Watch Robin Williams as Genie in Newly Released ‘Aladdin’ Outtakes

“He was the Genie”, added Aladdin’s co-director and screenplay writer John Musker.

It’s been almost 25 years since Aladdin hit theaters, and to celebrate, Disney is releasing a Diamond Edition Blu-Ray on October 13 of the game-changing animated feature that includes exclusive, never-before-seen footage of the late Robin Williams recording the voice for the movie’s iconic Genie.

“We didn’t want to keep the lightning in a bottle”, Goldberg told MTV News during the D23 fan expo. “Fortunately for us, he did, [but] we were totally walking down the plank”.

Animator Eric Goldberg also notes that Williams’ presence was a gift in itself.

The filmmakers said that they honestly would have been in “big trouble” if Williams had declined to take the role because the “whole concept was built around” him. “Fortunately he agreed to do it, and he worked so hard”, said Ron Clements, who also was a co-writer/co-director on Aladdin. “Aside from him being amusing as anything, he was such a warm person”, he recalled of the Flubber star. “We would record in four-hour sessions. He would have so much energy and so much passion”. “He was the Genie-it was bigger than life”.

During the segment on Good Morning America, the group onstage spoke of the late Robin Williams who masterfully voiced The Genie in Aladdin. When George Stephanopoulos asked if Williams could really sing, composer Alan Menken said that while “most of it ended up on the cutting room floor”, he “learned to”.

The cast came together to promote the Diamond Edition re-release of the beloved 1992 cartoon, which has been trapped in the Disney vault since 2008.