The Cartoon Characters You Never Realized Were Voiced By Robin Williams
Nowadays, it's hard not to see a roster of celebrities lending their voices to animated films, but back in the early '90s, it was rare to see a big name attached to a major blockbuster from the likes of Disney. That was until Robin Williams landed the role of Genie in "Aladdin."
As The Atlantic notes, it was Williams' performance — and star power — that propelled the character to become the film's most marketable property for Disney. However, this caused quite a big problem between Disney and the actor. While promoting "Mrs. Doubtfire," Williams explained on the "Today Show" that he and Disney had a deal where they wouldn't use his voice in the merchandising (via Inside the Magic). "I'm doing it basically because I want to be part of this animation tradition. I want something for my children," he explained.
Instead, Disney went against his wishes. "Not only did they use my voice, they took a character I did and overdubbed it to sell stuff," Williams said. "That was the one thing where they crossed the line."
As a result of this dispute, Williams decided that working for Disney again was probably not in the cards. Thankfully, this didn't mark the end of his voice acting career though. Instead, the actor happily lent his immense talents to a bunch of other movies — some of which you may not have even realized.
Robin Williams voiced a hilarious bat in this '90s animated classic
While Robin Williams didn't have a massive career in voice acting, the characters he inhabited will forever echo in animation. In the same year the actor voiced the mischievous Genie, Williams also transformed into Batty Koda in "Ferngully: The Last Rainforest" (via IMDb). Not only was he the ultimate sidekick to Samantha Mathis' Crysta the fairy, but performed the "Batty Rap" that was in every '90s kids head for a while (via YouTube).
It wasn't until 2001 that Williams would enter the recording booth again — this time in Steven Spielberg's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" as Dr. Know (via YouTube). Before starring alongside Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, and Hugh Jackman in "Happy Feet" as Ramon and Lovelace, Williams had an uncredited — and almost unrecognizable — role in the 2006 animated film "Everyone's Hero."
Following on from that, Williams provided his voice for the Blue Sky Studios animated comedy "Robots" as Fender Pinwheeler, per YouTube, before his last main voice acting role in "Absolutely Anything" as Dennis the Dog, which was released a year after his death in 2014 (via YouTube).