Youth vs. Experience in New ‘Quiz Kids’ : Television: Afternoon game show on Channel 13 is a 50th anniversary spinoff of radio’s ‘Quiz Kids.’

Shamola Williams, 14, had just blown into Los Angeles from the village of Stone Mountain, Ga. No mere sightseer, she was headed to Hollywood to make some money. Brains got her here, but could she take the pressure?

Whisked to a sound stage at KTLA/Hollywood Center Studios, she was nervous as she waited for the cameras to roll on the set of the new syndicated game show, “The Quiz Kids Challenge.” She was a black girl in celebrity-land for the first time, teamed up with two white boys from L.A. magnet schools in a “Jeopardy!”-inspired game show that tests kids against adults.

When the director yelled “action” on the high-tech set and beaming host Jonathan Prince zeroed in on the contestants, Shamola, who looks like a Hollywood ingenue, suddenly became the epitome of Miss Cool. Her two teammates--short and dark Aaron Tward, 13, from Northridge, and tall and blond Tim Williams, 14, from Santa Monica--were aggressive allies. The three adults arrayed against them had their hands full, barely holding their own.

These competitors are featured at 3:30 p.m. daily this week on the KCOP Channel 13 daytime strip. New contestants appear each week against different adults.

Since this Guber-Peters syndicated show debuted Sept. 10, the kids have been winning 60% of the time in a duel of smarts, speed and strategy. The production is a 50th-anniversary spinoff of the popular “Quiz Kids” NBC radio show from Chicago (1940-53). There were later, short-lived TV “Quiz Kids,” but youth was never matched against experience until now.

Like the successful “Jeopardy!,” you have to know something to win on this show. The questions, from head writer Norm Fox and a half-dozen three-person research squads, are gnarly:

* “There are three South American countries that lie on both sides of the Equator. Name them,” asks host Prince, who is no slouch himself as a cum laud Harvard grad.

* “If physiology deals with man’s body, which ‘ology’ deals with his behavior?”

* “The most powerful weapon is the written word. Which nation invented both paper and ammunition?”

* “What is the shape of a snowflake?”

And so it goes.

(In order, the answers to the above were: Columbia, Brazil and Ecuador; psychology; China; the hexagon.)

You won’t find brighter young role models to endorse the merits of academic excellence than these kids. Winnowed from thousands of candidates in what co-executive producer Julian Fowles calls “a logistical nightmare,” they are the survivors of an elaborate, rigorous testing format conducted by Fowles in schools and cities around the country.

Last week, 600 youths were auditioned in Detroit; six were selected to compete on the show.

Every week, sets of children, with a parent or guardian, arrive at the studio gate. They meet each other for the first time, gobble down a quick lunch, get revved up in the manner of a locker room pep talk by the production’s official cheerleader, contestant coordinator Martha Mayakis, and, in one furious day (usually on weekends), tape five consecutive half-hour shows. The production (one of five new game shows this fall in a market where the fallout is great) is seen in 80% of the nation’s markets, according to co-executive producer Geoffrey Cowan, whose father, the late Louis Cowan, created the original show.

The other executive producer is game show veteran Scott Sternberg, who produced the “Midnight Special” pop music series and who sewed up the deal as executive vice president at Guber-Peters Television.

Nobody denies the “Jeopardy!”-style connection. The co-producer, Jules Minton, was head writer and associate producer of “Jeopardy!”

Fowles and Cowan, who have been nursing the development of “The Quiz Kids Challenge” for three years under their Chilmark Productions trademark, originally piloted “Quix Kids” two years ago at the Disney Channel, but the Disney deal fell through. Now they’re looking for the jackpot.

“Game shows are the biggest crap shoot in TV,” said Fowles, “but the payoff is great.”

Already, said Fowles, Guber-Peters has $10 million invested in the production (which is considered unusually high for this type of venture).

The youths, who represent the top 1% of junior high schools, are recruited from the 9-to-15 age range. Support elements include classroom simulations of the games developed by Lifetime Learning Systems and local scholarship funds.

“These kids are unique role models,” said Cowan, “but they’re not nerds.”

Shamola Williams certainly isn’t. In fact, as an athlete, she could whip most boys. A 110-meter low hurdler in school, she has only lost two races in her life. Raised with a strong West Indian influence by Jamaican parents, she typifies the kind of cross-cultural profile the producers are looking for.

One competitor from Atlanta, from a future week, is 14-year old Meranee Phing, a girl from Thailand who speaks with a Southern accent. Then there’s 12-year-old David Ratajczak, whose father, an economics professor, is a consultant to the government.

This week’s 13-year old Aaron Tward, who goes to Portola Junior High in Tarzana, says that after a day of school, “I like to let my brain deteriorate. I have a lamp and always a book by my bed.” His favorite author is Ray Bradbury and his favorite book is Douglas Adams’ “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to a Galaxy.”

Tim Williams, from Santa Monica’s private Crossroads School, taught himself German but complains that “I have nobody to try it out on.” His favorite book is “Catch 22.” He “piddles around” on his computer after school. His dad, Richard Williams, was director of animation on “Roger Rabbit.”

“What will people be celebrating Jan. 1, 2001?” asks the quizmaster. Tim’s arm whips up. “The new millennium,” he says.

The adults, who must pass the same test the kids take to make the show, look blank. The juvenile brain trust takes the pot.