{"id":127522,"date":"2018-07-16T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=127522"},"modified":"2018-08-06T18:27:59","modified_gmt":"2018-08-06T22:27:59","slug":"robin-williamss-best-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/","title":{"rendered":"Robin Williams\u2019s Best Role"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Original art by Ellis Rosen.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last summer, the documentarian Marina Zenovich joined some friends for a beachside lunch in Saint-Tropez. She was on holiday from editing her film\u00a0Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind<\/em><\/a>, which airs on HBO on July 16. The crudit\u00e9s basket arrived, and I\u2014brave from the sun and the ros\u00e9\u2014blurted, \u201cMarina! Williams\u2019s best animated container was Batty, not Genie.\u201d Zenovich dragged endive through vinaigrette. \u201cWho\u2019s Batty?\u201d she asked. And then, with the flawless patience of a master interviewer, she said, \u201cOkay. Tell me.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story takes place over a span of eight months in 1992. Robin Williams appeared in theaters for two animated feature films. First, he lent his voice to a lab-tortured bat in the indie environmental flick FernGully<\/em>, about a tribe of fairies living in endangered nature; then, he voiced a high-octane jinni on retainer for three wishes in the Disney blockbuster Aladdin<\/em>. The characters share traits, namely a deep-seated distrust of people. In the one case, people had experimented on him until his sonar failed, and in the other, they\u2019d enslaved him on a wish-fulfillment circuit. Where Batty Koda\u2019s head sprouted wires, Genie had passed ten thousand years in a common oil lamp because humans, it seemed, were real jerks. \u201cThey\u2019re numb from the brain down,\u201d Batty claims.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was always a part of Robin\u2019s comedy repertoire\u2014how stupid and fucked up humans beings are,\u201d Wayne Young, a producer for both Crocodile Dundee<\/em> and FernGully<\/em>, told me. FernGully<\/em>\u2019s Zak, a teenage logger, and the titular Aladdin, a teenage sneak thief, were supposed to be exceptional mensches. They held little charm for us kids. What we did notice\u2014as did the adults who reviewed the movies\u2014was that Williams\u2019s deuteragonists steal both shows. The \u201cbat is by far the picture\u2019s most memorable creation, chiefly because, well, he\u2019s Robin Williams in bat drag,\u201d Hal Hinson wrote at the Washington Post<\/em>. Entertainment Weekly<\/em> told readers that FernGully<\/em> is \u201cworth renting \u2026 just for Williams\u2019 riffs about horrible humans.\u201d Not a box-office hit nor a critical success, FernGully<\/em> would do really well on home video, selling some 2.5 million copies for about $50 million. It now has a cult status as the film that introduced many eighties babies to ecocide\u2014a sort of millennial Silent Spring<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The big blue lug of Aladdin <\/em>was a different affair. Disney\u2019s wizardly studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg had failed to pressure Williams out of voicing two animated characters at the same time. (\u201cWho does he think he is? It\u2019s my voice!\u201d Williams stormed.) He had even tried to derail Kroyer Films\u2014the upstart behind FernGully<\/em>\u2014by buying out their rented work space, a former brewery in the Valley, from underneath them. Around Aladdin<\/em>\u2019s release, Katzenberg talked up the sky-colored shape-shifter as a supreme Williams vehicle, saying, \u201cUntil now, we have been entertained by hearing the genius of how Robin\u2019s mind works. Now … we get to see him thinking.\u201d As Genie, Williams was an \u201celastic miracle,\u201d the New York<\/em> Times<\/em> agreed. \u201cThe Genie mutates into dozens of variations on himself. Williams\u2019 spieling and spritzing acquires a lickety-split clarity,\u201d The New Yorker <\/em>wrote. The script of Aladdin<\/em> morphed under the influence of Williams\u2019s recording-booth ad-libs until Genie was less a supporting role than a title character. Genie went down in animation history. \u201cBut after [FernGully<\/em>] came out,\u201d Young remembered, \u201cKatzenberg called me and said something along the lines of, \u2018You made the best non-Disney film ever.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s famous for Genie,\u201d FernGully<\/em>\u2019s director Bill Kroyer admitted. \u201cA lot of people forget that he did Batty and that he did Batty first.\u201d Like the laboratory and the lamp, neither script could hold him. \u201cWe rarely ended up using the exact scripted stuff,\u201d Kroyer said. \u201cWhen Robin started riffing, he would come up with something that would be just that much funnier, that much more impactful. I sat in amazement. It worked the same every scene: he would absorb the shot, do the script, and then launch into variations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWriting for Williams was like writing for a jazz musician,\u201d said FernGully<\/em>\u2019s screenwriter Jim Cox. \u201cIn the film, there is a scene when Batty snatches up Zak before the Leveler runs him over, but Zak wants to get to the machine to stop it, and he says something like, \u2018Take me there, Batty!\u2019 And Batty flies him in. In the recording studio, I told Robin, \u2018Just do every military-charge clich\u00e9 thing you can think of.\u2019 He did ten nonstop minutes. It was like seeing a virtuoso musician spin out a solo\u2014it built in this way that was just ecstatic. At the end, it was like watching someone go to the edge of sanity. His voice became tiny, and he said, \u2018Somebody pull me back! Pull me back!\u2019 It was like he was so far out, he didn\u2019t know how to get back to reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Model sheet courtesy of Kroyer Films.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Genie\u2019s development has been well-documented; Batty\u2019s, not at all. The relationship between the two voice-overs was not remarked on in 1992 or in 2014, when the Williams died. Aladdin<\/em> earned more than FernGully<\/em>, the animation historian Charles Solomon pointed out. \u201cMore people have seen it.\u201d Genie is a rounder character, he said. \u201cHis relationship with Aladdin is second only to Aladdin and Jasmine. You believe Genie and Aladdin genuinely care for each other.\u201d And while FernGully<\/em>\u2019s animation is \u201ccertainly competent,\u201d he explained, it\u2019s \u201cnot extraordinary.\u201d Solomon told me that he remembered when he saw a preview of Aladdin<\/em>,\u00a0\u201cI thought, At last.\u201d Genie could shift as fast visually as Williams could verbally.<\/p>\n

