Who was the supervising animator for the Genie in Aladdin?

Eric Goldberg was the supervising animator for the Genie in Disney’s 1992 animated film Aladdin. He led the character animation that transformed Robin Williams’s energetic performance into the Genie’s elastic, shape-shifting screen presence.

Goldberg joined Disney Animation to work on Aladdin after running his own London-based commercial studio. His work on the Genie drew on Williams’s improvisations, including impressions and sudden changes in voice and mannerism. Goldberg selected performance ideas that could be translated into expressive hand-drawn animation.

The Genie’s animation is unusually flexible: he breaks the fourth wall, imitates celebrities and fictional characters, and changes shape during musical numbers such as “Friend Like Me.” This role is sometimes confused with the supervising animators for other major characters. Glen Keane supervised Aladdin, Mark Henn supervised Jasmine, and Andreas Deja supervised Jafar.