Iago
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| First appearance | Aladdin |
| Created by | Walt Disney Pictures |
| Voiced by | Gilbert Gottfried |
Iago (voiced by Gilbert Gottfried) is a fictional character in the 1992 Disney animated film Aladdin, a talking parrot, he is a red lory species who served as a sidekick for Jafar. Iago later switched sides in The Return of Jafar, which makes him one of the few Disney villains or henchmen to become good (Anastasia, one of Cinderella's stepsisters from Cinderella was also reformed in her second movie, as did others such as Gantu, Vitani and the Outsiders, Megara and Denahi), although which his struggle against his power-hungry nature was a large part of the plot; he remained good in both the movie and the TV series, but he was still largely conniving, greedy, and cowardly. He is most likely named after the villain Iago in the play Othello, by William Shakespeare.
His character is greedy, rude and obnoxious, but he's mostly harmless and has a good heart, which he keeps hidden deep, deep inside. In particularly desperate moments in the story when his friends are in danger and all is lost, he will usually at first act greedily, choosing to save himself (often along with some newly found treasure) while leaving his friends to their fate, but then, as he's walking away, he becomes conflicted and inevitably his heroic side gets the better of him forcing him to turn back, risk his life, lose his treasure, and save his friends, all the while grumbling about the stupidity of his selfless actions. Iago also gets easily frustrated, irritated, and fussy, and he is not the type who would want to openly show up his good side and is often rejects praise for his good deeds. His remarks are insulting yet hilarious and entertaining. The others take no notice of his insults, taking them in stride. His penchant for revenge is revealed in the velocity with which he propels crackers (formally fed forcibly to him) into the beard-encircled mouth of the jester-clad sultan
In the TV series, several episodes featured Iago attempting to get rich off of any sort of treasure he can find, sometimes by trying to sneak treasure out of the Sultan's treasure room. Most of the time, Aladdin's mischievous pet monkey Abu accompanied Iago whenever the parrot started to scheme, though Abu's simple-mindedness often made things more troublesome for Iago. At the end of the third movie, Iago, not wanting to put up with the newly-wed Aladdin and Jasmine, leaves with Aladdin's father, Cassim, as a partner.
In addition to being able to speak fluent English, Iago has the ability to perfectly mimic other characters' voices as he's disguising his voice. He also possesses knowledge of various magics, learned from Jafar, although he doesn't perform any magic himself; this proves useful on occasion as Genie's otherwise superior knowledge is 10,000 years out of date.
Like most characters from Disney's animated films, Iago made recurring appearances on Disney's House of Mouse. On that series, the movies's continuity did not seem to matter, and Iago was depicted as either Jafar's sidekick or hanging around with the good guys.
At Walt Disney World, along with Zazu from the Lion King, he appears as one of the hosts of The Enchanted Tiki Room.
Kingdom Hearts series[]
In Kingdom Hearts, like in the first movie, Iago works under Jafar. While not a major character, he took the lamp from Aladdin while no one was looking, and played keep-away with Jafar's Lamp with Sora and company trying to get it while dealing with Jafar in his Genie form. A facsimile of Iago would repeat that scenario during the boss-fight with Jafar in Chain of Memories. In this game, the feathers at the tips of his wings are aqua in colour. This changes to its original royal blue in Kingdom Hearts II.
In Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories he makes a brief cameo appearance during the Boss battle against Jafar's genie form. During the battle, attacking Jafar has no effect. Rather, the lamp must be hit which is held up high by Iago.
In Kingdom Hearts II, like in The Return of Jafar, Iago leaves Jafar and returned to Agrabah in a slump after failing to make amends to Aladdin and Jasmine. When he unintentionally assisted Sora in the task of beating the Heartless and retrieving Jafar's lamp, he managed to gain everyone's trust. But that trust was soon shattered when Iago was forced to help Jafar yet again in keeping Sora and the others occupied at the ruins. Despite losing face, Iago redeemed himself by intentionally getting shot by a spell that Jafar intended to shoot at Aladdin. He survived and was forgiven after Jafar's death. It should be noted that while his role is still minor, he does have a lot more lines and is a little more important compared with the first game.
His Japanese voice actor in the first game is Akira Kamiya, and his actor in the second game is Tōru Ōkawa. He is still voiced by Gilbert Gottfried in the English version of the games. {An in-joke on an episode of the TV animated series has Iago running in panic after his face is turned into that of Gilbert Gottfried!}
| Disney's Aladdin | |
|---|---|
| Films | Aladdin | The Return of Jafar | Aladdin and the King of Thieves |
| Adaptations | Aladdin (TV series) | Disney's Aladdin (video game) | Aladdin, Jr. |
| Soundtrack | Aladdin (soundtrack) | A Whole New World |
| Main Characters | Aladdin | Princess Jasmine | Genie (Aladdin) |Iago |
| Villains | Jafar | Abis Mal | Mozenrath | Mirage | Mechanicles | Saleen | Saluk | Amin Damoola |
| Minor Characters | Arbutus | Chaos | Eden |