Ub Iwerks, A.S.C. ( /ˈʌb ˈaɪwɜrks/;born Ubbe Eert Iwerks, March 24, 1901 – July 7, 1971) was a two-time Academy Award winning American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician, who co-created Mickey Mouse with Walt Disney.

He was born in Kansas City, Missouri. His father, Eert Ubbe Iwwerks, emigrated to the U.S. in 1869 from the village of Uttum in East Frisia (northwest Germany, today part of the municipality of Krummhörn). Ub's birth name can be seen on early “Alice” shorts that he signed. Several years later he simplified his name to “Ub Iwerks”, sometimes written as "U. B. Iwerks".^[1]

He is father to Disney Legend Don Iwerks and David L. Iwerks. Grandfather to documentary film producer Leslie Iwerks, and Chris, Larry, John, and Kathie Iwerks.

Career[link]

Iwerks was considered by many to be Walt Disney's oldest friend, and spent most of his career with Disney. The two met in 1919 while working for the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio in Kansas City,^[2] and would eventually start their own commercial art business together.^[3] Disney and Iwerks then found work as illustrators for the Kansas City Slide Newspaper Company^[4] (which would later be named The Kansas City Film Ad Company).^[5] While working for the Kansas City Film Ad Company, Disney decided to take up work in animation,^[6] and Iwerks soon joined him.

He was responsible for the distinctive style of the earliest Disney animated cartoons, and was also responsible for creating Mickey Mouse. In 1922, when Walt began his Laugh-O-Gram cartoon series, Iwerks joined him as chief animator. The studio went bankrupt, however, and in 1923 Iwerks followed Disney's move to Los Angeles to work on a new series of cartoons known as “the Alice Comedies” which had live action mixed with animation. After the end of this series, Disney asked Iwerks to come up with a new character. The first Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was animated entirely by Ub Iwerks. Following the first cartoon, Oswald was redesigned on the insistence of Universal, who agreed to distribute the new series of cartoons in 1927.

In the spring of 1928, Disney lost control of the Oswald character, and much of his staff was hired away; Disney left Universal soon afterwards. He promised never to work with a company he did not own ever again.^[7] Disney asked Ub Iwerks, who stayed on, to start drawing up new character ideas. Iwerks tried sketches of frogs, dogs, and cats, but none of these appealed to Disney. A female cow and male horse were created at this time by Iwerks, but were also rejected. They would later turn up as Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar.^[8] Ub Iwerks eventually got inspiration from an old drawing. In 1925, Hugh Harman drew some sketches of mice around a photograph of Walt Disney. These inspired Ub Iwerks to create a new mouse character for Disney, eventually called Mickey Mouse.^[9]

The first few Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies cartoons were animated almost entirely by Iwerks. However, as Iwerks began to draw more and more cartoons on a daily basis, he soon found himself unable to cope under Disney's harsh command;^[10] Iwerks also felt he wasn't getting the credit he deserved for drawing all of Walt's successful cartoons.^[11] Eventually, Iwerks and Disney had a falling out; their friendship and working partnership were severed when Iwerks accepted a contract with Disney competitor Pat Powers to leave Disney and start an animation studio under his own name. (Powers and Disney had an earlier falling-out over Disney's use of the Powers Cinephone sound-on-film system—actually copied by Powers from DeForest Phonofilm without credit—in early Disney cartoons.)

The Iwerks Studio opened in 1930. Financial backers led by Pat Powers suspected that Iwerks was responsible for much of Disney's early success. However, while animation for a time suffered at Disney from Iwerks' departure, it soon rebounded as Disney brought in talented new young animators.

Despite a contract with MGM to distribute his cartoons, and the introduction of a new character named “Flip the Frog”, and later “Willie Whopper”, the Iwerks Studio was never a major commercial success and failed to rival either Disney or Fleischer Studios. From 1933 to 1936 he produced a series of shorts (independently distributed, not part of the MGM deal) in Cinecolor, named ComiColor Cartoons. The ComiColor series included Little Black Sambo, a racially stereotyped work that was eventually banned in the United States^{[citation needed]}. In 1936 backers withdrew financial support from the Iwerks Studio, and it folded soon after.

