A ‘Parent-Friendly’ Children’s Festival : Agoura Hills: About 5,000 are expected to attend the two-day event, which will include plays, mimes, music and other entertainment.

Zany puppets, mimes, clowns, storytellers, singers, dancers and largerthan-life Victorian pigs, frogs and porcupines--TAFFY, the annual creative arts bash for children of all ages, is back this weekend for a sixth year.

Also known as the Theatre Arts Festival for Youth, TAFFY will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday outdoors on three stages at the sprawling Peter Strauss Ranch in Agoura Hills.

There will be strolling professional performers, arcade games such as Fish Boxing, Dunk the Dweeb and Quench the Queen, expanded workshops in puppet making, poetry and juggling--and a 40-foot nylon whale to crawl through.

And it’s parent-friendly.

“We like to say, ‘The child in you will smile,’ ” said John Wood, who, along with his wife, Pam, produces the festival each year. “We intend to appeal to family audiences. We’ve geared the events from preschool to sixth grade, but we find parents love a lot of these groups too, and they enjoy sharing in their child’s experience of discovery.”

TAFFY is becoming an annual entertainment staple for parents hungry to provide their children with movie and amusement park alternatives. When the nonprofit festival opened in 1984, attendance for both days was a meager 800. Last year, that figure expanded to 4,000. This year, based on the large number of tickets sold already, Wood estimates that at least 5,000 may attend.

The Woods, co-founders of the veteran performing arts group J.P. Nightingale and perennial hosts of the Hollywood Bowl’s Open House summer program, have been part of the children’s arts scene for 16 years. They’ll open and close the festival each day with “stories, songs, rhymes and mimes,” they said.

On the Marble Stage under oak trees, in the Penny Pit Theatre on the green and in the shady hillside amphitheater, some of the Southland’s best-known children’s entertainers will perform, joined by a few visitors from the North.

Silly songsters and storytellers Dan Crow, Peter Alsop, Rob Evans and Courtney Campbell will appeal to funny bones. Joanie Bartels of Discovery Music and Canada’s Bob Schneider and his Rainbow Kids will provide musical insights, while Craig Taubman and his kid-style rock ‘n’ rollin’ Craig ‘n’ Co. appeal to parents and kids alike.

There will be “The Wonderful World of Puppets” with the Jim Gamble Marionettes and “Folk Tales from the Americas,” courtesy of Northern California’s Magical Moonshine Puppet Theatre. A contrast in mime styles can be found in the performances of gentle clown Judy Garret and comic duo Schwartz & Chung, noted for bizarre buffoonery and remarkable physical feats.

The respected We Tell Stories theater troupe presents its “Spirit of Black Folklore” participatory show, and El Grupo Folklorico and Fujima Kansuma Kai celebrate Mexican and Japanese ethnic traditions in dance and song.

Meanwhile, the Taffy Town Players, actors whimsically made up as Victorian-era animals living in the mythical town of Puddledumplin, will guide a treasure hunt, Maypole dances, perform a wedding, hold a rehearsal for “A Christmas Carol” and tell stories.

“Huge Trolls looking like walking Shredded Wheat” will stroll the green, “and Florence Nightingale join nurses from the Children’s Hospital Bear Clinic, where kids can bring their teddy bears and dolls,” Wood said.

The crafts area has almost doubled from last year, to 14 booths and 11 workshops. Young artisans can make masks, banners, crowns and hats, paint shirts, string necklaces, paint faces or try their skill at juggling and music-making.

Children can crawl into Michael Marks’ Inflatable Art--an enormous transparent plastic square--and paint it from the inside.

Evelyn Roth’s Moving Sculpture Society offers its “Nylon Zoo” activity: 50 children at a time can dress up in animal costumes, learn dance moves, “then go into the belly of a 40-foot nylon whale” to hear a variety of storytellers.

Booths will sell food and drink (with profits going to Tree of Life programs to feed the needy), as well as wooden signs, silhouettes and computerized personal books. One complimentary service for parents of soggy babies: changing tents providing free biodegradable diapers.

The event is receiving growing support in the private sector, including a $7,000 contribution from Mervyn’s department stores. It has been awarded a $4,500 city of Los Angeles Cultural Grant. As in the past, free tickets and transportation have been provided for hundreds of disadvantaged and disabled children.

The Taffy Festival is at 30000 Mulholland Highway, Agoura Hills, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets: Adults $9; children 3 to 12, $8, under 3 free. Free parking. For information, call (818) 99TAFFY.