Fern<\/em>Gully<\/em> sprang from the consciousness of an Australian woman named Diana Young, Wayne Young\u2019s then wife. Diana and Wayne and their children had hopped from Mykonos to Ibiza to Seychelles to Bali. Then, in the late seventies, the Youngs settled on Australia\u2019s east coast\u2014twenty miles outside of the surfing village Byron Bay. It is an area lush with old-growth rain forest, which once stretched from the hills to the ocean. \u201cThe first major protests to stop the logging of the last forests happened right here,\u201d Wayne said. \u201cIt\u2019s feminine land,\u201d he added, referring to its verdant fertility. \u201cThe continent is 90-odd percent in permanent drought, but this is subtropical.\u201d Home was a 135-acre estate that rolled to a gully with ferns, figs, fungi, eucalyptus, platypuses, kookaburras, kingfishers, goannas, koalas, wallabies, and fruit bats. \u201cI was living in this magical realm and watching its destruction and going to demonstrations,\u201d Diana told me recently. After dropping her sons at school, she sometimes took a sandwich and a notebook and sat by the watering hole for hours, drafting accounts of a fairy heartland under threat. She never published the tales, but at night, she told them to her boys, Nick and Stu.<\/p>\n

Batty existed in Diana\u2019s bedtime story, which Cox remembers coming to him as a batch of xeroxed papers. It was she who supplied the key detail: that the scientists had drilled an electrode into the animal\u2019s head. \u201cHe was thus an insane fruit bat, basically the comic relief,\u201d Cox told me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Robin Williams in April 1992, the month FernGully<\/em> premiered.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cox often saw Robin Williams at Los Angeles comedy clubs like the Laugh Factory, where the Juilliard alumnus would show up unannounced to open mics. Cox wrote Batty with Williams in mind. In Cox\u2019s treatment, the electrode \u201cwas like an antenna in his brain that streamed TV and popular culture and ran it through his consciousness.\u201d Whenever the bat\u2019s wires sparked, he would become abruptly possessed of Ricky Ricardo or Shakespeare\u2019s Julius Caesar. He would change channels to Star Trek<\/em> or All About Eve<\/em>. He\u2019d quote the scientists. (\u201cPass the probe.\u201d) \u201cYo!\u201d he raps in the film. \u201cMy name is Batty. The logic is erratic.\u201d If there was ever a just-so story for Williams\u2019s brand of hyperactive improvisational impersonation, this was probably it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBatty\u2019s the metaphor, you know?\u201d Kroyer said. \u201cHe\u2019s the metaphor for nature mistakenly, or not mistakenly, damaged by human interference. He is so unbelievably sympathetic. And there was a wounded animal like Batty inside Williams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zenovich thought so too. \u201cHe responded\u2014he inhabited,\u201d she told me. \u201cI\u2019m more of an actor than a comedian,\u201d Williams says in her documentary. \u201cI don\u2019t tell jokes\u2014I just use characters as a vehicle for me. I seldom just talk as myself.\u201d Zenovich continued: \u201cHe was something in that recording room\u2014offstage, off camera, and pretty well off script\u2014that was desperate to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robin in the rain forest may have been overlooked, but the work remains worthy of canonization. In the movie, when Batty trembles, his wings hang around him like a security blanket; in instances of chutzpah, they transform almost into a cape. He\u2019s fearful, crazed, tragic, and sharp-tongued\u2014also tenderhearted and heroic. Who cares if the bat is funnier than the jinni? He\u2019s sadder. More fractured. More Williams.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chantel Tattoli is a freelance journalist. She\u2019s contributed to\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>New York Times Magazine,\u00a0<\/em>VanityFair.com<\/a>, the\u00a0<\/em>Los Angeles Review of Books, and\u00a0<\/em>Orion. She<\/em>\u00a0is at work on a cultural biography of Copenhagen\u2019s statue of the Little Mermaid.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Last summer, the documentarian Marina Zenovich joined some friends for a beachside lunch in Saint-Tropez. She was on holiday from editing her film\u00a0Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, which airs on HBO on July 16. The crudit\u00e9s basket arrived, and I\u2014brave from the sun and the ros\u00e9\u2014blurted, \u201cMarina! Williams\u2019s best animated container was Batty, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":873,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[5551,776,34707,34705,1831,34704,34706,34708,34709,13551,34710,27432],"class_list":["post-127522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-aladdin","tag-australia","tag-batty","tag-bill-kroyer","tag-disney","tag-ferngully","tag-genie","tag-jeffrey-katzenberg","tag-marina-zenovich","tag-robin-williams","tag-robin-williams-come-inside-my-mind","tag-silent-spring"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRobin Williams\u2019s Best Role<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The rarely told story behind Batty, Williams\u2019s underappreciated \u2018FernGully\u2019 character.