In 1937, Leon Schlesinger Productions contracted Iwerks to produce four Looney Tunes shorts starring Porky Pig and Gabby Goat. Iwerks directed the first two shorts, while former Schlesinger animator Robert Clampett was promoted to director and helmed the other two shorts before he and his unit returned to the main Schlesinger lot. Iwerks then did contract work for Screen Gems (then Columbia Pictures' cartoon division) before returning to work for Disney in 1940. (The cartoons created by Iwerks' own studio remained largely unseen for many decades, but have been released to DVD by several companies.)

After his return to the Disney studio, Iwerks mainly worked on developing special visual effects. He is credited as developing the processes for combining live action and animation used in Song of the South (1946), as well as the xerographic process adapted for cel animation. He also worked at WED Enterprises, now Walt Disney Imagineering, helping to develop many Disney theme park attractions during the 1960s. Iwerks did special effects work outside the studio as well, including his Academy Award nominated achievement for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963).

Iwerks' most famous work outside creating and animating Mickey Mouse was Flip the Frog from his own studio. Iwerks was known for his fast work at drawing and animation and his wacky sense of humor. Animator Chuck Jones, who worked for Iwerks' studio in his youth, said “Iwerks is Screwy spelled backwards.” Ub Iwerks died in 1971 of a heart attack in Burbank, California, aged 70.

A documentary film, The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story was released in 1999, followed by a book written by Leslie Iwerks and John Kenworthy in 2001. The documentary, created by Iwerks' granddaughter Leslie Iwerks, was released as part of The Walt Disney Treasures, Wave VII series.

Influence and homages[link]

A rare self portrait of Iwerks was found in the trash at an animation studio in Burbank. The portrait was saved and is now part of the Animation Archives in Burbank, California.

After World War Two, much of Iwerks' early animation style would be imitated by legendary anime artists Osamu Tezuka and Shōtarō Ishinomori.

Iwerks Entertainment, a filmographic company, was founded in 1985 in honor of Ub Iwerks.

The 1986 DC Comics character Doctor Ub'x was named in his honor.

In 1989, Iwerks was named a Disney Legend.

In the The Ren and Stimpy Show episode Superstitious Stimpy, Stimpy is chanting in garbled talk and mentions Ub Iwerks.

In the 1996 The Simpsons episode "The Day the Violence Died", a relationship similar to Iwerks' early relationship with Walt Disney is used as the main plot.

In the 2005 Fairly OddParents episode "The Good Ol'Days", Timmy and his Grandpa Pappy are transported to an early Disney-style cartoon. In it, two street signs that intersect are named Ub and Iwerks.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Leslie Iwerks and John Kenworthy, The Hand Behind the Mouse (Disney Editions, 2001) and documentary of the same name (DVD, 1999)
• Leonard Maltin, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons (Penguin Books, 1987)
• Jeff Lenburg, The Great Cartoon Directors (Da Capo Press, 1993)

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Ub Iwerks at the INDUCKS
• Ub Iwerks at the Internet Movie Database
• Disney Legends
• Ub Iwerks at Find a Grave

Carl W. Stalling (November 10, 1891—November 29, 1972) was an American composer and arranger for music in animated films. He is most closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts produced by Warner Bros., where he averaged one complete score each week, for 22 years.

Biography[link]

Stalling was born to Ernest and Sophia C. Stalling. His parents were from Germany; his father arrived in the United States in 1883. The family settled in Lexington, Missouri where his father was a carpenter. He started playing piano at six. By the age of 12, he was the principal piano accompanist in his hometown's silent movie house. For a short period, he was also the theatre organist at the St. Louis Theatre, which eventually became Powell Symphony Hall. By the time he was in his early 20s, he was conducting his own orchestra and improvising on the organ at the Isis Movie Theatre in Kansas City. During that time, he met and befriended a young Walt Disney who was producing animated comedy shorts in Kansas City. Stalling composed several early cartoon scores for Walt Disney, including Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho in 1928, (but not Steamboat Willie, Disney's first released sound short). Early discussions with Disney about whether the animation or the musical score should come first led to Disney creating the Silly Symphonies series of cartoons. These cartoons allowed Stalling to create a score that Disney handed to his animators. While there, Stalling pioneered the use of "bar sheets," which allowed musical rhythms to be sketched out simultaneously with storyboards for the animation. He left Disney after two years, at the same time as animator Ub Iwerks. Finding few outlets in New York, Stalling rejoined Iwerks at his studio in California, while freelancing for Disney and others. In 1936, when Leon Schlesinger—under contract to produce animated shorts for Warner Bros.—hired Iwerks, Stalling went with him to become a full-time cartoon music composer, with full access to the expansive Warner Bros. catalog and musicians. He remained with Warner Bros. until he retired in 1958. His last cartoon was To Itch His Own, directed by Chuck Jones.

