Well, Ali Baba had them forty thieves.
Scheherazade had a thousand tales.
But master you're in luck, 'cause up your sleeves, you've got a brand of magic never fails!
You've got some power in your corner now! Some heavy ammunition in your camp!
You got some punch, pizzaz, yahoo and how. See, all you gotta do is rub that lamp.
And I'll say:
Mr. Aladdin, sir, what will your pleasure be? Let me take your order, jot it down?
You ain't never had friend like me!
But it was an achievement that was tinged with sadness.
His long-time co-writer and lyricist, Howard Ashman died of AIDS at the age of 41...
... Before he could even see the release of Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin.
Right now, Alan Menken is in Australia as the stage production of Aladdin hits Melbourne.
He's beginning to get to work on the brand new Hollywood live action version of Aladdin with director, Guy Ritchie.
Alan, thanks so much for talking to us, I really appreciate your time.
Pleasure.
When you were doing A Whole New World, initially that wasn't the title lyric.
You did a piece of dummy lyric, didn't you?
Yes!
There was a strong chance that song was going to be about feet.
Oh yes right.
The world at my feet.
Well I just wanted to do a piece of music, and I thought okay.
Well I gave him that, and very wisely he took out a syllable.
We didn't have to have the word feet in there.
The song you started with for Aladdin was Arabian Nights, yes?
Arabian Nights may have been one of the first ones.
So the interesting thing about Arabian Nights is it's one of the few times Disney's actually changed lyrics...
between the release of a movie and the video release.
Well we had this lyric, "Well I come from a land in a faraway place, where the caravan camels roam."
Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face, it's barbaric but hey, it's home.
It was in the movie, and then I think it was Casey Kasem - in the states he is the one who does the Top 40.
He's of Arab descent.
He found it upsetting, or offensive.
The job fell to me to re-write that.
Oh I come from a land in a faraway place, where the caravan camels roam.
Where it's hot and intense...
Where it's flat and immense, and the heat is intense. It's barbaric, but hey, it's home.
It was a little safer.
The seaweed is always greener, in somebody else's lake.
You dream about going up there, but that is a big mistake.
Just look at the world around ya!
Right here on the ocean floor!
Such wonderful things around ya, what more is you looking for?
Under the sea!
There are a couple of different forms of songs, that are sort of necessities to musicals.
You've got your villain songs...
Your "I Want" songs...
Truth be told, there is not an actual "I Want" song for Aladdin.
It's that moment where your central character sits on a garbage can, or looks out over the bell tower.
The "I Want" song for Aladdin is the reprise where he goes...
Riff raff, street rat...
I don't buy that.
If only they'd look closer!
Would they see a poor boy?
No siree.
They'd find out there's so much more to me.
Not the right key for me, but that's okay.
That's really... I really had to fight to retain that in the movie.
They said, oh but we can just do that in a few lines of dialogue and I said, no!
We need that. It's gotta be a song, it's our "I Want" moment.
And the Oscar goes to...
Alan Menken for Beauty and the Beast!
Most of all, I thank my late partner and friend, Howard Ashman.
Howard, I wish you could've seen the finished product, I wish you could've heard the completed score.
I know you would've been proud.
Thank you.
The last full score you did with Howard Ashman was Beauty and the Beast.
That was the last full score.
And he died before it came out.
That's correct.
Howard was physically there. He'd lost a lot of weight, he was wearing his shirt with suspenders.
Trying to be as casual as possible, certainly didn't want to project any sense of illness.
At that point, no one else professionally knew that he was sick.
Do you remember how he told you?
At the Oscar's for The Little Mermaid, we're sitting at the Governor's Ball with our statuettes.
And he said, I'm really, really happy tonight. When we get back to New York we've got to talk.
Okay, what about?
He said, not tonight, not tonight. When we get back we'll talk.
Okay, everything okay?
We'll talk.
So it was. So I fly back you know, carrying our awards.
I went to his house and he told me that he was sick.
And um, it was a death sentence.
Howard was going to die.
It was going to be emotionally wrenching, and I had already lost a lot of people I worked with.
We all had, especially in New York theatre.
He was the best of our generation.
Tale as old as time.
True as it can be.
Barely even friends, then somebody bends unexpectedly.
Think of yourself as working with more intimacy.
There are a lot of songs from that time that I could interpret them to be evidence of what was going on beneath the surface.
He had all of these neuropathies one at a time that just robbed him of his strength.
And his senses, and his abilities.
There was a song that never made it into Aladdin called Humiliate The Boy.
Jafar is singing: I'm taking this away from Aladdin, I'm taking this away.
Aladdin is stripped away to nothing. Everything's taken away from him.
It felt... very much like what Howard was going through with all his abilities being taken away.
Give me the go-ahead.
I can show you the world:
Shining, shimmering, splendid.
How do you know when you've got, when you've got the song?
Oh you feel it.
That barometer is the whole deal.
A whole new world, a dazzling place I never knew.
It's not the kind of thing you can take on, like look what I did.
You totally should, just own it.
I can't, I can't.
Number one, it's too collaborative. Number two, it's bigger than me.
A whole new world, that's where we'll be.
A thrilling chase, a wondrous place for you and me.
But you know, I'm happy to receive the royalties.
Alan, thanks so much for your time.
Thank you.