Genie

**Genie** is the tritagonist in Disney's 1992 animated feature film, *Aladdin*. He is a comedic, larger-than-life spirit (a "jinni") residing in a magical oil lamp hidden within the Cave of Wonders. Genie harnesses phenomenal cosmic power that allows him to transcend space and time, but is burdened to remain bound to his lamp unless granted freedom by a master.

Genie is loosely based off the Genie of the Lamp featured in the *One Thousand and One Nights* folk tale *Aladdin*. The figure in the tale, while important, was portrayed as a mere servant, while the Disney interpretation was greatly expanded into an identifiable character personality, the most notable difference being the Disney genie's ultimate wish to be free.

## Background

Like most popular depictions of genies, Disney's Genie was originally a slave. Though he possesses "phenomenal cosmic powers", he is bound to an "itty bitty living space" and can only use his powers when the owner of the lamp (his master) makes a wish; he occasionally does things without granting a wish, but never anything that greatly affects the world around him. He is also bound by three laws; he cannot kill anyone, he cannot make people fall in love with each other, and he cannot revive the dead. It is possible, however, that he can do the third one, but as he puts it, "It's not a pretty picture. I don't like doing it!". Alternatively, it could mean that while he can revive a person's *corpse*, he cannot bring them back proper. Each master has three wishes, and cannot exceed this amount by wishing for more wishes. The lamp comes into the possession of Aladdin during the course of the first film, and he remains in servitude until Aladdin uses his third and final wish to grant Genie his freedom at the end of the film.

As well as largely driving the plot in the first movie, Genie serves as a comic relief element in each of his appearances. He is shown to have shape-shifting abilities, which allow for many and varied sight gags. His supernatural disposition permits him to break the fourth wall, as well as parody real-life people and popular culture completely outside of the boundaries of the universe in which he is contained. Robin Williams is responsible for most of these because he improvised many of the lines in the film. Genie's true name, if he has one, has never been revealed; he answers to being called "Genie", and never says that he has a real name, though it's implied he forgot his true name after ten thousand years.

### Development

John Musker and Ron Clements created Genie with Robin Williams in mind, even though Disney studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg suggested names such as John Candy, Steve Martin, and Eddie Murphy, Williams was approached and eventually accepted the role. Williams came for voice recording sessions during breaks in the shooting of his other two films at the time, Hook and Toys. Unusually for an animated film, much of Williams' dialogue was ad-libbed: for some scenes, Williams was given topics and dialogue suggestions but allowed to improvise his lines.[2] It was estimated that Williams improvised 52 characters. Eric Goldberg, the supervising animator for Genie, then reviewed Williams' recorded dialogue and selected the best gags and lines. Goldberg and his crew then created character animation to match Williams' jokes, puns, and impersonations.

Robin Williams supplied the character with an unconventional method of voice acting which proved to be groundbreaking, resulting in universal acclaim and Genie becoming one of the most iconic and influential characters in the history of animated films.

### Personality

Genie is full of life, and bursting with positive energy. Though he is amongst the most powerful beings in the universe, Genie is benevolent, easygoing, and friendly; so much so, that he primarily uses his abilities as a means to amuse both himself and those around him. According to the filmmakers' commentary, Genie's energy is a direct result of his imprisonment; his years of isolation has left him teaming with vigor, so whenever he's given a chance at freedom, his first instinct is to go wild with his powers by cracking jokes and entertaining whatever audience he has. He is also inviting, as when he first met Aladdin, Genie immediately introduced himself as a friend to rely on and emphasized the fact that his purpose was to magically enhance Aladdin's life by any means necessary (so long as it didn't interfere with the three rules of wishing).

Though he was generally devoted to whomever held temporary ownership of the lamp, Genie has always had a will and mind of his own, outside the bounds of a stereotypical genie slave. As seen during his time as Jafar's lackey, Genie's job did not require him to agree with his masters' morals. It did, however, force him to adhere to their three commands without question, no matter how vile they may have been. Nevertheless, Genie was still able to provide advice to masters that were willing to listen. In the original film, he served as a mentor figure to Aladdin, often giving the latter advice and encouragement when needed, as seen when he urged Aladdin to tell Jasmine the truth about not being a prince. As mentioned, Genie did not offer himself as a mere slave, but rather as a supportive friend to his masters. Genie's friendship with Aladdin proved that he was capable of forming genuine relationships with masters, though it wasn't until Aladdin that Genie was treated as anything beyond a mere slave by his superiors. This tied to Genie's dream of being freed from the lamp.

