Disney movies always came out about two months before my birthday so I feel like I should relate them more to my childhood birthdays. Aladdin is the main one that sticks with me. Most of the details are fuzzy but I know we saw it at the AMC theater in Santee and that my mom took her car to the local mechanic before the movie and we were going to pick up the car after. I remember liking the movie. I also remember having to pee so bad that I ended up peeing all over myself in the bathroom and my mom getting a little upset with me.
Aladdin taught me that you just had to be a little more clever than everyone else to win. That if you could just act a little faster and be a little smarter you could get by no matter the situation. That stuck with me as my path to adulthood. Make the right friends and be just a little bit slicker than you enemies.
Aladdin is also the only Disney movie I distinctly remember having a marketing hold on me. I had this play set that was about a foot tall and looked like the palace and when you opened it several hinged door pieces swung out to reveal the Cave of Wonders and the market place and the palace as well as several different characters. I also had this cup that had glitter and laps floating in water superimposed on all of the characters with a silicone straw that slid out of a secret compartment from the Disney store. My brother had an Aladdin play set that was a bag of coins and a dagger on a hilt and a lamp that when you opened the top revealed a glowing genie eye. Finally, I remember my mom and dad taking my brother and I to Target after church one day because sheets were on sale and I picked out Aladdin sheets while Andrew got 101 Dalmatians sheets.
It is weird how a movie can stick with you like this. I have so many vivid memories surrounding Aladdin memorabilia and we almost watched the worn out VHS when I was home. Probably my most vivid memory of Aladdin was made without the movie even being on. I don't remember the circumstances or when it happened. I think I was an adult but I am not sure if I was just an old teenager or just home from a break from college. I know it was a late evening when my mom should have been to sleep and we were being silly and somehow we ended up singing "A Whole New World" in the style of Ethel Merman and this just escalated to the fact that every time I hear this song I can't help but smile and think of my mom and I singing all the words together.
My mom and I watched this movie late on a Sunday night before I was supposed to leave for the next leg of my trip. We were both tired and barely able to keep our eyes open but I was so happy to be there watching the movie with my mom. When "A Whole New World" came on, we sang a duet that should have woken my dad. We watched the movie after Robin William's passing and we both acknowledged his genius but it was on my second watch through that I really started to see why I loved the Genie so much. He reminds me of my mom in the strangest way. He is kind and caring but funny. His brain just like my mom's makes the funniest connections. They entertain as a way to love.
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