1001 Nights is an award-winning 2011 Canadian animated series that ran for 3 seasons of 39 episodes (comprised of 2 segments each). The series was created by the Vancouver-based company, Big Bad Boo Studios as the brainchild of the studio's founders, Persian-Canadian Shabnam Rezaei and Indo-Canadian Aly Jetha.
The series is an Animated Adaptation of the famed Arabian Nights, with every segment adapting one of the many stories from that fabulous collection of Near Eastern folktales - both the famous ones and the obscure ones. Every episode is told through a framing device that involves a problem arising in the palace of King Shahryar, usually involving Shahryar's brother Shahzaman, his sister-in-law Donyazad, his vizier Majid, or Shahzaman's pet monkey Maymoon. To find a solution to the issue, Shahryar's wife, the legendary Shahrazad will tell a story from The Arabian Nights, featuring all the wonders in those stories that have delighted audiences for centuries, from genies and mermaids to rocs and wizards to emperors and thieves to viziers and heroes!
Inspired by Shabnam Rezaei's childhood experiences of having stories from The Arabian Nights read to her by her father while growing up as a young girl in Iran, 1001 Nights is the very first effort by anybody to adapt this famous collection of Near Eastern fairy tales into a TV show for kids, and in general, reflective of Big Bad Boo Studios' multicultural approach to producing children's media and entertainment.
The series debuted on Teletoon in English-speaking parts of Canada and also aired in Francophone Canada on CBC Télévision de Radio-Canada. It came over to the United States in 2012 on Disney Channel.
Tropes of the series:
- Animated Adaptation: Of the Arabian Nights. Notably, while many of the well-known stories are adapted, so are plenty of the more obscure ones.
- "Arabian Nights" Days: As an adaptation of the Trope Maker, this is naturally present, which is perhaps most evident in the series' opening
. However, given the background of the series' creators, the trope is much more forgivable than it would perhaps be with different people. - Public Domain Character: Sinbad and Ali Baba are each adapted by the series, along with many lesser known characters from The Arabian Nights. And of course, Shahrazad and Shahryar, as well.
