Stars Lend Voices to Rabbit Ears

Robert Townsend fluffs a line, stops with a comic sputter and looks out through the sound-booth window. “Let me try that again,” he says.

At the microphone, earphones in place, “The Five Heartbeats” actor-director-writer finds his place in the script, shifts into a swaggering stance, tosses his head and reads: “I’m gonna tell you now--and y’all listen good--that Br’er Rabbit ain’t afraid of no one, certainly not some scurvy-breathed, greasy-headed, flea-infested, boil-faced Boss Lion!”

And Townsend hitches up his pants, cocks an imaginary cap and saunters in place, elbows out: Br’er Rabbit personified.

It’s a diverting, one-time-only performance--audiences won’t see it. They will hear it, however, when “Br’er Rabbit and Boss Lion,” part of an upcoming “American Legends” series, is released next year by Rabbit Ears Productions on audiocassette and video.

Townsend is a new addition to Rabbit Ears’ who’s who list of Hollywood notables that began with Meryl Streep in 1985. She narrated the company’s first recording, “The Velveteen Rabbit”; George Winston did the music.

Since then, Jack Nicholson, Robin Williams, Jodie Foster, Cher, Glen Close, Ry Cooder, Mark Isham, Bobby McFerrin, Henrik Drescher and a host of other respected actors, musicians and illustrators have helped Rabbit Ears proliferate on television, CD and cassette players.

Video releases due out in June include “Jack and the Beanstalk,” told by Michael Palin and scored by Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, and “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” narrated by Max Von Sydow, with music by Lyle Mays of the Pat Metheny Group.

The man behind the Rabbit Ears concept--a shrewd marriage of talent, classic literature and cross dissolve animation that has earned the company a cornucopia of awards, including two Grammys--is Mark Sottnick, a self-deprecating, argyle socks-and-loafers kind of guy, with short-cropped hair and crinkly eyes.

During the ‘70s, as an East Coast film and science teacher and parent of two, Sottnick was unimpressed by what he saw on children’s television. He began thinking how he would go about creating quality children’s films and records.

“For kids, the attitude too often is ‘it’s good enough’ or ‘they’re not sophisticated enough to understand,’ ” Sottnick said. “But look at children’s books--the level of writing, of art, is superb.

“Active participation . . . lessons, wordplays, all these wonderful things go on in children’s books. . . . I wanted stories and artwork (at that) level.”

It became an “obsession” while he was serving as a segment producer on “Captain Kangaroo”--”one of the better children’s shows.” He armed himself with a master’s degree from Yale in children’s literature and film, and with his wife, Doris, formed Rabbit Ears Productions.

For the first project, Sottnick hired illustrator David Jorgensen to do “storybook quality pictures.” He then looked around for a “great narrator. It has to be an engaging storyteller,” he said. “If it’s only good, it doesn’t work.”

And that’s when Rabbit Ears made its lucky leap to the big time: Through “a friend of a friend,” Streep agreed to narrate “The Velveteen Rabbit.”

Not surprisingly, “it became immediately easier to reach celebrity talent,” although Sottnick said talent, not celebrity, is the key word. “What we don’t have is a sort of dart board with an ‘A’ list of actors. Rather, we try to have the material tell us who the person should be.

“We wanted a droll reading for the Kipling stories, and Nicholson did such a wonderful job,” Sottnick said. “Sometimes, we need somebody who can ad-lib, like in ‘Pecos Bill,’ so we picked Robin Williams. We picked Robert for his ability to do voices (for a) very fresh version of one of the ‘Br’er Rabbit’ stories.

“Music is just--I mean it’s something in their music. For ‘Pecos Bill’ it was Ry Cooder--who else could it possibly be?”

The new “American Legends” series is preceded by “Storybook Classics” and the internationally themed “We All Have Tales.” The latter two are broadcast by Showtime, and each story is made available in book, audio and video cassette formats. Distributors include Windham Hill for audio and MCA’s Uni division for video. Rhino Records begins distribution of new audio releases in the fall. (The CDs, cassettes and videos are widely available at record and video outlets and retail and specialty children’s stores.)

Other projects include a Bible series--Morgan Freeman is narrating the story of the Nativity, with music by the Christ Church Choir of Oxford--and existing segments have been done in Japanese, Cantonese and Spanish versions.

Townsend, a soon-to-be father, was delighted with the job. “I think of myself as a big kid, so this is right up my alley,” he said after his Westside recording session. It was a chance to “get crazy” and “use characters that I have in my voice and body that I never get a chance to use--I just do ‘em around the house.” He’s eager for his child’s reaction to the tape: “ ‘Daddy, this is you? “ “ Yeah, this is me.’ ”

Raul Julia, whose films are as disparate as “The Kiss of the Spider Woman” and the upcoming “Addams Family” with Anjelica Huston, offered similar enthusiasm. He had just finished recording Spanish-language versions of “The Monkey People”--which he also did in English--”How the Rhinoceros Got Its Skin” and “How the Camel Got Its Hump.”

“That’s what’s fun,” Julia said. “It’s not just reading. You make it as animated as possible without going overboard. I hope children really enjoy it and see the images and that it comes alive for them.” (Julia has also done a segment of the PBS children’s series “Reading Rainbow.”)

Townsend described his experience working with Sottnick as “really cool. He’s a good voice director.” But Sottnick says his unflappable professionalism in the studio is just a cover.

“Of course I’m intimidated. Anybody who wouldn’t be would be a fool. This is marvelous talent. I prepare the hell out of things before I get in there. When they need help, I’m there to give it, but I’m really looking for interpretations, not our idea of how it should be done.”

Despite a prodigious list of programs in development, Sottnick doesn’t fear running out of material. “At first I thought we would at some point. But we’re doing the ‘We All Have Tales’ series, we’ve just scratched the surface of the international stories and we’re working on ‘American Legends’--that’s a very rich vein. We’re also doing the Bible stories. Those are great literature.”

A books-only project is in the works and Sottnick wants to do a 13-part ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ in full animation, “chapter by chapter.” He’s doing Maurice Sendak’s “Higglety Pigglety Pop,” narrated by Streep. “The form of animation we’d like to do is complicated--in three dimensions. I’ve only seen it in experimental, MTV kinds of things.”

Sottnick hopes adults enjoy the work too, but, he said, “Too much of what passes for family entertainment is told with winks and nods--’Oh, here’s a joke that kids won’t get--this one’s for you.’ We don’t do that.”