Beginning in the New Year Bermudian filmmaker Arthur Rankin Jr. will be helming the third in his series of "Showbiz'' courses at the Bermuda College, among the most popular classes ever held at the Stonington campus.

Making the transition from screening rooms to college lecture halls has been among the most gratifying experiences of Mr. Rankin's 40-year career.

"Sometimes I feel like Sidney Poitier in `To Sir, With Love','' he said, adding the wry coda: "I just hope the students see me that way rather than as the professor-from-hell John Houseman played in `The Paper Chase'! "But, seriously, showbusiness has been very good to me. And you really do get the feeling that you're giving something back when you're standing up in front of a classroom talking about a subject that's not only been your career but also your abiding passion.'' The disarmingly modest Rankin is a rarity in the entertainment industry, a creative powerhouse who would genuinely prefer to discuss other people's work rather than his own formidable string of credits.

Far more at ease watching the sun set over Harrington Sound, where he lives, than watching any of his films, Mr. Rankin is an unlikely mogul. The polar opposite of the archetypal, cigar chomping Hollywood tycoon, this quietly spoken man nonetheless did for holidays what Walt Disney did for mice.

With American partner Jules Bass, Mr. Rankin is responsible for some of the best-loved -- and most highly-rated -- television specials ever aired. Such animated Rankin/Bass fare as `Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer', `The Little Drummer Boy' and `Santa Claus Is Coming To Town' have become seasonal perennials, as closely associated with the festive season now as the songs which inspired them.

"Actually Vivaldi's `Four Seasons' should be Arthur's theme music,'' says Mid-Ocean News editor Tim Hodgson, who has helped Mr. Rankin teach his course since its inception. "Whether it's Christmas, Easter, Hallowe'en or Thanksgiving, Rankin/Bass always has something on the air.

"Think about it. Between `Frosty the Snowman' and `Here Comes Peter Cottontail' and `Mad Monster Party' and `The Mouse on the Mayflower', Arthur's cornered the market on holidays.

"He is to seasonal programming what DeBeers is to diamonds. It's hard to think of one without the other.'' In addition to 35 specials made between 1964 and 1986, Mr. Rankin has produced, directed or co-written -- frequently all three -- 13 animated television series (effectively usurping the title "King of Saturday Morning'' from Hannah-Barbera by the early '70s), eight feature films and five made-for-TV movies, including two -- `The Bermuda Depths' and `The Ivory Ape' -- shot entirely on location on the island.

He was responsible for breaking the Saturday morning colour barrier in 1971 when his `Jackson 5' series aired on ABC, the first cartoon featuring an all-black cast of characters to be carried on one of the US television networks.

And that's just one of the many firsts on Mr. Rankin's long resume.

Although recently it's become almost de rigeur for major box-office stars to lend their names and likenesses to animated films (Whoopi Goldberg in `The Lion King', Demi Moore in `Hunchback of Notre Dame', Mel Gibson in `Pocahontas'), the practice was unheard of until Mr. Rankin pioneered it in the '60s.

Yet somehow he managed to persuade such bona fide Hollywood legends as Danny Kaye, Fred Astaire and Boris Karloff to add their voices to his soundtracks and their images to his cartoonists' pens. Others whose names have featured prominently on Rankin/Bass cast lists include such "A''-list talent as James Earl Jones, Burl Ives, Vincent Price, Mia Farrow, Joel Gray, Jeff Bridges, John Huston, Tallulah Bankhead, Walter Matthau, George Burns, Christopher Lee, Flip Wilson, Hayley Mills and Zero Mostel.

"Normally you'd only expect to find that type of star-power in zillion dollar Hollywood epics, not modestly-budgeted fare aimed at the childrens' market,'' said Mr. Hodgson. "But Arthur has a unique talent to not only get what he wants out of people but also to get the people he wants to work with.

"The credits of his productions are so top-heavy with household names sometimes I think of him as `The Man of a Thousand Voices'.

"Don't forget he's one of only two filmmakers who ever managed to persuade Jimmy Cagney to come out of retirement after 1963. Arthur did it for `The Ballad of Smokey the Bear'. The other was two-time Oscar winner Milos Foreman, who got Cagney to make a cameo appearance in `Ragtime'.

"When Francis Ford Coppola was the single hottest director in Hollywood he couldn't get Cagney off his farm for a part in `The Godfather II'. So that says something about Arthur's powers of persuasion.'' Teaching allows Mr. Rankin to not only share his encyclopaedic knowledge of the entertainment industry with students but also to dole out sage advice to the surprisingly large number of budding Bermudian filmmakers who have enrolled in previous courses.

"Film and television courses are among the most heavily subscribed on the curricula of colleges and universities throughout North America,'' said Mr.

Rankin. "You must remember that showbusiness is very, very big business these days.

