NEW YORK -- PBS this weekend launches 'Don't Look Now,' a comedy series creator Roger Price believes can fill the entertainment gap for youngsters who are too old for kiddie shows, but still too young for many adult programs.
Price is quick to say that the live program starring 11 'ordinary' youngsters from the Boston area is entertainment, not educational TV.
'We're doing an entertainment show for kids,' Price said. 'The humor is basically relevant to the life experiences of children ages 7-14. Mainly because there isn't enough of that kind of stuff on television.'
And to hear Price and co-creator-director Geoffrey Darby give their animated descriptions of the program, it sounds like rollicking good fun - sort of Monty Python makes its daytime debut.
Price and Darby, both Canadians, came up with the idea about 9 months ago and Dighton Spooner, executive producer at WGBH-Boston, went to work with them on raising money and finding the talent.
'The idea is not to make an educational program at all,' Price said. 'It's just to fill a gap and provide an entertainment program, which is stimulating and innovative, but not going to suddenly break out in letters on the screen -- teach them how to spell or read, count to 10 or how to brush their teeth.'
Price said the programs, which premiere Sunday, will be concerned with the things that 90-95 percent of the kids in America are concerned with -- school, home, peer group relationships, video games, fast food.
'Not drugs and stealing radios so they can feed their habits, as sociologists and the media would have us believe,' he said.
'Whenever you read about kids, generally, you get the impression that what's going on out there is we're growing a wild tribe of vandals,' Price said.
'But what most American kids are concerned with is, 'I didn't finish my homework last night, how am I going to get away with it? How can I get my parents to let me stay out a couple of hours next Thursday because of the party, or how can I get an extra $5 next week?''
The comedy comes when the kids manage to score off authority -- get away with not doing their homework or get permission to stay out late.
'We're not overthrowing authority anymore than if you get away with not paying a parking fine you're overthrowing the city of New York,' Price said. 'You're just like... getting away with it.
'And that's what comedy is about. It's about the little tramp's triumph over authority,' he said referring to Charlie Chaplin's character.
'We're not challenging the exitence of authority. We're offering kids some sense of wish fulfillment, some sense of relief. For a moment they can laugh at their situation, which really is somewhat subservient.'
Price said the youngsters on the show achieve things kids would like to achieve but usually don't succeed in doing -- like putting one over on the teacher:
'Paul, are you the teacher in this class or am I?
'You are.
'Then stop talking like an idiot. Eh, let me rephrase that.'
Spooner said WGBH distributed fliers saying it was looking for 15 youngsters to do a television series and more than 200 showed up for auditions.
'We got a bunch of kids who up to a few weeks ago were ordinary, never been on TV,' Price said.
The station provided a drama instructor for the youngsters and Sunday they make their debut live on 280 PBS stations.
Spooner said that as far as the taped segments have gone, 'Kid mistakes are probably at best a third of why we have to do a second take. Technical things are probably two-thirds of it.'
Darby said that while directing, he gives the youngsters as much range as possible.
'You try to make the whole day in the studio a lot of fun,' he said. 'You try as much as possible to remove the pressure from them. They don't need extra pressures.
'It's different than directing adults, very different,' Darby said.
The students have Monday off -- not from school, but from making the show.
The remaining weekdays they work a couple hours after school each day and then spend Saturday and Sunday in the studio.
But all in all, Price said, 'It's not a particularly onerous job.
'When they arrive, there're snacks laid out for them -- cookies, cakes, fruit -- which they spend 15 minutes demolishing, telling each other what kind of a school day it's been.'
'They work, get on their bikes, and head home.'
