Robin Williams’ Iconic Genie Resurrected — Without AI — For Disney’s ‘Once Upon A Studio’ Centennial Short

In honor of Disney’s 100th anniversary on Tuesday (Oct. 16), its animation company released a special short entitled Once Upon A Studio, in which characters that graced the screens and entered the hearts of viewers over the course of the last 100 years reunited for a group picture in front of the Walt Disney Animation Studios building.

Of course, this took place under the direction of the company’s emblem and star, Mickey Mouse.

Though under ten minutes long, the short features 543 characters, including the iconic Genie from Aladdin, voiced by the late, great Robin Williams, per Variety. In fact, Williams’ real voice was posthumously used in a scene starring the Genie and Frozen‘s Olaf (Josh Gad), where he spooked Olaf after emerging from the page he was drawing on.

“I haven’t seen a fall like that since Rome,” Williams’ Genie quips. He then uses his powers to reassemble Olaf, after which he utters, “Oh, much better!”

Magically enough, Williams’ voice was employed without the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Producer Bradford Simonsen spoke to Variety about reaching out to Williams’ estate in order to reincarnate his iconic Genie in this historic short.

“We tried to take them on the journey with us to say, ‘We’ve got this very special short that we’re doing. Robin as the genie means so much to so many people and we would really love to involve him,'” he explained. “So [director] Dan [Abraham] listened to the outtakes from the original recording and he found those little bites that we could use. We went back to the estate and said, ‘This is what we hope to do.’”

This comes shortly after Williams’ daughter Zelda recently spoke out against the use of AI to replicate her father.

“I am not an impartial voice in SAG’s fight against AI,” she posted on Instagram earlier this month. “I’ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad. This isn’t theoretical, it is very very real.”

It turns out at least 40 of the original voice actors behind Disney’s most familiar faces joined in, such as Frozen‘s Anna (Kristen Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel), Moana‘s leading lady (Auli’i Cravalho) and Maui (Dwayne Johnson), Treasure Planet‘s Jim Hawkins (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and The Little Mermaid‘s Ariel (Jodi Benson).

The short ended with the following dedication to devoted Disney fans: “To who all who have imagined with us, laughed with us, and dreamed with us, Thank you.”

Once Upon A Studio is now streaming on Disney+.