"Movies and TV programmes are two of America's largest foreign money-earners.

There are career opportunities opening up in all areas of the industry, from acting to accounting.

"So the idea of the `Showbiz' course isn't just to touch on the creative aspects of filmmaking -- directing, screenwriting, cinematography and so forth -- but also the corporate side.

"These days a well-marketed blockbuster like, say, a `Hercules' or a `Batman' or an `Independence Day' can make as much money from merchandising spin-offs as it can at the box-office. Sometimes even more.

"Anyone entering the field has to be aware of that. Those T-shirts and novelisations and action figures, those McDonald's and Burger King tie-ins, they are part and parcel of the complete package, not after-thoughts.

"That's not to denigrate the artistic side of the business. Rather it's to remind people that showbiz is just that -- a business.'' There are no age restrictions on Mr. Rankin's course and the only prerequisite is enthusiasm for the subject.

"Anyone interested in the entertainment industry -- and who isn't? -- is welcome,'' he said. "But I would really like to attract young Bermudians who want to make careers for themselves in showbusiness, no matter in what capacity.

"The course is designed to give them a basic introduction to the essentials, an overview of everything from `a' -- animation, a topic with which I have a passing familiarity -- to `z' -- the zoom shot. Hopefully the students will then be better placed to know if they want to go on and pursue film and television studies at universities abroad.'' Mr. Rankin says while Bermuda may not be Hollywood-in-the-Atlantic, that should not deter would-be local filmmakers from pursuing their celluloid dreams.

He points to the success of Alison Swan, a Bermudian film school graduate and tyro director, who has just completed her first independently financed feature-length movie in the United States. She is now in the process of shopping it to various film festivals in the hopes of securing a distribution deal.

"I have seen her film and I think it is very well made,'' said Mr. Rankin, who recently attended a private screening of the movie in New York.

"Independent filmmaking is really the work farm of the entertainment industry today.

"With Hollywood budgets continuing to skyrocket, no one straight out of film school is going to be given control of a major production any more than a newly qualified MBA is going to walk straight into the executive suite of a Fortune 500 company. You have to pay your dues -- and most aspiring filmmakers do so by going the independent film route.'' By way of illustration Mr. Rankin rattles off the names of such acclaimed directors as Spike (`Malcolm X') Lee, Quentin (`Pulp Fiction') Tarantino and Jane (`Portrait of a Lady') Campion. All toiled in the vineyards of independent filmmaking for years before Hollywood came calling with multi-picture deals and multi-million dollar budgets.

"It could be argued that some of the low-budget films they made early in their careers were little more than glorified home movies,'' said Mr. Rankin.

"But while the polish might not have been there, the creativity undoubtedly was. And that's what got all of them noticed. In independent filmmaking it's not the size of your wallet that matters, it's the size of of your talent.

"If you're any good, then making original, clever and well-crafted films on a relative shoestring doesn't present an insurmountable obstacle.'' Film festivals, like the recently inaugurated Bermuda International Film Festival which Mr. Rankin helped to get off the ground, serve as showcases for independent moviemakers, allowing them to both screen their films to paying audiences as well as to pique the interest of studios.

"The big studios, distribution companies and agencies all send people to festivals like Sundance, Cannes and Toronto to spot up-and-coming talent the way sports teams send scouts to minor league and college games,'' he said.

"If you have the ability and, just as importantly, the drive you will eventually get noticed. It doesn't matter if you're from Bermuda or Bedford-Stuyvesant, like Spike Lee. If you have something Hollywood wants, they'll find you.'' Independent filmmaking will be on the curriculum at Mr. Rankin's "Showbiz'' course along with just about every major development in the industry from the silent era, which began just over a century ago, to today's blockbusters.

A slew of guest lecturers will talk on specialised subjects. In the last course Alison Swan discussed the evolution of black cinema; Rev. Alan Tilson of Holy Trinity Church, Hamilton Parish addressed Hollywood's fidelity -- or lack thereof -- to that most filmed of books, the Bible; and Andrew Trimingham, who worked for Joe Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival as a costume designer, gave a characteristically withering appraisal of the liberties Hollywood takes with fashion in historical epics.

Mr. Rankin promises more of the same for this year -- including some big name "guest stars'' from abroad.

"The course promises to be as entertaining as the subject matter,'' he said.

"There really isn't any other business like showbusiness -- and when you stop to think about it, that's probably a good thing!'' Registration for the Showbiz class has started at the Bermuda College. It continues until January 8. The class will run between January 5 and May 1.

TEAMWORK -- Bermudian filmmaker Arthur Rankin Jr. (left) and his American partner Jules Bass.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TREAT -- The animated special Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer is Bermudian filmmaker Arthur Rankin Jr.'s Christmas present to the world. In the New Year he will be offering Bermudians a treat all their own -- a course on the entertainment industry at the Bermuda College.