, Yogi Bear, these are all great characters, the concept was good, the voice cast is of high calibre and the trailer actually looked as though it was going to be a half-decent movie.So were there any redeeming qualities? The music score was very energetic and rousing and did have a sense of authenticity, almost like a Carl Stalling score in those great Looney Tunes cartoons. Plus it was a delight to see all those characters.However, these characters deserved much better. Shaggy and Scooby are both woefully underused and Yogi is saddled with very lacklustre material. And the other characters? The girl who the prince falls in love with is poorly drawn while the villain is little more than a stereotype and a blatant rip-off of Jafar with a bit of Dick Dastardly in his design too.That's not all that's wrong with this film. The animation is shoddy, with wonkily drawn characters, rushed backgrounds, flat colouring and all-over-the place editing. The dialogue is unfunny and forced, the sight gags are unoriginal, the pacing is both rushed and pedestrian, the sound effects are misplaced and the story is just a gender-reversed tale of Aladdin except one that starts off on the wrong foot and never recovers while the segments about pirates and Shaggy disguising himself as a princess are pretty lacking in originality or entertainment too and the parts telling Caliph telling the stories isn't exactly unfamiliar territory, see 1001 Rabbit Tales, it's not perfect but the links and the stories told are much more amusing(in my opinion that is). Plus I am afraid to say the voice work was poor, even with Casey Kasem and Don Messick who were given little worthwhile to work with.So overall, hugely disappointing and a failure of what happened to be a good idea. 2/10 Bethany Cox. much better than I hoped for. A Hanna-Barbera fan, I rented this movie, but thought it was going to be "lame-o".  It can get rather disinteresting, these type of stories where they take a familiar tale, and put characters familiar from another source in the roles.  You know, like all those sitcom cast retellings of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol".  Actually, the film turned out to be quite fun.  Shaggy (in drag) has to tell stories to a prince, who sounds exactly like Mandark from "Dexter's Laboratory", which amused me.  One story is a gender-reversed version of "Aladdin", with a girl named Aliyah-Din as the poor heroine who must win her royal man.  Despite the presence of Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo as genies, the story can actually be taken pretty seriously. Then Magilla Gorilla stars as Sinbad, in a hilarious parody which includes a surprising send-up of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean ride!  As a Disney theme park fan, I was howling with laughter!. One of Hanna-Barbera's biggest failures ever. This is a re-write of my short, unhelpful review on this movie, as written in August 2010.Now, Hanna-Barbera was known for clever cartoons that made up for its limited animation by featuring funny characterizations and sight gags, witty stories, catchy background music, zany sound effects and excellent voice work. During the early-to-mid 1990s, however, they began to struggle before they began producing original material for Cartoon Network, having fallen behind by its new competition (Disney and WB's TV animation studios, as well as the Nicktoons). Some of their 1990s stuff was good ("Tom & Jerry Kids," "The Halloween Tree"), and some of it was bad. This movie is, unfortunately, one of their worst productions ever.I had high hopes for this movie. It had a pretty good-looking voice cast (with Casey Kasem and Don Messick voicing Shaggy and Scooby, and also featuring many other talented voice actors like Rob Paulsen, Maurice LaMarche, Tony Jay, Jennifer Hale, Kath Soucie, Frank Welker. etc.), and the video cover artwork made the plot look interesting, but I turned out to be deceived. The plot was very weak; Shaggy and Scooby-Doo were only in 15 minutes out of the film's 70-minute running time. Shaggy just tells stories to the nerdy Caliph (a precursor to Mandark of "Dexter's Lab"), and there is virtually no indication that these are stories he is telling. So it pretty much segues into another cartoon. The "Aliyah-Din" story is pretty much a no-brainer parody of Disney's "Aladdin" with the genders reversed to make it less obvious, and many of the characterizations and gags are unoriginal and seemed ripped off of other cartoons (especially anything made by Disney or WB); for example, Haman is an obvious rip- off of Jafar (with a bit of Dick Dastardly thrown into his design too). Yogi's running gag where he keeps hoping for food gets annoying after ten minutes, too. The soundtrack is also poor. Regarding the music, while I am usually a fan of the Carl Stalling-esquire style (as composed by "Animaniacs" composer Steve Bernstein), just doesn't work with this movie; it's always stopping and starting, moving with every knee jerk or double take, etc. I don't mind hearing this on a "Tiny Toon Adventures" or "Animaniacs" segment (great shows BTW), but here it just sounds out of place. The sound effects are also pretty much out of place, as the cartoon does not use Hanna-Barbera's famous sound FX that often, instead mostly opting for the old Treg Brown/Looney Tunes sound effects. And just as bad is the animation. It is actually very poor, even for 1994 standards! Character designs are rather wonky-looking, the backgrounds are over-stylized, even Shaggy and Scooby look strangely off-model! And the movements are pretty jerky and remind me of some of the worst early "Tiny Toons" animation (but without the crappy computer system used here), and there are a lot of cheap-looking digital pan and zooms that could make you nauseous.Overall, this was one of Hanna-Barbera's worst cartoons ever from one of their worst periods ever, period. This was pretty much their equivalent to "Titanic: The Animated Musical." Even my YouTube Poop of this movie is better than the real thing! (Check it out if you get the chance to, it will save you the trouble from watching the real thing!)