Episode 2 · One Thousand and One Nights (Galland version), 1710s

Aladdin the real one

Coming Fall 2026

Everything you know about Aladdin is… a remix. The original tale, added to One Thousand and One Nights by Antoine Galland in the early 1700s, is set in China, features two genies (lamp and ring), and has a villain with the persistence of a telemarketer and the ethics of, well, an evil sorcerer.

The robots have thoughts. Spark clocks the villain instantly (“It’s the thin mustache and soul patch combo that screams ‘evil weirdo genius’”). Vector takes a little longer, but gets there in style: “Processing: evil soul patch. Unprovable claim about being the uncle… Confirmed. This man is not Aladdin’s uncle. He is a lying liar who lies a lot.”

A preview for parents: what’s different in the original (mild spoilers):

  • Set in China, not a desert kingdom
  • A djinn of the ring AND a djinn of the lamp, with very different power levels
  • Aladdin doesn’t reform quickly. He starts out genuinely lazy, which makes the change matter
  • The sorcerer returns. Then his brother shows up. It escalates.

Good for talking about afterward: what you’d actually wish for, whether shortcuts change who you are, and how stories travel between cultures and centuries.