Aladdin
Disney's Aladdin cracked the code on rescuing the studio's animated empire: a magic carpet ride of a film with a Genie voiced by Robin Williams improvising his way through a hundred impressions in a single scene. It became the highest-grossing animated film ever made.
Walt Disney Feature Animation, directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, opened November 11, 1992 in two theaters before going wide two weeks later. Robin Williams voiced the Genie as a blur of impressions and ad-libs — a performance given on the condition that his voice not be used for excessive marketing, which led him to clash with the studio when it was.
The film grossed over $504 million worldwide, the first animated feature ever to break the half-billion mark and the highest-grossing animated film of all time — a record it held until The Lion King dethroned it in 1994. The score by Alan Menken won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, and "A Whole New World" won both the Oscar for Best Original Song and the Grammy for Song of the Year. The Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle version hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The VHS release set a home-video sales record, grossing roughly $500 million in the US alone. Aladdin spawned direct-to-video sequels (The Return of Jafar in 1994, Aladdin and the King of Thieves in 1996) and an animated series, crystallizing the movie's place in the Disney Renaissance — proof the studio had found its second wind.
Similar items
Disney's Aladdin (Genesis)
Virgin Games didn't just make a movie tie-in — they got actual Disney animators to draw the game, so Aladdin ran, leapt, and sword-swung across your Genesis with real film-grade animation. Four million copies later, it was one of the best-selling Genesis games ever, and one half of an eternal playground debate with the totally different SNES version.
Robin Williams
Stand-up comic turned Hollywood golden boy whose late-80s-to-90s run defined a generation's movie shelf. From Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) through Good Will Hunting's 1998 Oscar win, Williams embodied the comedic-yet-sensitive everyman that shaped 90s cinema.
The Lion King
The film that taught you to roar and made you cry at a father's death—all before your tenth birthday. Disney's juggernaut — Hamlet with lions — dominated the box office and pop culture like nothing before it, a phenomenon that didn't fade with the VHS but exploded into merchandise, video games, and eventually Broadway's best-grossing production ever.
The Little Mermaid
The 1989 animated film that revived Disney animation—Ron Clements and John Musker's adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen, with Oscar-winning songs by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. 'Under the Sea' and 'Kiss the Girl' became instant classics, with Jodi Benson's Ariel and Pat Carroll's Ursula cementing themselves in pop culture forever. For 90s kids, the real experience was the VHS: released May 1990, it became the year's best-selling home video and a household object that defined childhoods.