Eric Goldberg, named a Disney Legend this year, began with a test drawn to a Robin Williams comedy record: "it's one of the greatest moments of my life to make Robin laugh. And then after that, he signed." He drew the Genie with Al Hirschfeld's "exaggerated, whiplash lines" (Walt Disney Archives). In the booth Williams became a game-show host, an evangelist, then celebrity after celebrity. So the trick must be likeness? But, as Goldberg put it, "even if the six-year-olds don't know who Ed Sullivan is, he looks funny, so it works": there was "always a funny drawing to go with whatever Robin turned into." That is exaggeration, which John Lasseter wrote "does not mean arbitrarily distorting shapes": "The animator must go to the heart of anything or any idea and develop its essence." So Goldberg didn't lock the face: "Genie is basically a trail of smoke." Happy gets "very accentuated cheeks"; surprised, the cheeks dropped "entirely". But when the Genie admits he wants his freedom, "you have to play that stuff real." Without that sincerity, "you would have a technical exercise, but no heart."

The faces and lines are our own drawings, not film frames.

Which Genie impression did you only get years later?

Sources: Eric Goldberg to the Los Angeles Times (Rebecca Keegan), 12 Aug 2014; to The Lamplight Review (Brent Hankins), 8 Oct 2015; to Rotoscopers (Morgan Stradling), 9 Oct 2015; D23's Disney Legends profile of Eric Goldberg, 2026; Walt Disney Archives, "30 Years of Aladdin" (D23, 2022); John Lasseter, "Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation", SIGGRAPH 1987.
Sounds: our own, made in code (earshot, CC0).