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in the song, "A whole new world" in aladdin, jasmine says, "every moment, red letter." i'm dying here, what is red letter and am i total idiot for not knowing?? thank you for any info. Kelli

i'm sure she was saying "every moment gets better". Dont worry I get Disney songs mixed up all the time

No, the lyrics are "Every moment red letter", meaning "Every moment is special" the word 'special' can be replaced with amazing, wonderful, etc.

really? Interesting, I must look into that. Did Howard Ashman do lyrics to this song, cuz I know he died during the project but you can tell he has a way with rare terms.

No, Tim Rice made the lyrics for A Whole New World.

BTW, welcome to the forum, Queenie-Lou!

Yuki wrote:No, the lyrics are "Every moment red letter", meaning "Every moment is special" the word 'special' can be replaced with amazing, wonderful, etc.

Yeah, I think that's pretty much it . . . a red letter day is a day when something important happens, so you could translate it as 'every moment is important' but exciting and special work better. By the way . . . welcome!

queenie-lou Wrote

in the song, "A whole new world" in aladdin, jasmine says, "every moment, red letter." i'm dying here, what is red letter and am i total idiot for not knowing?? thank you for any info. Kelli

Wecome to the forum queenie-lou
Here are the lyrics to "A Whole New World"

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/aladdinworld.htm

In my cd booklet of Aladdin it reads "Every moment gets better".

quasi72 wrote:In my cd booklet of Aladdin it reads "Every moment gets better".

Really? My cd booklet of Aladdin says "Every moment red letter" I bought this cd back in 1992 when the movie first came out so maybe we have different versions

actually they did 2 different versions of the cd.
I got the very very first one, uncut. By that I mean that in the song ARABIAN NIGHTS they had this line that had to cut and censor because it was considered by some as politically incorrect. Luckily I own that one now, the original. That line was...

"Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face
It's barbaric but hey! it's home".

I am not sure of the final lyrics, I have an idea but since that's not the version I have, I am not positive about it.

"Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense ..."

Those are the lyrics!

Ok, this is odd. I too have the first uncut cd, and my lyrics say "red letter". My spine # is 60846-2, how about you guys?

As far as I know, the line is "Every moment, red letter." I have the first uncut cd too and I checked. The Aladdin sheet music has "red letter" as well.

There is a line that says "Hold your breath- it gets better," and the red-letter line comes later. Perhaps these two are being mixed up?

Also... which version of Arabian Nights appeared in the original theatrical showing of Aladdin?

-Aaron

thank you guys for all of your help! and thanks for the welcome.

*BUMP*

Still want an answer .

Me wrote:Also... which version of Arabian Nights appeared in the original theatrical showing of Aladdin?

-Aaron

awallaceunc wrote:*BUMP*

Still want an answer .

Me wrote:Also... which version of Arabian Nights appeared in the original theatrical showing of Aladdin?

-Aaron

The original lyrics: "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face
It's barbaric but hey! it's home".

But it was changed so that it wouldn't offend any Arabic people.
If I'm not mistaken, it was changed to, "Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense." Before it went out into theatres.

The original line was "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face," and upon theatrical release, Arabs were angered and offended by it and demanded it be changed. The PC guys at Disney relented; however, they were too lazy to pull all of the prints of Aladdin and send them back to the theaters after editing, so it was kept intact for the entirety of its theatrical run.

They brought in Tim Rice to change the lyric in lack of Howard Ashman, and he changed it to "Where it's flat and immense, and the heat is intense," which was used on the VHS, VCD and laserdisc releases from 1993. Presumably, it will also be used in the forthcoming DVD and in all further Aladdin releases from that point on, be they IMAX, theatrical, DVD or otherwise. It is also changed on the semi-recent "remastered" reissue of the soundtrack a couple years ago, though the original 1992 release does have it intact. Thankfully, the old CD and new one have different cover art, which allows for identification. Basically, the old one features Geenie coming out of his lamp holding a square in which we see Al and Jas on Carpet flying around Agrabah, and the new one just has Al and Jas in the sky on Carpet.

Thanks, Jake. I didn't know if Disney had caved before or after the theatrical run, so you answered my question completely! Thanks.

...It's ridiculous, though.

-Aaron

Welcome. I'm sure of this, too, because I saw it in theaters and, small as I was, all of the controversey over it has made me remember that the lyric was definately there. Also, I remember shortly before the video release (it might have been the day of the video release, or a couple days before, I don't remember), the local news station ran a small blurb about "The offensive lyric in Aladdin, 'Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face,' has been changed to 'Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense.'" And then they mentioned, briefly, what a huge success it had been in theaters and that the video would be out soon. It was maybe 2-3 minutes max, but for some reason I do remember it.

Another thing was, I don't think it was made public until the soundtrack release, which was just a week or so before the movie at most, which meant that no one outside Disney knew about it until then, so the Arabs couldn't start their whining until then (and even then it probably started with the theater release because I can't imagine many Arabs rushing out to buy the Aladdin soundtrack as soon as it came out.) Thus, even if it did start with the soundtrack, unless Disney wanted to delay their movie they wouldn'tve had any time to pull all their prints and change it. So, yeah -- it did go into theater release that way, and it was DURING the theater release that Disney felt the pressure. No one outside Disney knew about the lyric beforehand, really, so it only makes sense.

Yeah, it is rediclious. It's not like they say the line while showing someone's ear get cut off or something, either -- it's a throwaway line in the opening number and is heard against images of desert/dust and opening credits. Sheesh.

I hope the DVD will include the original lyric, but I think I'd have a heart attack from suprise if they did. Considering that 20% of the movie is redrawn, it shows their priority as far as maintaining the original version.