Aladdin is a STOLEN movie: The Thief and the Cobbler

The Thief (Disney) and the Cobbler (Garrett Gilchrist)

Aladdin is better overall.

The thief and the cobbler is goated af

"For ruining Zigzag's entrance"

Now the Emperor's New Groove is even funnier...

This was one of the movies i watched over and over again as a kid. I'm ngl the inner dialogue if the thief was my favorite part.

What I remembered about the whole copy thing, Aladdin was based on the ancient 1000 Nights (which is public domain) while The Cobbler was based on a quite modern story by an Arab (which was not yet public domain and Williams had conflict with copyright laws that's why it took quite long as well). I can say the stories are coincidental, but the thing are the character designs (especially Jafar and Zigzag and the two rubies). Disney might've gotten huge inspirations to the Cobbler.

Except they don't have the same story?!? Alladin is about an orphaned beggar who uses magic to pretend to be a prince ande the thief and the cobbler is about a cobbler who is arrested and brought to the palace at the same time some magic balls go missing and is then sent on a quest to find them! There are some visual similarities but that can easily be explained by a similar setting!

Another thing disney stole from the movie was the evil one eye army.
Check out the series wonder over yander.
I knew I had seen the one eye army before.

I FORGOT THIS MOVIE EXISTED. My grandparents owned it on vhs

I fond this out immediately watching The Thief and the Cobbler.

The fact that a clip of the movie came to my for you page and after watching the clip I fell inlove whit the movie 😂 if I had to decide over Aladdin and the thief and cobbler I’d choose the thief and the cobbler

I really wish this movie was finished, such a sad story really.

Im glad to see others who loved this movie! My family would watch this movie on vhs and we loved it!! Everyday we would ask to watch it!

...All due respect for the post. Technically, Williams liked to use ones, not twos.

Oh my gosh! I had this movie on VHS!! I had Aladdin first, and when watching the theif and the cobbler, we (mom, sister and I) used to compare things that reminded us of Aladdin’s story!

This video answered so many questions I had growing up. I used to be obsessed with this movie.

Aladdin is an really old fairy tayle of the book 1001 night. This book is over 1000 years old and one part of the beauty story teller sheherzde was married being the sultan the king and tell him every night story’s there never had an ending. I think we all know the story. This is so old that a lot of versions was adapted in the years

One thing aladin doesn't have is an eldrich crab monster and a rube goldberg machine of absolute bad guy carnage

Recently, i watched the thief and the cobbler and hoboy i'm in love with how they design the cobbler. Those nails as his mouth is a genius.

The Recobbled Cut is insanely impressive. Something else good that came out of this was the movies made by Cartoon Saloon. They constantly cite this project as their main inspiration. And I have yet to see a bad movie from them so at the very least Williams did inspire something amazing in the end.

This gets an awful lot of details wrong. The deadline was imposed because they knew Aladdin was coming and if it beat them to market their film would look like the rip off. Also, workprints of the film were circulating through animation circles so it's not much mystery where Disney got their idea to copy it from.

Imo it's too far to say they 'stole' it. You can certainly draw parallels and similarities, but the actual stories are so different that there's more than enough originality there. Ultimately, it was Richard Williams' fault for not abiding by the contract he signed -- you forget that he signed the contract and its terms, including their ability to take his work and do whatever they wanted if he didn't finish in time.

Yes, it is unfortunate he never finished it, but he knew the deadline and the conditions and ended up producing little by the end. How many more years until it was 'finished'? 10? 20? Never? A perfectionist needs someone to steer them towards actually completing projects, and he did not have that person unfortunately.

And I'm not well-informed enough to say which elements are from the arabian nights/other stories versus the thief and the cobbler. It's hard to say. But assuming the entire story of the thief and the cobbler is 100% original, at worst they took elements of the story and remixed it into its own thing, which doesn't constitute plagiarism, let alone 'stealing'.

