I just watched something I’ve been wanting to see forever, The Making of Aladdin: A Whole New World hosted by  John Rhys-Davies. True parts of it did make it to the 2004 SE DVD and yes the animators do tell the same as they’ve done in the Making of book and again in interviews. But this making of documtentry took me back 16 years ago when Aladdin was the latested and greatest the Disney animation studios pulled out of their pencils. 

Download The Making of Aladdin: A Whole New World at Vinnie Rattolle’s blog

I came across a bunch of never before snaps from the 2004 premiere party of the DVD release at El Capitan. We see the famous faces of director Ron Clements, animator Adreas Deja and everyone of the voice cast except Brad Kane, Robin Williams and Jonathan Freeman.

scott weinger and linda larkin at 2004 dvd party

Like it’s common with Disney films Aladdin’s most talented voice actors had a stage history before they where cast in voice charcters like Jasmine, Jafar or guest voice in TV shows like say Mirage. After their ‘voice gig’ they happily went on to do stage shows or on/off Broadway productions some even based on animated movies from Disney. So what’s up with Lea Salonga, Jonathan Freeman, Bebe Neuwirth and their fellow actors.

Lea is going to do Allegiance, it’s a musical reading about a story of love, loss and heroism during the Japanese American internment.”

Mr. Freeman is asked to play Roger DeBris in the Producers. A show that had The Lion King’s Timon voice Nathan Lane in the past as star.

Bebe Neuwirth is casted as Morticia Adams in the upcoming musical The Addams Family. She’s joined by the previous mentioned Nathan Lane as Gomez. The is rumored to replace The Little Mermaid after it stops in August 2009.

The LA production of that same show has Abis Mal’s voice actor Jason Alexander. Albeit in LA the show isn’t taking off as it’s Broadway big sister.

Iago’s voice Gilbert Gottfried with guest narrate The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Serpent Malcho lord of the rainforest was at the time voiced by Hector Elizondo. In 2009 he is part of the cast of the revival of 1976′s Sly Fox.

Former Star Fleet captain Janeway and voice of the Galafem warriors ruler Hippsodeth ms. Kate Mulgrew has her latest production Equus ended earlier this year and just finished play diva Maria Callas in Master Class.

I think that’s about it for the bigger guest actors on Aladdin. The rest is mostly voice actors with a long long resume or TV and film actors. Enough matrial to write a seprate article sometime.

The Lea Salonga & Brad Kane love duet preformed by honouredman on the piano. I didn’t knew the song was popular enough to get covered, but checking YouTube I found at least 3 vids but the singers weren’t good at all. Personally I never liked the song myself but the unique event that Lea and Brad did a song besides ANWNW makes it special.

Goosebumps. Lea is such an amazing singer. The musical is fantastic too, I went to see the Dutch revival 3 times with a fourth and final time next month and every time I gets to me, the drama, characters like Jean Valjean who after being imprisoned for many years tries his best to get as good life. The bad guy of the play, Javert is so complex. His hate for Jean Valjean and everything he stands for, that former prisoners can build up a life again even if assuming a false identify. And there’s the rest of the characters like Éponine (portrayed by Lea) who loves Marius so much she’s willing to give her life for him but he is in love with Cosette. The girl Éponine mistreated when they where younger.
Simply amazing!

pap64 UltimateDisney board member fanboyed over Aladdin’s A Whole New World hitting the nail right on the head writing:

- The symphony and melody: I love it to death. I just love how it starts slow and subtle, builds up to a magical and thrilling bridge and ends is a soothing way. It adds a lot of magic and romance to an already enchanting moment.

- The vocals: Disney hit the nail on the head when hiring Brad and Lea. Their voices were perfect for this song. Brad captures the imagination of Aladdin in such as way that even if some come close no one can top it. Lea pure interpretation adds charm to the female lead and complements Brad perfectly. In fact, they did a really great job of doing the musical vocals. You can’t tell that the characters are being voiced by another set of singers.

- The scene: Not only is the song one of my all time faves, the scene it came from was amazing to say the least, coming close to the beauty of the ballroom sequence in “Beauty and the Beast”. The colors and animation were almost dream like and adds a lot to an already powerful song. Whenever I feel down, I just pop down Aladdin on my DVD player and go right to the flying carpet scene and I feel happy.

Personally I love the Dutch version more than the English version. Jasmine’s Dutch voice gives the girl a gentler personality and sounds more like a 15 year old then either Lea or Linda could.

While I had to settle with my first and probably snow globe, it was 50% off, Prince_Ali_Fan got the real goodies. A cast yearbook of Aladdin, the animation crew, specially the supervisions, seemed to have much fun drawing, re-drawing, re-drawing and re-drawing again over and over again. Specially the studio boss, the famous Jeffery “Shrek” Katzenberg, had the artists make constant changes in their drawings. Even the directors weren’t left alone as your’ll on see the images below. More scans at Aladdin Fan Livejoural Community.

The Disney Channel version of The Making of Aladdin: A Whole New World just appeared on YouTube. The picture quality is to be desired but still watchable. Hosted by John Rhys-Davies who would provide the voice of Cassim in the third and final film he narrates the documentary. We hear and see the directors/writers/producers, the supervising animators, lyricist Tim Rice and composer Alan Menken talk about the creation of the film.
Overall it doesn’t reveal anything that didn’t make it to the DVD but watching it is amazing. Watch even younger Ron, John, Glen and rest in the Making of The Little Mermaid hosted by Alyssa Milano.

Youtube’r BeeBop20 aka Bindy recorded Forget About Love, that’s to say she recorded Princess Jasmine’s lines in the song. Bindy is praised by many for her amazing singing voice and the ability to make voice match singers like Paige O’ Hare or Jodi Benson so close it’s hard to tell the difference between them. Often people say she should do voice acting and/or musicals.

Her version of A Whole New World still gets comments every week even though it was uploaded way back in October 2007, a long time for a YouTube movie to stay in the spotlights.

Between the daily five “World” fandubs Youtube’rs upload a fandub of the Jasmine featuretette song “I’ve Got My Eyes On You” is refreshing to listen to. Feeling bold? Can you do better? Prove it!

For a comparison of the singing voices of Lea Salonga in “Aladdin” and Liz Callaway in both sequels led to the creation of Aladdin and Jasmine Medley. The song is a mix of the three love duets from “Aladdin”, Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves.

The songs are mixed by either Federica or Gaia somewhere in the late 1990′s / early 2000. Both girls are from Italy and former active members of the Aladdin Mailing List.
As a matter of fact Federica was one of the earliest members there and she Gaia and Evi where best pals, both online and in real life I believe. Her friend Gaia joined the List sometime early 1999. The three ran The Animated Movies Archive from 1998 until it was left abandoned compactly in 2000. It’s been in its present state for almost 7 years now. And despite the lack of maintained the site still functions pretty well.

Anyway, while listing I was reminded of those old friends. I haven’t heard from them in years and hope they’re doing well. Chances are neither of them will ever read this post but if they do. Fede, Gaia, Evi hope you are doing well and sometimes think back at the good old days at the AML.

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