The Making of Aladdin: A Whole New World (1992)

This is the third of the Making Of specials that aired on the Disney Channel at the time of their latest animated film releases. As each successive film was released, some felt they became monotonous but each film is a different story with different challenges behind it. The objective of The Little Mermaid had been to jumpstart Walt Disney Feature Animation with a classic film, the objective of Beauty & the Beast was to solidify it. Aladdin continued to build on it. This documentary demonstrates how that was accomplished.

The Walt Disney Studios felt that Aladdin was a unique film in their canon. They'd hired Robin Williams to portray the Genie and he was really the first A-list celebrity to voice an animated character in the modern era. That trend has continued where quite often casts of animated features are comprised only of A-list celebrities. Walt always used radio actors for his animated films because they understood how to act with their voice.

Robin Williams ended up having a strained relationship with Disney over Aladdin. In 1992, he was starring in Toys in direct competition with Aladdin. He didn't want Disney to market the film on his back so he wasn't allowed to be mentioned in advertising. (He wasn't mentioned in the Making of book either and after this making of special initially aired, he segment was edited out.) However, the Genie was everyone's favorite character in testing so Jeffery Katzenberg went back to Williams asking to amend the agreement to advertise with the Genie. Robin agreed but Katzenberg took it too far. Robin Williams refused to work with Disney until after Katzenberg had left the studio.

Actor John Rhys Davies hosts this documentary in what would become the standard template for such Making of specials. Davies had no connection with the film but was cast because of his affiliation with the Indiana Jones franchise as Sallah. He would go one to portray Aladdin's father in the direct to video cheapquel Aladdin & the King of Thieves.

We meet the voice cast, the animators and many of the behind the scenes figures who produced this film. Given how much of this sort of thing we see today, the unique novelty of this may have worn off. There was still a lot of Walt Disney history legacy ahead of this team and it's exciting looking back at this time knowing the heights they would reach in only a few short years.

This making of would later air on ABC in extremely edited form a few years later.

Aladdin was an even bigger hit than Beauty & the Beast had been and the future of Walt Disney Feature Animation never seemed brighter.

Original airdate November 25, 1992

Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.