Although Stalling's composing technique followed the conventions of music accompaniment from the silent film era that were based on improvisation and compilation of musical cues from catalogs and cue-sheets, he was also an innovator. Stalling is among the first music directors to extensively use the metronome to time film scores. He was one of three composers, along with Max Steiner and Scott Bradley, credited with the invention of the click track. His stock-in-trade was the "musical pun," where he used references to popular songs, or even classical pieces, to add a dimension of humor to the action on the screen. Working with legendary directors Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson, and Chuck Jones, he developed the "Looney Tunes" style of very rapid and tightly coordinated musical cues, punctuated with both instrumental and recorded sound effects, and occasionally reaching into full blown musical fantasies such as The Rabbit of Seville and A Corny Concerto.

Stalling was a master at quickly changing musical styles based on the action in the cartoon. His arrangements were complicated and technically demanding. The music itself served both as a background for the cartoon, and provided musical sound effects. The titles of the music often described the action, sometimes forming jokes for those familiar with the tunes.

Stalling made extensive use of the many works of Raymond Scott, whose music was licensed by Warner Bros. in the early 1940s.

Jones and the other Looney Tunes directors sometimes complained about Stalling's proclivity for musical quotation and punning. In an interview, Jones complained:

Nevertheless, Stalling is remembered today for setting music to cartoons that remain popular, and are often remembered for their musicality. His scores are heard constantly, both in re-runs of classic cartoons, and recycled in new Looney Tunes compilations and features such as Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

Noted film critic Leonard Maltin, on one of the special segments of the DVD series Looney Tunes Golden Collection, pointed out that listening to the soundtracks of the Warner cartoons was an important part of his musical education; and the use of the full Warner Bros. Orchestra resulted in a richness of sound that is often lacking in more modern cartoons. It is undeniable that Stalling subtly introduced the babyboom generation to classical music and much of the Great American Songbook.^{[citation needed]}

After Stalling retired in 1958, he was succeeded by Milt Franklyn, who had assisted Stalling as an arranger since the late 1930s. Stalling died on November 29, 1972, near Los Angeles.^[2]

Borrowed material[link]

'Payday', Private Snafu short scored by Stalling in 1944, containing various themes and styles of music

• Dance of the Comedians (used in chases scenes, particularly in early Road-Runner/Coyote cartoons)
• In the Stirrups (used in chase scenes usually involving riding on horseback) - Composed by J.S. Zamecnik
• How Dry I Am (in scenes when characters are drunk)
• Rock-a-bye Baby (scenes with babies or characters trying to sleep)
• Sobre las Olas (scenes where characters skate or are doing acrobatic tricks)
• A Cup of Coffee, A Sandwich, and You (scenes where characters are hungry) - melody composed by Joseph Meyer, lyrics by Al Dubin and Billy Rose
• The Lady in Red and Oh You Beautiful Doll (scenes with attractive women or characters in female drag)
• I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles (scenes where characters are under water or bubbles are featured)
• Raindrop prelude (raining scenes)
• Largo al factotum (scenes with Italian characters or taking place in barber shops)
• Mexican hat dance (scenes taking place in Mexico or with Hispanic characters)
• William Tell Overture (scenes with horse chases)
• In My Merry Oldsmobile (scenes with cars, automobiles)
• The Arkansas Traveler (scenes with hillbilly and yokel characters)
• Blues in the night (scenes with Afro-American characters or sad characters)
• California, Here I Come (scenes where characters make hasty departures)
• Powerhouse (scenes of machines, factories or mechanical devices working; scenes of repetitive manual labor) - Composed by Raymond Scott
• Morning Mood (atmospheric scenes taking place in the morning)
• Freddie the Freshman (football scenes)
• We're in the Money (scenes involving money or when characters strike it rich, especially with Daffy)
• Shuffle Off To Buffalo (scenes involving trains and long-distance travel)
• Forty-Second Street (scenes involving big-city locales, subways)
• In an 18th Century Drawing Room (usually associated with Granny in the Sylvester and Tweety shorts) - Composed by Raymond Scott, who also composed "Powerhouse"
• Las Chiapanecas (used in the scene in Bully for Bugs where Bugs Bunny dons a sombrero, dances, and slaps the bull)
• Lucky Day (scenes where characters encounter or anticipate good fortune)
• Me-ow, by Irving Kaufman (scenes involving cats or kittens)
• Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone? (scenes involving dogs)

