Over the course of his career, Robin Williams starred in some of the best movies, transforming himself into unforgettable characters like Mrs. Doubtfire and Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting. However, one of his most beloved roles remains the voice work he did for Genie in Disney’s Aladdin, and for good reason. Believe it or not, he apparently had a Disney World attraction to partially thank for landing the part.
As a Disney nerd, I thought I knew all the lore there is to know about Williams ‘ participation and complicated history with Aladdin. One of the most famous stories is that the animation team frequently had to reanimate entire sequences starring the Genie because Williams regularly improvised lines that didn’t fit what they had. Apparently I was wrong, though, because I had no idea that the Dead Poets Society actor landed the role largely because of the former Disney World attraction, The Magic of Disney Animation — not to be confused with the newly opened Animation area of Hollywood Studios under the same name.
Co-director Ron Clements recently sat down with People to discuss the Disney’s classic 1992 animated film. During that chat, Clements finally set the record straight on why they tapped Williams for the role:
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He was a big movie star at the time, but that wasn’t at all why we cast him.
By this point in his career, Williams had appeared in over two dozen film and TV projects and was famous for playing beloved alien Mork in Mork & Mindy and for starring in films like Good Morning, Vietnam and Dead Poets Society. Even with all those big credits, he’d yet to star in Good Will Hunting, for which he won an Academy Award. However, it wasn’t Williams’ A-list status that led Clements and his co-director, John Musker, to reach out to him. Instead, it was Williams ‘ involvement in the short film “Back to Neverland,” which was featured at the start of the animation tour at the former Disney-MGM Studios:
This combination live-action and animated film, starring Robin Williams and Walter Cronkite, took you behind-the-scenes of how Disney animation was produced at the time.
Back when Disney-MGM Studios, now known as Hollywood Studios, first opened, its goal was to offer its guests a glimpse into what a real film studio looks like. This was easier at the time since Florida did have its own animation division creating hits like Mulan and Lilo & Stitch.
Much like the Studio Tour at Universal Studios Hollywood, The Magic of Disney Animation tour took guests into the halls of the animation studio, but not before showing them the short that starred Williams playing a tourist sporting a Goofy hat. Clements explained the short in his own words in his book Making Disney Magic… from a Mermaid to Moana, writing:
Robin is turned into a cartoon character in the style of one of the Lost Boys from Peter Pan and joins an animated adventure. As part of this, there’s a little tour de force black-and-white pencil test where Robin’s character goes through multiple transformations accompanied by Robin’s vocal histrionics.
Unfortunately, the short is not streamable with a Disney+ subscription, but there are some videos and clips of the short on YouTube. If you watch it, it’s easy to see how the short served as a de facto audition tape for the Genie. Clement also said:
Without question, this was a major inspiration for John and me in wanting to use Robin, as well as for what we hoped to do with the animation of his character.
"Back to Neverland" turned out to be so impactful that at the end of Aladdin, Genie sports a near-identical tourist outfit to the one Williams wore at the start of the short as an homage.
Now that Hollywood Studios once again has a The Magic of Disney Animation building, this time themed after the Walt Disney Studios building in Burbank, maybe the “Back to Neverland” short will play in the Once Upon a Studio Theater on rotation with the centennial short film “Once Upon a Studio,” which Williams' Genie does appear in despite his passing. At least, that’s what I’m hoping will happen so I can see the short the way its creators intended it to be watched!