TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/070191/0701250.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 3.6 KB | 82 lines

                                                                                VIDEO, Page 76

Bringing Back Storytelling


With classic tales read by Hollywood stars, Rabbit Ears videos
are a delightful antidote to Saturday-morning kidvid


    Jack Nicholson's best performance in the past five years? With
all due respect to Batman and The Witches of Eastwick, it just
may be a half-hour stint Nicholson did for, of all things, a
children's video. He is narrator of The Elephant's Child, an
adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's whimsical story about how the
elephant got its trunk. Backed by the music of Bobby McFerrin,
Nicholson gives a droll, spirited reading, wrapping his tongue
around Kipling's sensuous words -- "the great, gray-green,
greasy Lim-po-po River" -- like a gourmet savoring oysters.

    By the same token, it would be hard to imagine a funnier,
better modulated comic performance from Robin Williams than the
Babel of Slavic accents he brings to a Russian folktale called
The Fool and the Flying Ship. Or a more touching turn by
Sigourney Weaver than her reading of the pensive Japanese story
Peachboy. Or a sprightlier showcase for Michael Palin's
Pythonesque versatility than his rendition of Jack and the
Beanstalk.

    Star power has come to children's video. More important,
so has the lost art of storytelling. Credit goes to a small
Connecticut company called Rabbit Ears Productions, which for
six years has been assembling a library of children's literature
on video. Each story is illustrated by a top-flight artist,
scored by a noted composer (Ry Cooder, Herbie Hancock) and
narrated by a moonlighting Hollywood actor.

    For kids brought up on frenetic Saturday-morning
animation, these half-hour videos are leisurely paced and look
comparatively low-tech. Visually, they are little more than
still pictures strung together in a technique known, rather
generously, as dissolve animation. Sales have been moderate
(cost: $9.95 or $14.95 a tape), but titles are multiplying
rapidly. Following its initial series of 18 storybook classics
(Thumbelina, read by Kelly McGillis; The Emperor's New Clothes,
with John Gielgud), the company has just launched a new
collection of folktales from around the world, featuring stars
like Denzel Washington and Max von Sydow. Also in the works:
legendary American tales and Bible stories. The videos are being
run on the Showtime cable network, and Raul Julia is recording
them in Spanish.

    The success of Rabbit Ears has a fairy-tale quality of its
own. The company is the brainchild of Mark Sottnick, 46, a
former high school science teacher from Philadelphia, who began
making children's films in the early '80s. In 1985 he and his
partner (and now wife) Doris Wilhousky produced a TV version of
one of their favorite children's stories, The Velveteen Rabbit.
They managed to persuade Meryl Streep -- the "friend of a
friend" -- to read the narration. The tape won a passel of
awards and set Rabbit Ears hopping. In the past year the staff
has grown from four to 18, straining the capacity of the
two-story barn-wood building in Westport, Conn., that serves as
a homey headquarters.

    Sottnick is quick to admit that because of the low action
level and sophisticated content of Rabbit Ears tapes, "they're
not going to be every kid's cup of tea." But he adds, "I think
the stories should be what every parent strives for: not to
sell kids short." In an age of Smurfs, Urkels and Ninja
Turtles, that should be music to parents' ears.

    By Richard Zoglin. Reported by William Tynan/Westport