Recordings[link]

• The Carl Stalling Project: Music From Warner Bros. Cartoons, 1936–1958. Warner Bros., 1990
• The Carl Stalling Project Volume 2: More Music From Warner Bros. Cartoons, 1939–1957. Warner Bros., 1995
• Bugs Bunny on Broadway. (Broadway Cast Album conducted by George Daugherty) Warner Bros., 1990
• Bugs Bunny At The Symphony. (Live Concert Recording from the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony conducted by George Daugherty.) Warner Bros., 2010

References[link]

External links[link]

• Carl Stalling at the Internet Movie Database
• Article on Carl Stalling at Animation World Magazine
• Article on Carl Stalling at The Partial Observer
• Article on Carl Stalling at Slate Magazine
• Interview with Carl Stalling (1971) at MichaelBarrier.com

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Sinbad the Sailor (also spelled Sindbad; Arabic السندباد البحري as-Sindibād al-Baḥri; Persian سندباد Sandbād) is a fictional sailor from Basrah, living during the Abbasid Caliphate – the hero of a story-cycle of Middle Eastern origin. During his voyages throughout the seas east of Africa and south of Asia, he has fantastic adventures going to magical places, meeting monsters, and encountering supernatural phenomena.

Origins and sources[link]

Sindbad is a Persian name ("Lord of the Sindh River")^[1] hinting at a Persian^[2] origin. The oldest texts of the cycle are however in Arabic, and no ancient or medieval Persian version has survived. The story as we have it is specifically set during the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate and particularly highlights the reign of Harun al-Rashid. The name Sindbad indicates the name of the Indus River (Sindhu). The Sindhi Sailors, who became famous due to their skills in navigation, geography and languages may very well have inspired the stories of Sindbad the Sailor.^[3] Sindh is actually mentioned in the story of the Third Voyage: ("And thence we fared on to the land of Sind, where also we bought and sold").

A variation of the name, Smbat, can also be found in Armenia, as well as the version Lempad of his father's name Lambad. Incidents in some stories are also clearly influenced by ancient literary sources (including Homer's Odyssey and Vishnu Sarma's Panchatantra), and Arab, Indian and Persian folklore and literature.

The collection is tale 120 in Volume 6 of Sir Richard Burton's 1885 translation of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights)^[4] (despite criticisms regarding the translation and the commentary of the Burton edition, it remains the most extensive collection of Arabian Nights tales in English and is hence often used for reference purposes^[5][6]). While Burton and other Western translators have grouped the Sinbad stories within the tales of Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights, its origin appears to have been quite independent from that story cycle and modern translations by Arab scholars often do not include the stories of Sinbad^[7] or several other of the Arabian Nights that have become familiar to Western audiences.

The tales[link]

Sinbad the Porter and Sinbad the Sailor[link]

Like the 1001 Nights the Sinbad story-cycle has a frame story, which goes as follows: in the days of Haroun al-Rashid, Caliph of Baghdad, a poor porter (one who carries goods for others in the market and throughout the city) pauses to rest on a bench outside the gate of a rich merchant's house, where he complains to Allah about the injustice of a world which allows the rich to live in ease while he must toil and yet remain poor. The owner of the house hears, and sends for the porter, and it is found they are both named Sinbad. The rich Sinbad tells the poor Sinbad that he became wealthy, "by Fortune and Fate", in the course of seven wondrous voyages, which he then proceeds to relate.

A sailing port in the Arabian Sea.

