ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, September 2, 1996 TAG: 9609040031
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
TYPE: COMMENT
SOURCE: JENNIFER BOWLES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Has William Bennett gone Hollywood?
The former national drug czar and U.S. secretary of education is being whisked around Universal Studios in a black limousine, passing famous sets like the ``Psycho'' house and trams filled with camera-toting tourists who probably wondered who the celebrity was behind the smoked glass.
At a hilltop overlooking the sprawling lot, Bennett, clad in a dark suit, steps out of the limo and into a world he has often criticized.
Not that any of the crew notices him. They are too busy scurrying about under a searing sun, carrying lights and other equipment in and out of the house-like set of the national cable talk show on which he was about to appear.
``Do you need makeup?'' asks one of the show's handlers.
``No, I'm already made up,'' Bennett responds.
Makeup? For this veteran Washington politico who prides himself on his substance - quoting philosophers while blasting Hollywood for the violence and casual sex of its offerings, especially on television?
Yet, here is Bennett, venturing into the world of TV to promote his latest project, ``Adventures from the Book of Virtues'' - an animated PBS series based on his best-selling collection of moral tales.
Beginning tonight, PBS will air one-hour segments over three consecutive nights (most stations will broadcast at 8 p.m.). More episodes will air in early January.
Back on the set, Bennett is led to a couch in a homey living room where he sits beside another guest, Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug. The hoopla seems to unnerve Bennett.
``This is unusual,'' he says later in between the show's segments. ``I mean I do a lot of (Washington news conferences), but I don't do it like this.''
TV never entered Bennett's mind when he wrote the book, he says. But after the book came out a few years ago, he was deluged by more than a dozen proposals to transform it into animation.
``I had a lot of reluctance about television because I'm such a critic of television and I was worried that they'd junk it up,'' he says.
After looking over the proposals, he finally settled on PorchLight Entertainment, run by former Hanna-Barbera executive Bruce Johnson.
Like the book's chapters, the half-hour animated segments are composed of stories and myths that fall into a certain moral theme - whether it be courage, honesty or compassion.
For instance, the ``Honesty'' portion features such tales as ``George Washington and the Cherry Tree,'' ``The Indian Cinderella'' and ``The Frog Prince.''
In between the tales are regular characters - youngsters Zach and Annie and several human-like animals such as Plato, a wise buffalo who serves as a visual pun on Bennett's nickname: Buffalo Bill.
How'd he get that?
``Probably large matted hair and bulky,'' Bennett says. But, he adds, the ``American bison is a very lovable character.''
The voices behind the characters include such Hollywood notables as Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, Bronson Pinchot, Julian Sands, George Segal, just to name a few.
But most curious are the voices provided by such staunch liberals as Ed Begley Jr. and Ed Asner: political polar opposites of the conservative Bennett, who held White House posts under Presidents Reagan and Bush.
``I would say half the time I'm in radical disagreement with Bill Bennett,'' Asner says in a telephone interview.
So why take the job?
Bennett's book, Asner explains, ``merely employs quotes from people who basically observe truisms, truisms that I would not deny.... Well first of all money comes into my pocket for doing it, so it's a nice job. But I do not belie my principals by what I have to say by doing this job.''
Bennett, his own interviews over, hurries back to the limousine. It speeds away, off to another promotional gig.
Has Bennett gone Hollywood? At least long enough to tout his own project.
LENGTH: Medium: 78 linesby CNB