"In the Heat of the Fright" is the 47th episode of Aladdin, originally aired on November 4, 1994. It is the 40th episode to air in syndication.
Plot[]
In the desert, a group of fire cats look down at a farming village on the banks of a river and attack it, sending the inhabitants fleeing for their lives. Aladdin and his friends are on a boat, floating down the river. Aladdin says that he promised the Sultan that he'd chart the river on a map. When they see the village on fire, everyone gets off the boat to save the village from the fire cats. Genie watches the scene of Bambi's mother's death and cries, his tears creating a torrential rain that causes the cats to vanish and the fire to go out.
The scene switches to a dark void with rocks floating around in all directions. On one of the larger rocks is a building shaped like the Sphinx, which all the fire cats are standing in front of. A cat-woman named Mirage appears and realizes that the cats failed to destroy the village. Enraged at their failure to completely destroy the village, she scratches the fire cats, painfully turning them into bonfires, which then rise and swirl in a circle, showing Mirage a vision of Aladdin saving a boy from a burning building of the village.
Back at the village, while everyone is thanking Aladdin for saving the village, Mirage appears and introduces herself to Aladdin and his friends. She then challenges the gang and vanishes. Iago tells everyone that Mirage is Evil Incarnate and that the reason she decided to destroy the village is that everyone there is nice, and the cat-woman despises kind people. When a man of the village invites the gang for dinner, Iago worries Genie by telling him that Mirage will probably eat him. Later that night, everyone is inside a hut. Genie is watching security cam monitors while his friends are sleeping. After seeing Mirage on the monitors, the jinn wakes his friends up and takes them to the boat to quickly leave the village and head back to Agrabah.
The next morning, everyone wakes up and the boat hits a rock that magically rose from the river. While Genie repairs the boat, Aladdin goes to find breakfast at a forest. While doing so, he sees Jasmine. Aladdin acknowledges her, but she glares at him and walks away. Meanwhile, Genie, Abu, Iago, and Carpet look at a book and realize that they're back to where they started and it's Mirage's magic that brought them there. Back to the forest, Aladdin realizes that Jasmine is being impersonated by Mirage, who takes Aladdin to the starry void from earlier, which is called Morbia.
Aladdin's friends find themselves in Morbia as well. Genie starts to panic until Iago reminds him that he is their only true source of magic. The jinn calms down, but panics again when he sees that Aladdin is not with them. Mirage tells Aladdin that she's going to make him scared, but then Genie and the others grab him and they all hide in a cave inside one of the larger asteroids floating around Morbia. The gang then realizes that Aladdin is the one Mirage wants and they try to figure out a way to defeat the cat-woman. But Genie is so scared of Mirage that he suggests that they stay in the cave.
The fire cats are searching for the gang as Mirage is calling Aladdin. Genie then decides that Mirage must find him first and leaves the cave. Aladdin and the others realize that Genie is missing and they hop on Carpet to look for him. Genie is at the sphinx-shaped building where Mirage tells him that she wants to fight Aladdin, not him. The fire cats appear and Genie tries to avoid them. When Mirage appears, Genie wonders if he is shrinking, but Mirage tells him that her fire cats grow larger as they feed on his fear.
Aladdin and the others show up and fight Mirage and the cats. Genie, rediscovering his courage, fights along after Aladdin tells him that he's courageous. After defeating Mirage and the fire cats, everyone is back on the boat at the river. Genie now feels better about fighting Mirage.
Trivia[]
- This is Mirage's first appearance in the series.
- The title is a reference to the 1967 neo-noir film "In the Heat of the Night".