The First Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor[link]

After dissipating the wealth left to him by his father, Sinbad goes to sea to repair his fortune. He sets ashore on what appears to be an island, but this island proves to be a gigantic sleeping whale on which trees have taken root ever since the world was young. Awakened by a fire kindled by the sailors, the whale dives into the depths, the ship departs without Sinbad, and Sinbad is saved by the chance of a passing wooden trough sent by the grace of Allah. He is washed ashore on a densely wooded island. While exploring the deserted island he comes across one of the king's grooms. When Sinbad helps save the King's mare from being drowned by a sea horse—not a seahorse as we know it, but a supernatural horse that lives underwater—the groom brings Sinbad to the king. The king befriends Sinbad and so he rises in the king's favour becoming a trusted courtier. One day, the very ship on which Sinbad set sail docks at the island, and he reclaims his goods (still in the ship's hold). Sinbad gives the king his goods and in return the king gives him rich presents. Sindbad sells these presents for a great profit. Sinbad returns to Baghdad where he resumes a life of ease and pleasure. With the ending of the tale, Sinbad the sailor makes Sinbad the porter a gift of a hundred gold pieces, and bids him return the next day to hear more about his adventures.

Sindbad the Sailor and the valley of the Diamonds.

The Second Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor[link]

On the second day of Sinbad's tale-telling—but the 549th night of Scheherazade's, for she has been breaking her tale each morning in order to arouse the interest of the homicidal king, and make him spare her life for one more night—Sinbad the sailor tells how he grew restless of his life of leisure, and set to sea again, "possessed with the thought of traveling about the world of men and seeing their cities and islands." Accidentally abandoned by his shipmates again, he finds himself stranded in an island which contains Roc eggs. After attaching himself to a roc, he is transported to a valley of giant snakes which can swallow elephants, and a Roc which prey upon them. The floor of the valley is carpeted with diamonds, and merchants harvest these by throwing huge chunks of meat into the valley which the birds then carry back to their nests, where the men drive them away and collect the diamonds stuck to the meat. The wily Sinbad straps one of the pieces of meat to his back and is carried back to the nest along with a large sack full of precious gems. Rescued from the nest by the merchants, he returns to Baghdad with a fortune in diamonds, seeing many marvels along the way.

The Third Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor[link]

Restless for travel and adventure, Sinbad sets sail again from Basra. But by ill chance he and his companions are cast up on an island where they are captured by, "a huge creature in the likeness of a man, black of colour, ... with eyes like coals of fire and eye-teeth like boar's tusks and a vast big gape like the mouth of a well. Moreover, he had long loose lips like camels', hanging down upon his breast and ears like two Jarms falling over his shoulder-blades and the nails of his hands were like the claws of a lion." This monster begins eating the crew, beginning with the Reis (captain), who is the fattest. (Burton notes that the giant "is distinctly Polyphemus").

Sinbad hatches a plan to blind the beast (again, obvious parallels with the story of Polyphemus in Homer's Odyssey), with the two red-hot iron spits with which the monster has been kebabing and roasting the ship's company. He and the remaining men escape on a raft they had constructed the day before. However due to the Giant's mate most of the escaping men are hit by rocks and killed. After further adventures (including a gigantic python from which Sinbad escapes thanks to his quick wits), he returns to Baghdad, wealthier than ever.

The Fourth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor[link]

Sinbad and the giant Roc.

Impelled by restlessness Sinbad takes to the seas again, and, as usual, is shipwrecked. The naked savages amongst whom he finds himself feed his companions a herb which robs them of their reason (Burton theorises that this might be bhang), prior to fattening them for the table. Sinbad realises what is happening, and refuses to eat the madness-inducing plant. When the cannibals have lost interest in him, he escapes. A party of itinerant pepper-gatherers transports him to their own island, where their king befriends him and gives him a beautiful and wealthy wife.

Too late Sinbad learns of a peculiar custom of the land: on the death of one marriage partner, the other is buried alive with his or her spouse, both in their finest clothes and most costly jewels. Sinbad's wife falls ill and dies soon after, leaving Sinbad trapped in an underground cavern, a communal tomb, with a jug of water and seven pieces of bread. Just as these meagre supplies are almost exhausted, another couple—the husband dead, the wife alive—are dropped into the cavern. Sinbad bludgeons the wife to death and takes her rations.

