The Ron Clements Interview -- Part III

Ron C. describes Aladdin as one of the toughest pictures he ever worked on ...

TAG Interview with Ron Clements

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

The problem was, the Disney animation crew working on Beauty and the Beast was nearing the end of its assignment. And Jeffrey Katzenberg was unhappy with the storyline of the next feature, a project called Aladdin.

Mr. Katzenberg reportedly said:

"The Mom in this picture is a big zero! Deep six the mom!

At the time, Ron and John had developed a storyline where Aladdin's mother was a major character, and Howard Ashman had written songs for the mother. Only Jeffrey didn't like the way Mom was coming across on storyboards or story reels, and so wanted big changes and wanted them fast.

Mr. Clements describes the months of story remodeling that followed as among the most stressful of his career, and that they were constantly on the dead run, trying to provide enough "locked" material so they could feed work to the animation, layout and background departments.

(He also talks about the multitidue of features that followed Aladdin ...)