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Robin Williams\u2019s Best Role by Chantel Tattoli\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"July 16, 2018 \u2013   Last summer, the documentarian Marina Zenovich joined some friends for a beachside lunch in Saint-Tropez. She was on holiday from editing her\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-07-16T13:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-08-06T22:27:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/batty-by-ellis-rosen.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"606\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chantel Tattoli\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/batty-by-ellis-rosen.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chantel Tattoli\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Chantel Tattoli\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b72857973f8c094d7664bfe723fb5103\"},\"headline\":\"Robin Williams\u2019s Best Role\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-07-16T13:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-08-06T22:27:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/\"},\"wordCount\":1583,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/batty-by-ellis-rosen-1024x485.jpeg\",\"keywords\":[\"Aladdin\",\"Australia\",\"Batty\",\"Bill Kroyer\",\"Disney\",\"FernGully\",\"Genie\",\"Jeffrey Katzenberg\",\"Marina Zenovich\",\"Robin Williams\",\"Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind\",\"Silent Spring\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/\",\"name\":\"Robin Williams\u2019s Best Role\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/batty-by-ellis-rosen-1024x485.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-07-16T13:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-08-06T22:27:59+00:00\",\"description\":\"The rarely told story behind Batty, Williams\u2019s underappreciated \u2018FernGully\u2019 character.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/batty-by-ellis-rosen.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/batty-by-ellis-rosen.jpeg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":606,\"caption\":\"Original art by Ellis Rosen\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Robin Williams\u2019s Best Role\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b72857973f8c094d7664bfe723fb5103\",\"name\":\"Chantel Tattoli\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6022a0f204fb26e84a6b93583fa75eb9662a5a2914d31febfe21d93c1528b7cb?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6022a0f204fb26e84a6b93583fa75eb9662a5a2914d31febfe21d93c1528b7cb?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Chantel Tattoli\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/ctattoli\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Robin Williams\u2019s Best Role","description":"The rarely told story behind Batty, Williams\u2019s underappreciated \u2018FernGully\u2019 character.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Robin Williams\u2019s Best Role by Chantel Tattoli","og_description":"July 16, 2018 \u2013   Last summer, the documentarian Marina Zenovich joined some friends for a beachside lunch in Saint-Tropez. She was on holiday from editing her","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2018-07-16T13:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-08-06T22:27:59+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":606,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/batty-by-ellis-rosen.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Chantel Tattoli","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_image":"http:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/batty-by-ellis-rosen.jpeg","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Chantel Tattoli","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/"},"author":{"name":"Chantel Tattoli","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b72857973f8c094d7664bfe723fb5103"},"headline":"Robin Williams\u2019s Best Role","datePublished":"2018-07-16T13:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2018-08-06T22:27:59+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/"},"wordCount":1583,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/batty-by-ellis-rosen-1024x485.jpeg","keywords":["Aladdin","Australia","Batty","Bill Kroyer","Disney","FernGully","Genie","Jeffrey Katzenberg","Marina Zenovich","Robin Williams","Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind","Silent Spring"],"articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/","name":"Robin Williams\u2019s Best Role","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/batty-by-ellis-rosen-1024x485.jpeg","datePublished":"2018-07-16T13:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2018-08-06T22:27:59+00:00","description":"The rarely told story behind Batty, Williams\u2019s underappreciated \u2018FernGully\u2019 character.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/batty-by-ellis-rosen.jpeg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/batty-by-ellis-rosen.jpeg","width":1280,"height":606,"caption":"Original art by Ellis Rosen"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/robin-williamss-best-role\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Robin Williams\u2019s Best Role"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b72857973f8c094d7664bfe723fb5103","name":"Chantel Tattoli","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6022a0f204fb26e84a6b93583fa75eb9662a5a2914d31febfe21d93c1528b7cb?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6022a0f204fb26e84a6b93583fa75eb9662a5a2914d31febfe21d93c1528b7cb?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Chantel Tattoli"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/ctattoli\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/873"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127522"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128328,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127522\/revisions\/128328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}