Such episodes continue; soon he has a sizable store of bread and water, as well as the gold and gems from the corpses, but is still unable to escape, until one day a wild animal shows him a passage to the outside, high above the sea. From here a passing ship rescues him and carries him back to Baghdad, where he gives alms to the poor and resumes his life of pleasure. (Burton's footnote comments: "This tale is evidently taken from the escape of Aristomenes the Messenian from the pit into which he had been thrown, a fox being his guide. The Arabs in an early day were eager students of Greek literature.") Similarly, the first half of the voyage resembles the Circe episode in The Odyssey, with certain differences: while a plant robbed Sinbad's men of their reason in the Arab tales, it was only Circe's magic which "fattened" Odysseus' men in The Odyssey. It is in an earlier episode, featuring the 'Lotus Eaters', that Odysseus' men are fed a similar magical fruit which robs them of their senses.

Sindbad's fifth voyage

The Fifth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor[link]

"When I had been a while on shore after my fourth voyage; and when, in my comfort and pleasures and merry-makings and in my rejoicing over my large gains and profits, I had forgotten all I had endured of perils and sufferings, the carnal man was again seized with the longing to travel and to see foreign countries and islands." Soon at sea once more, while passing a desert island Sinbad's crew spots a gigantic egg that Sinbad recognizes as belonging to a roc. Out of curiosity the ship's passengers disembark to view the egg, only to end up breaking it and having the chick inside as a meal. Sinbad immediately recognizes the folly of their behavior and orders all back aboard ship. However, the infuriated parent rocs soon catch up with the vessel and destroy it by dropping giant boulders they have carried in their talons.^[8]

Shipwrecked yet again, Sinbad is enslaved by the Old Man of the Sea, who rides on his shoulders with his legs twisted round Sinbad's neck and will not let go, riding him both day and night until Sinbad would welcome death. (Burton's footnote discusses possible origins for the old man—the orang-utan, the Greek triton—and favours the African custom of riding on slaves in this way.^[9]

Sinbad during sixth voyage

Eventually, Sinbad makes wine and tricks the Old Man into drinking some, then Sinbad kills him after he has fallen off and escapes. A ship carries him to the City of the Apes, a place whose inhabitants spend each night in boats off-shore, while their town is abandoned to man-eating apes. Yet through the apes Sinbad recoups his fortune, and so eventually finds a ship which takes him home once more to Baghdad.

The Sixth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor[link]

"My soul yearned for travel and traffic". Sinbad is shipwrecked yet again, this time quite violently as his ship is dashed to pieces on tall cliffs. There is no food to be had anywhere, and Sinbad's companions die of starvation until only he is left. He builds a raft and discovers a river running out of a cavern beneath the cliffs. The stream proves to be filled with precious stones and becomes apparent that the island's streams flow with ambergris. He falls asleep as he journeys through the darkness and awakens in the city of the king of Serendib (Ceylon, Sri Lanka), "diamonds are in its rivers and pearls are in its valleys". The king marvels at what Sinbad tells him of the great Haroun al-Rashid, and asks that he take a present back to Baghdad on his behalf, a cup carved from a single ruby, with other gifts including a bed made from the skin of the serpent that swallowed the elephant^[10] ("and whoso sitteth upon it never sickeneth"), and "a hundred thousand miskals of Sindh lign-aloesa", and a slave-girl "like a shining moon". And so Sinbad returns to Baghdad, where the Caliph wonders greatly at the reports Sinbad gives of the land of Ceylon.

The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor[link]

"The Caravan" from "Sinbad's Seventh and Last Voyage."

The ever-restless Sinbad sets sail once more, with the usual result. Cast up on a desolate shore, he constructs a raft and floats down a nearby river to a great city. Here the chief of the merchants weds Sinbad to his daughter, names him his heir, and conveniently dies. The inhabitants of this city are transformed once a month into birds, and Sinbad has one of the bird-people carry him to the uppermost reaches of the sky, where he hears the angels glorifying God, "whereat I wondered and exclaimed, 'Praised be God! Extolled be the perfection of God!'" But no sooner are the words out than there comes fire from heaven which all but consumes the bird-men. The bird-people are angry with Sinbad and set him down on a mountain-top, where he meets two youths who are the servants of God and who give him a golden staff; returning to the city, Sinbad learns from his wife that the bird-men are devils, although she and her father are not of their number. And so, at his wife's suggestion, Sinbad sells all his possessions and returns with her to Baghdad, where at last he resolves to live quietly in the enjoyment of his wealth, and to seek no more adventures.

