‘Doogie’--Crossing the Generations : Television: Neil Patrick Harris takes his lumps as the star of ABC’s high-rated freshman show about a teen-age doctor coping with an adult world.

There’s no new TV show you could call a hit this season--not when the highest-rated rookie, ABC’s “Chicken Soup,” was axed despite ranking 13th out of 92 prime-time series because it was failing to hold on to the huge audience watching “Roseanne.”

But with the demise of “Chicken Soup,” the dubious honor of being the most popular of the freshman non-hits now goes to ABC’s “Doogie Howser, M.D.”--which ranks 23rd among the series broadcast on the four commercial networks this season. It is holding its own on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. against NBC’s “Night Court” and CBS’ “Jake and the Fatman.”

Even marginal success for “Doogie Howser” would be something of a surprise; the quirky comedy from “L.A. Law” co-creator Steven Bochco hardly fits any of TV’s sure-hit formulas. Consider the premise: The show is about a child prodigy (played by Neil Patrick Harris) who becomes a physician at age 16. “Doogie Howser” is also a one-camera, filmed half-hour with no laugh track; the only other survivor of that once-popular format is ABC’s “The Wonder Years” (casualties include “Frank’s Place,” “The ‘Slap’ Maxwell Story” and Bochco’s own “Hooperman”).

Finally, “Doogie Howser” crosses TV’s usually rigid demographic lines by being an adult show about a kid. The show often creates its tension--and its humor--by forcing the naive Doogie into sexual situations of the sort frequently seen in the very-adult “L.A. Law.” The second episode, for example, placed Doogie in the humiliating position of having to give his girlfriend a pelvic exam when she was struck with appendicitis while on a date.

The blend seems to be attracting younger viewers as well as adults, however. Moved from 9:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. after its first two episodes, “Doogie Howser” is increasingly capturing the teen audience of its lead-in shows, “Head of the Class” and “Growing Pains.”

“ ‘Doogie’ has been getting a 42 share (percent of the audience) of teens and young women; what it’s done in the switch (to the new time slot) is significant,” said an ABC spokesman. “The teens used to switch at 9 to ‘Night Court.’ ”

Men between the ages of 18 and 49, the spokesman added, remain split between “Doogie” and “Night Court.”

There is even at least one young “Doogie Howser” fan club--at Ohio University’s Brown Hall dormitory. The club has about 20 members, reports freshman Mikie Kareski of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. At the end of each episode, Doogie makes a journal entry into his computer; the club copies what Doogie writes into its own journal.

“We just like Doogie,” Kareski said. “We thought that it was cute to form a fan club. And we like his friend Vinnie (Max Casella).”

Harris, the bright-eyed, 16-year-old-who-looks-12 actor who portrays Doogie, gives this unscientific explanation of Doogie’s appeal: “The kids who are real immature and like the dirty parts get their share with Vinnie and me. And then, the adults can watch the doctor parts and relate. So everybody’s relating to it on a different level.”

Although the Ohio University fan club is mostly female, Harris said he gets a bigger reaction from teen-age males.

“When I’m driving down the street, they’ll turn and notice me, notice me more than anyone,” he said in a conversation at 20th Century Fox studios, where “Doogie” is filmed. “They’ll say: ‘H-e-e-e-y, Doogie!’ And I also get a lot of it from kids aged 10 or 11.

“Doogie’s a normal kid that’s in an extraordinary circumstance in that he’s a genius, and a doctor. But beyond that, regardless of race or I.Q. or anything, when you go through adolescence, it’s always the same.”

As a child in an adult world, Doogie often finds himself in embarrassing situations; the same is true for the 16-year-old actor playing the scenes. Harris doesn’t mind, however.

“I think that’s fun--the wilder the scripts, the better, the more fun we have doing it,” he said. “Steven (Bochco) stretches it a little bit on some topics, but I think it’s great, I think it’s fun.”

Harris heartily approves of Bochco’s decision to cast a real 16-year-old as Doogie, rather than a 25-year-old who looks young but could legally work longer hours and not require a tutor on the set. “Kids should be played by kids,” he insisted.

Like Doogie, there are real kids who have to function in an adult world--and, suddenly, Harris is one of them.

“Doogie and I both work almost strictly around adults,” he said. “Doogie does have his friends, and so do I, but there is that level of dealing with adults that I do a lot. I have to; I have to make adult decisions, just like he does. There’s definitely parallels. I’m a lot like Doogie.”

If the show does go the route of “Chicken Soup,” however, Harris said he wouldn’t mind going back to his native Albuquerque to enjoy being a kid for a while. For the moment, his parents, both attorneys, have relocated to Los Angeles, but the family still considers Albuquerque home.

And Harris still considers acting “a hobby.” “If (‘Doogie’) is canceled, I can go home, be with my friends, go to football games, be in plays at my high school,” he said.

Harris’ nonchalance about his career may stem from its humble beginnings: Tagging along with his older brother Brian, who was auditioning for a role in his school production of “The Wizard of Oz,” Harris ended up auditioning himself and won the role of Toto in 1980.

Harris continued to appear in school productions, and a teacher recommended that he attend a weeklong drama camp. Playwright Mark Medoff was an instructor at the workshop, where he was also completing the final draft of his screenplay “Clara’s Heart.” After seeing Harris perform, Medoff sent a videotape of him to Warner Bros., recommending he star withWhoopi Goldberg in the role of a troubled child.

Since then, Harris has guest-starred in the series “B.L. Stryker” and “Throb,” along with the made-for-TV movies “Miss Love,” “Leave Her to Heaven” and “Home Fires Burning.”

Harris said that Bochco was looking for a relative newcomer to portray Doogie; he was selected from what he describes as “a huge open call.”

Even if acting becomes more than a hobby, Harris plans to take time off to go to college and study theater. “I like the theater better than film--I like Broadway and stuff, and that’s where I want to focus my talents,” he said.

Under no circumstances, however, will he ever enroll in medical school. Even as research for the series, he has avoided entering any real emergency rooms.

“I hesitate before really wanting to go to a hospital, because from what I’ve read . . . it can be pretty scary and upsetting at times,” Harris said. “I mean, in TV, it’s fake blood. I think I’d be a little intimidated.”