Though manic and explosive, Genie is also compassionate, wise, and serious when he feels it's necessary. He understands human emotions to a profound degree, and takes matters such as love, trust, and being true to yourself quite seriously. Genie's more sincere moments are indicated by his tone, which change from wily and exuberant, to low and soft when he wants to get a serious point across. Despite this, he still tries to lighten even the darkest moments with a dose of comedy, an example of this being the climax of the original film, where Genie transformed into a cheerleading squad to root for Aladdin during his battle against Jafar.

By the time of *Aladdin and the King of Thieves*, Genie is now freed, but continues to show genuine love and support for Aladdin and his endeavors. He is still every bit comedic and lighthearted, but never holds his tongue when it came to objections towards Aladdin's more controversial choices. He is nevertheless shown to assist Aladdin, magically, whenever asked to.

### Powers and abilities

Genie is one of the most powerful major characters in the Disney universe shown so far. As shown in the first movie, he could easily break the laws of nature, shape-shift into virtually anything, break the fourth wall, warp reality at a whim, lift the palace of Agrabah with no problems, give other people his power, undo the works of any magic (though mixing his magic with someone else's had consequences), and escape a magically sealed cave. However, he had three limits to his abilities (and also refuses to accept substitutions, exchanges, refunds, and wishing for more wishes); he cannot kill, he cannot make people fall in love, and he cannot raise the dead (though he states that he can indeed perform resurrections, but simply does not enjoy doing so as the resurrected are implied to be turned zombies in which he describes as "not a pretty picture"). Aside from these three limitations, he was virtually omnipotent.

After getting his freedom, it is unclear of these limitations still implied, although he stated that he had suffered a reduction in power due to his new freedom, describing his current powers as now being "semi-phenomenal, nearly cosmic power" as opposed to his previous "phenomenal cosmic power". Due to his weakened state as opposed to Jafar's full power, the now-genie Jafar defeated him during the "You're Only Second Rate", musical number as well as deflecting all of his magical attacks. However, he still has a nearly unlimited amount of magical knowledge and all his shape-shifting abilities. He also has high magic power, but was unable to undo certain forms of magic; a weakness with disastrous consequences in the television series, such as when he had trouble turning Jasmine back to normal after she was turned into a rat by a magic mirror, or his inability to break a spell cast by Sadira that brainwashed Aladdin into thinking that he was a dragon-slaying knight. It was revealed in *The Return of Jafar*that he can also flawlessly imitate the voices and appearances of others, as seen when he shape-shifts into Aladdin in the ultimately failed attempt to distract Jafar while the real Aladdin grabs the latter's lamp. In the series, it is often shown that one of his exploited weaknesses (often by Abis Mal and Mechanicles) are that he can be tricked into getting into a bottle but then cannot get out until someone releases him. Items that can affect magic also affect him, such as the magic-eating creature Thirdack, nearly succeeded in eating Genie from the episode "Citadel". It is also shown in "Sneeze the Day" that guava juice is the only thing that can give Genies a cold, which makes their magic uncontrollable and unpredictable (along with dangerous).

Eventually, though, Genie was shown to have regained his strength in *Aladdin and the King of Thieves*, where he had no problem with anything he tried. Genie is perhaps the 3rd (possibly 4th) strongest character to be shown in the series, with the only characters shown to be stronger are Fate, Chaos, and Jafar.

## Trivia

* Genie's weakness is sealed bottles and containers, which he's, unfortunately, easily tricked into.
* In *Aladdin and the King of Thieves*, Genie turned into one of his voice actor's (Robin Williams) characters, Mrs. Doubtfire, when trying to cheer Jasmine up.
* Robin Williams was allowed to improvise much of his performance, which is pretty unusual in animation. His initial recordings included about 52 separate characters, which Eric Goldberg then took and worked with, picking the funniest bits to animate.
* The reason why Robin Williams refused to reprise his role as Genie in *The Return of Jafar* is because he had an agreement with Disney to not exaggerate his role, but they broke it as Genie appeared as the biggest part of Aladdin merchandising.
* Even though Genie said that one of the natural limitations of a genie is that they can't bring people back from the dead, it's implied that Genie *can* bring people back from the dead, but he just simply doesn't like doing it.
* Genie once made a speaking cameo appearance in *The Simpsons* episode "Mypods and Boomsticks", where he talked to Homer Simpson, which was intended as an inside joke, as Dan Castellaneta also voices Homer.

* Genie is best friends with Pinkie Pie, Dodger (Bob the Builder) and Tigger.
* He is voiced by the late Robin Williams. He is then voiced by Dan Castellaneta who voiced Homer Simpson from *The Simpsons* and currently by Jim Meskimen.
* Genie guest star in Thomas and Twilight Sparkle's Adventure Series.