Aladdin

365 Films

 Entry #11

Aladdin (1992)

Directed by Ron Clements, and John Musker

Here we come to a tricky proposition.  I’d be lying if I said I was the number one Aladdin super fan.  Hell, I’d be lying if I said I’ve even seen Aladdin within the last seven years.  I think I caught it on TV one random night a few years ago, actually.  The reason I am including it in this blog is because it is the first movie I can remember that produced tears of laughter from me.  In another of my “someone needs to write a dissertation about this incredibly useless subject” ideas, I propose that the ebb and flow of Robin Williams’ career from Aladdin to Patch Adams would make for a fascinating subject.  If you were of a certain age range when Aladdin came out, everything Robin Williams did was catnip for your funny bone.  Even a truly wretched, cloying, and manipulative piece of garbage like Mrs. Doubtfire became incredibly popular thanks to Mr. Williams’ antics (just ask Nate Carota).  Upon writing that last sentence, it occurred to me that a dissertation is not needed to trace the trajectory of Mr. Williams’ career. He is only following in a long line of promising stand-up comedians who eventually tumble down the “family film” rabbit hole, never to be seen again.  The reason I seem to be stuck on an infinite loop of analysis and then dis-crediting the analysis of Mr. Williams’ career is because his performance in Aladdin was revelatory to my young eyes.  All of it has kind of become standard boilerplate for Mr. Williams and animation voice-overs in general But! (Warning: I’m about to pull a fact straight out of my ass) I believe this was one of the first “celebrity” voice-over performances in the history of animation.  The first time that an actor in animation was asked to bring his previously established cinematic personality into the life of a character.  The Genie is what would happen if Robin Williams suddenly morphed into an animated version of himself.  From that point of view, it’s a fascinating and groundbreaking performance.  The argument can be made that this was not necessarily a good thing.  Animation was long the safe-haven for hard working, relatively anonymous voice-over artists, who bust their ass for an art form very few took seriously.  Robin Williams ushered in the era of lazy, paycheck cashing dub-work from a laundry list of actors whose names I won’t bother to mention here. This is all a roundabout way of saying that while I’ve retained little of Aladdin, (which I’m sure is blasphemy to some of my Disneyphiile friends, sorry!).  Robin Williams still makes me laugh my ass of when I watch it.  In hindsight, maybe this is a poor excuse for a 365 entry.  Then again, if I’m flipping around one day in the near future and Aladdin pops on, you can bet your magic carpet I’ll stick with it.