That the music of Aladdin is pleasing to the ear and the film’s spirit relentlessly upbeat stands as a tribute to both composer Alan Menken and his late partner, lyricist Howard Ashman, who died month before the team’s final, full collaboration Beauty & the Beast, reached heights never achieved by an animated feature.
Ashman shepherded Beauty from start to finish and had, in fact, produced the film, which won him and Menken a Best Song Academy Award for the title song and was nominated for Best Picture. It was also Ashman who suggested to the Disney studio that the classic fantasy tale Aladdin be the project following The Little Mermaid (which Ashman and Menken discussed in STARLOG #152) and Beauty & the Beast, both of which were already in production at the time. Before he succumbed to AIDS, Ashman had drafted Aladdin's initial treatment and penned six tunes with Menken, three of which made it into the finished film.
After Ashman's death, popular lyricist Tim Rice, perhaps best known for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Jesus Christ Superstar, joined with Menken to complete Aladdin. "Tim was very supportive. I certainly had enough time to prepare for the possibility of Howard being gone," says Menken. "On an interpersonal level, it created difficult personal moments. At a screening [in Manhattan] there was Howard’s partner, Bill, and his sister, Sara. I went up and said hi to them. They loved the film, but at the same time their concern was for Howard's songs. It's kind of a splintered support. Tim was sitting there going, 'I hope my songs are received as well as Howard's.' I'm reading his mind on that.
[…]