It wasn't disney that fired Williams, it was Warner Brothers and the Closing Bond Company that was under WB's command. The result was called "The Princess and the Cobbler" and released under United Artists label.

Disney stepped in later, buying rhe film through Miramax and mutilating the film even further, adding new voice track that made the whole thing into an Aladdin ripoff, literally adding references to Disney's popular animation

I guess the “Thief” was Disney 😂

You guys forgot that the Thief stole the movie at the end, so he that means he created Aladdin and got more money.

In other words Arabian Knight was a result of ANIMATED INBREEDING! Makes a bit more sense now, doesn't it? But the Recobbled Cut is ten times better and is being updated continuously

Disney stole everything. its like the sun is yellow and the sky is blue and everything from disney is stolen.

WHY DID THEY HAVE TO REPLACE THE FAMILY VIDEO!?😢(they replaced it with a gas station)

Just the other day my brother surprised me with the recobbled version. Initially my mind was blown out of nostalgia, but my mind was blown even further by how much better the movie was with the missing scenes.

Not like Disney doesn't have a reputation for stealing its properties (coughcoughKimbacoughcough)...

There's also some borrowing from the 1940 version of 'The Thief of Baghdad' - namely the evil vizier named Jafar and the Sultan obsessed with toys. And the hero having a sidekick named Abu.

Stolen or not, there's something in Disney's Aladdin that is sadly lacking in any version of 'Thief,' and that's characters you can identify with. You don't connect with the characters in 'Thief' like you can identify with Aladdin wishing to be more than a street rat, Jasmine wanting to choose her own life, or the Genie wanting to be free. Richard Williams, for all his genius at animation, had no idea how to do character arcs.

PLEASE DO RESCUERS DOWN UNDER NEXT!!!

I got my husband into TTATC a couple years back, and we actually cosplayed as Tack and Yum Yum in 2019 at a con. Sooo many people stopped us for photos

Wait!! Now I’m confused. HUH??!! I thought it was a finished project. I mean, my mom bought it for me on VHS and it’s titled The Thief and The Cobbler. I remember the thief made me laugh a lot with his Disney pun and other dialogue. But you say that’s the cheap, rushed version titled Arabian Knights…. But my movie is titled The Thief and The Cobbler. I don’t get it. I remember first seeing the trailer with that guy who voiced ALL of the 90s kids movie trailers and he called it The Thief and The Cobbler. So what’s the deal man??

11.50pm (sep-6)👌 I just thought about this Disney went terrible on him but what about Pixar because that whole thing back in the 90s
Anyway, I would believe that Pixar would’ve taken his ideas and made them into a Good movie

More proof of the secret evil in the magic kingdom

wait! you're saying this 1000 year old story doesn't originate with this 100 year old company?!?

Well yeah, most Disney movies are stolen

I feel like felix colgrave was inspired by this movie, he had to be. the one eyed army was so fluid and perfect it reminded me of his work immediately

and aladin honestly wasnt that good, people mostly liked it because robin Williams

This movie was an experience to watch and good to watch again and again

Funny video.

You do realize that Aladdin was an ancient folktale, right? “The Thief and the Cobbler” was only inspired by the “1001 Arabian Nights” stories whereas Disney’s film was a direct adaptation of one of the stories. And the idea of adapting it to the screen was from Howard Ashman.

I always prefer to call Zig Zag "Genafar" Genie and Jafar combined 😆

I watched the thief and the cobbler when I was younger

Samari jack if u liked thief and cobbler also

Why was Richard Williams inspired by the middle east? Can you make a video about the racism

I had drawn parallels before between the two movies, so I'm not surprised that Aladdin was a ripoff. Disappointed more than anything because I thoroughly enjoyed them both for different reasons.

Also, we are in agreement that the thief is the best character in the movie. Unfortunately I was only ever aware of the Miramax version, but I still think his voice actor was superb. Had me crying with laughter the whole movie. An underated "diamond in the rough" for sure.