Rabbit Ears Treasury of Animal Stories: How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, How the Camel Got His Hump, How the Leopard Got His Spots, Monkey People

by Jack Nicholson (Narrator)

The Rabbit Ears Treasury of Animal Stories entertains and enlightens with these classic animal stories brought to life–read by your favorite stars and featuring original music by some of today’s greatest artists.

How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin & How the Camel Got His Hump
Read by Jack Nicholson • Original Music by Bobby McFerrin
These familiar favorites from Rudyard Kipling feature the tale of a Parsee man who seeks revenge on a nasty rhino followed by the story of a lazy camel who learns the hard way that pride and arrogance are never a good combination.

How the Leopard Got His Spots
Read by Danny Glover • Original Music by Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Hunting on the African plain was easy for the leopard since his light coat blended with the yellow hues of the landscape. But once all the animals moved to the striped and splotchy forest, things got much harder–so for his own survival he had to acquire spots. This tale is rich with subtle humor and enchanced by the gegntle sounds of South African a cappella harmonies.

The Monkey People
Read by Raul Julia • Original Music by Lee Ritenour
Revisit this Colombian fable of a village in the Amazon jungle where the lazy inhabitants do nothing but lie in their hammocks. Then a mysterious man arrives one day and creates monkeys who do everything for the villagers. When the monkeys take on every human activity–including complaining–the humans have to deal with the serious and silly consequences of their inaction.

Audio CD

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and for As Good as It Gets. He also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the 1983 film Terms of Endearment. He is tied with Walter Brennan for most acting wins by a male actor (three). Nicholson is well known for playing villainous roles such as Jack Torrance in The Shining, Frank Costello in The Departed, and the Joker in 1989's Batman, among many other roles.

Nicholson is one of only two actors who has been nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to 2000s (the other being Michael Caine). He has won seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In 1994, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. Notable films in which he has starred include, in chronological order, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Passenger, The Shining, Reds, Terms of Endearment, Batman, A Few Good Men, As Good as It Gets, About Schmidt and The Departed.

Reviews

[Ronyell · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Rabbit Ears Treasury of Animal Stories” is one of the first audio CDs released from Rabbit Ears Entertainment (or Rabbit Ears Productions as I fondly love to call it) and this audio CD features four stories called “How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin,” “How the Camel Got His Hump,” “The Monkey People” and “How the Leopard Got His Spots.” Each story is narrated by a famous celebrity during the 80s and 90s and it will be an instant treat for anyone who is a huge fan of Rabbit Ears stories!

Since I have already reviewed some of these stories on separate reviews, I will just briefly summarize each story:

How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin
Told by: Jack Nicholson
Music by: Bobby McFerrin
When a rude rhinoceros eats the Parsee Man’s delicious cake, the Parsee Man starts to take revenge on the rude rhinoceros.

How the Camel Got His Hump
Told by: Jack Nicholson
Music by: Bobby McFerrin
When an arrogant camel refuses to do his share of work, it is up to the Djinn of all Deserts to set the camel straight.



The Monkey People
Told by: Raul Julia
Music by: Lee Ritenour
When an old man comes to a village full of lazy people and shows them monkeys cut out of leaves doing all the chores, the people learn the hard way about the importance of hard work.

How the Leopard Got His Spots
Told by: Danny Glover
Music by: Ladysmith Black Mambazo
When all the animals moved to the forest to hide from the Leopard and the Ethiopian, the Leopard and the Ethiopian must learn to camouflage themselves in order to eat to survive!

Oh my goodness! Imagine my surprise when I first heard about this animal series coming out on audio CD! I was so excited about listening to Jack Nicholson, Danny Glover and Raul Julia narrating these fantastic tales that I remembered from my youth! Each story was extremely interesting to the next story and the narrators and the musicians have both done an excellent job at narrating and providing appropriate music to each story. Out of all four stories featured on this audio CD, my favorites were “How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin” and “How the Camel Got His Hump” which were both narrated by Jack Nicholson and both had music by Bobby McFerrin. In both stories “How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin” and “How the Camel Got His Hump,” Jack Nicholson narrates both stories in an extremely silky voice that soothes you to the bone as you hear him narrate these stories and anyone who has seen Jack Nicholson in “The Shining,” will definitely be surprised at how calm he sounds in narrating these stories! Bobby McFerrin is truly magnificent in providing music for each story as he mainly uses his voice to create music for each story which brings so much creativity to the stories. Another story that I enjoyed on this disc was “How the Leopard Got His Spots” as I loved the way that Danny Glover narrates this story in an African accent which brings creativity to this story and Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s music is truly wonderful as they vocally sing in African tones.

Again, there is no book to go with this audio CD; however the narration and the music provided in this audio CD will help many fans still love this audio CD.

All in all, “Rabbit Ears Treasury of Animal Stories” is a true treat for fans of the fantastic Rabbit Ears series and who love Jack Nicholson, Danny Glover and Raul Julia and I am sure that many children and adults will love this audio CD for many years to come! I would recommend this audio CD to children ages seven and up since the “Just So Stories” might be too complicated for younger children to understand.

Review is also on: Rabbit Ears Book Blog

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

audio stories. The narration is fine, I just found the Bobby McFerrin to be overwhelming after awhile.

[Ross Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were a lot of soundbites for this one. Maybe too much. Drum-drumming and Africans singing and other sounds that took up half the audio book. Mostly, though, it was fun hearing Nicholson or Danny Glover read these entertaining stories out loud. I didn't remember how fun Kipling is when he writes for little kids.

[Kathy Slappey]

Discovered Jack Nicholson read one of the children's stories on this audio book and just had to listen to it. Other stories read by Danny Glover & Raul Julia. Cute stories.