Legendary Disney composer Alan Menken joins 'EGOT club' with recent Emmy win

Alan Menken, composer of Disney classics like Aladdin, Hercules, and The Little Mermaid, has been a legendary musical force for decades, but now his legacy has added another impressive accolade: the EGOT.

Winning during the Children’s, Lifestyle & Animation section of Sunday's Daytime Emmy Awards, Menken joined the hallowed halls of those boasting at least one Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.

To put this into context, only 16 people — ever — have achieved this (not counting those with non-competitive awards, simply because Menken already had an honorary Emmy from 1990) by climbing to the top of entertainment's highest awards. Menken is now up there with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Whoopi Goldberg, Mel Brooks, and Audrey Hepburn thanks to an unlikely Disney Channel cartoon.

The composer, whose bevy of Academy Awards and Grammys come from songs like "A Whole New World" and scores like that of Beauty and the Beast, earned his final qualifying award for the designation with “Waiting in the Wings" from Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure. This won Outstanding Original Song in a Children’s, Young Adult or Animated Program, which Menken shared with lyricist Glenn Slater. Eden Espinosa and Hudson D'Andrea sang the song in the show's third and final season.

Menken's not slowing down, though. He's next off to work on Spellbound, from Skydance, and Disney+'s live-action Beauty and the Beast prequel series.