(Burton includes a variant of the seventh tale, in which Haroun al-Rashid asks Sinbad to carry a return gift to the king of Serendib. Sinbad replies, "By Allah the Omnipotent, O my lord, I have taken a loathing to wayfare, and when I hear the words 'Voyage' or 'Travel,' my limbs tremble". He then tells the Caliph of his misfortunate voyages; Haroun agrees that with such a history "thou dost only right never even to talk of travel". Nevertheless, a command of the Caliph is not to be gainsayed, and Sinbad sets forth on this, his uniquely diplomatic voyage. The king of Serendip is well pleased with the Caliph's gifts (which include, inter alia, the food tray of King Solomon) and showers Sinbad with his favour. On the return voyage the usual catastrophe strikes: Sinbad is captured and sold into slavery. His master sets him to shooting elephants with a bow and arrow, which he does until the king of the elephants carries him off to the elephants' graveyard. Sinbad's master is so pleased with the huge quantities of ivory in the graveyard that he sets Sinbad free, and Sinbad returns to Baghdad, rich with ivory and gold. "Here I went in to the Caliph and, after saluting him and kissing hands, informed him of all that had befallen me; whereupon he rejoiced in my safety and thanked Almighty Allah; and he made my story be written in letters of gold. I then entered my house and met my family and brethren: and such is the end of the history that happened to me during my seven voyages. Praise be to Allah, the One, the Creator, the Maker of all things in Heaven and Earth!".

In some versions we return to the frame story, in which Sinbad the Porter may receive a final generous gift from Sinbad the Sailor. In other versions the story cycle ends here, and there is no further mention of Sinbad the Porter.

Sinbad in popular culture[link]

File:Sinbad the Sailor.djvu Sinbad's quasi-iconic status in Western culture has led to his name being appropriated for a wide range of uses in both serious and not-so-serious contexts, frequently with only a tenuous connection to the original tales.

Films, TV, animation[link]

Many films, television series, animated cartoons, novels, and video games have been made, featuring Sinbad not as a merchant who happens to stumble into adventures, but as a dashing dare-devil adventure-seeker.

• Sinbad the Sailor (1935) Directed by Ub Iwerks
• Popeye the Sailorman (1936) Episode: Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor
• Sinbad the Sailor (1947)
• Son of Sinbad (1955)
• The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
• Arabian naito: Shindobaddo no bôken (Arabian Nights: Adventures of Sinbad) (1962) (animated Japanese film)
• Captain Sindbad (1963)
• Sindbad contro i sette saraceni (Sindbad against the Seven Sacarans). Italian film that was released in the USA as Ali Baba and the Seven Saracens (1964)
• Sindbad Alibaba Aladin (1965)
• Sehzade Sinbad kaf daginda (Prince Sinbad of the Mountains) (1971) (Turkish film)
• Sinbad and the Caliph of Baghdad (1973)
• Pohádky Tisíce a Jedné Noci (Tales of 1,001 Nights) (1974), a seven-part animated film by Karel Zeman
• The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)
• Arabian Nights: Sinbad's Adventures (Arabian Naitsu: Shinbaddo No Bôken, 1975)
• Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
• Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989)
• Sinbad (1993)
• The Fantastic Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor (1996–1998)
• The Adventures of Sinbad (1996–98)
• Alif Laila – A TV series by Sagar Films (Pvt.Ltd.) for DD National. Also shown on SAB TV & Ary Digital TV channels (1997)
• Sinbad: The Battle of the Dark Knights (1998)
• Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists (2000)
• Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)
• Princess Dollie Aur Uska Magic Bag (2004–2005): Sinbad is a main character.
• "Backyardigans" (2007) episode: Sinbad Sails Alone
• Sinbad The Fifth Voyage In-Production: Giant Flick Films (2010)
• The 7 Adventures of Sinbad (2010) film by The Asylum
• Sinbad and The Minotaur (2011) starring Manu Bennett
• Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage (2011) starring Patrick Stewart
• Sinbad: A Pakistani television show on Wikkid Plus starring as Sohail Mirza as Sinbad.^[11]

A pair of foreign films that had nothing to do with the Sinbad character were released in North America with the hero being referred to as "Sinbad" in the dubbed soundtrack. The 1952 Russian film Sadko (based on Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Sadko) was overdubbed and released in English in 1962 as The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, while the 1963 Japanese film Dai tozoku (whose main character was a heroic pirate named Sukezaemon) was overdubbed and released in English in 1965 as The Lost World of Sinbad.

In music, poetry, and literature[link]

• In Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's suite Scheherazade, the 1st, 2nd and 4th movement focus on portions of the Sinbad story. Various components of the story have identifiable themes in the work, including Rocs and the angry sea. In the climactic final movement, Sinbad's ship (6th voyage) is depicted as rushing rapidly toward cliffs and only the fortuitous discovery of the cavernous stream allows him to escape and make the passage to Serindib.
• In The Count of Monte Cristo, "Sinbad the Sailor" is but one of many pseudonyms used by Edmond Dantès.
• In his Ulysses, James Joyce uses "Sinbad the Sailor" as an alias for the character of W.B. Murphy and as an analogue to Odysseus. He also puns mercilessly on the name: Jinbad the Jailer, Tinbad the Tailor, Whinbad the Whaler, and so on.
• Edgar Allan Poe wrote a tale called "The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade". It depicts the 8th and final voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, along with the various mysteries Sinbad and his crew encounter; the anomalies are then described as footnotes to the story.
• Polish poet Bolesław Leśmian's Adventures of Sindbad the Sailor is a set of tales loosely based on the Arabian Nights.
• Hungarian writer Gyula Krudy's Adventures of Sindbad is a set of short stories based on the Arabian Nights.
• In John Barth's "The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor", "Sinbad the Sailor" and his traditional travels frame a series of 'travels' by the thinly anonymous 'Somebody the Sailor'.
• In The Simpsons: Get Some Fancy Book Learnin' Sinbad's adventures are parodied as Sinbart the Sailor
• The song "Sinbad the Sailor" in the soundtrack of the Indian movie Rock On!! focuses on the story of Sinbad the Sailor in music form.
• Sinbad has made numerous appearances in comic books as well. In 1950, St. John Publications published a one shot comic called Son of Sinbad.^[12] In 1958, Dell Comics published a one shot comic based on the film The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.^[13] In 1963, Gold Key Comics published a one shot comic based on the film Captain Sindbad.^[14] In 1965, Dell Comics published a 3 issue series called Sinbad Jr.^[15] Also that year Gold Key Comics published a 2 issue mini-series called The Fantastic Voyages of Sindbad.^[16] Marvel Comics published a two issue series in 1974 based on the film The Golden Voyage of Sinbad in Worlds Unknown #7^[17] and #8.^[18] They then published a one shot comic based on the film The 7th Voyage of Sinbad in 1975 with Marvel Spotlight #25.^[19] In 1977, the British comic company General Book Distributors, published a one shot comic/magazine based on the film Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.^[20] In 1988, Catalan Communications published the one shot graphic novel The Last Voyage of Sindbad.^[21] Malibu Comics published a 4 issue mini-series in 1989 called Sinbad,^[22] and followed that up with another 4 issue mini-series called Sinbad Book II: In the House of God in 1991.^[23] In 2001, Marvel Comics published a one shot comic that teamed Sinbad with the Fantastic Four called Fantastic 4th Voyage of Sinbad.^[24] In 2007, Bluewater Comics published a 3 issue mini-series called Sinbad: Rogue of Mars.^[25] In 2008, the Lerner Publishing Group published a graphic novel called Sinbad: Sailing into Peril.^[26] Also that year, Zenescope Entertainment debuted Sinbad in their Grimm Fairy Tales universe having him appearing as a regular ongoing character. He first appeared in his own 14 issue series called 1001 Arabian Nights: The Adventures of Sinbad.^[27] Afterwards he appeared in various issues of the Dream Eater saga,^[28] as well as the 2011 Annual,^[29] Giant-Size,^[30] and Special Edition^[31] one-shots. In 2012, a graphic novel called Sinbad: The Legacy, published by Campfire Books, was released.^[32]