Focus : Who in the World Is Greg Lee?

Greg Lee did two very adult things last year--he turned 30 and he got married.

But Lee’s the first to admit he’s still really a kid at heart. “I still think I am probably 12 or 13 years old,” explains the effusive host of PBS’ hit kids’ game show “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?”

“That time to me is a time of life which can be really exciting-- finding out who you are and what you are about,” Lee says. “You want to eat everything up and soak everything up. I love that.”

Lee breaks into a wide grin. “My father says, ‘I am glad you finally have a job that matches what you like to do.’ ”

Based on the popular video game, “Carmen Sandiego” acts as a living geography lesson for kids 8 to 13. Lee’s goofy gumshoe helps three young apprentice private eye-contestants track down thief Carmen Sandiego and her band of crooks as they travel throughout the world. Besides delivering tricky questions, Lee dances, raps, delivers corny one-liners and banters and bickers with Lynn Thigpen, who plays his gruff boss, the Chief.

The contestants, Lee says, “are the coolest kids. They have to take a couple of geography tests. We have to screen them to make sure they really know their stuff. It really amazes me how much they really do know.”

Lee isn’t a geography whiz. “My goal for the second season (“Sandiego” premiered in September, 1991) was that I would know every country,” he says, laughing. “I would know where everything was. So I did. And then every morning I would come in and there would be completely new countries. We had countries changing overnight.”

Before each taping, Lee spends time with his young gumshoes. “I think the kids are pretty bright,” he says. “But then when you go into a TV studio, you have about 150 of your peers sitting there and five cameras and a mike. It is rattling to anybody. So I meet beforehand and joke around. To me, kids are like adults who haven’t been here as long. They are not stupid.”

He also tries to soothe the young contestants when they lose. “It is tragic sometimes,” he acknowledges. “They really work so hard. We try to tell them you essentially won the game. My heart really aches for them. (Pre-teen) is one of my favorite, but one of the most delicate, ages. It is a transitional period when you are not a kid any more and you are going to find out what kind of an adult you are going to be. It is easy to be hard on yourself.”

Born in Nebraska, Lee did “a lot of farming” when he was growing up. “When you live in Nebraska, you are at some time going to work with pigs. So I just gave up and said, ‘I will do it every summer.’ So I worked (with pigs) until I was 21.”

At 25, the son and grandson of preachers tried unsuccessfully to break into radio as a deejay in Kansas City, Mo. On a whim, he decided to give New York a shot. “I went out there and waited on tables, was a security guard and a messenger.”

His big break came 18 months later while he was working as a production assistant on a local TV kids’ show, “Dr. Fad.” When the comic who did the audience warm-up didn’t show, Lee filled in. “For some reason, they liked what I was doing,” he says. Soon, Lee began doing warm-ups for adult audiences. “I did that for about a year. I loved it. It was one of the best jobs I ever had. It was a good training ground for me being in front of audiences that many times a day.”

Lee was doing warm-up for “Total Panic,” a now-defunct three-hour, anything-goes weekly series on Nickelodeon, when he was asked to fill in for the host who left the series. “I was sort of standing around and they said, ‘Do you want to try this?’ Talk about ad-lib, that was a good crash course for me.”

Thanks to “Total Panic” and “Carmen,” Lee is often recognized by his young fans. “It’s always funny,” he says. “They will see me on the street and they will look for a while. Especially if I am wearing a suit and a tie, they will recognize me more quickly.”

Lee starts laughing. “Usually, it’s when I haven’t bathed for two or three days or shaved and look nothing like I do on the show, have my cap on and my glasses on-- that’ s when they say, ‘Aren’t you?...’ ”

Fans also try to stump Lee with geography questions. “Even when we have autograph signings, kids will come through (the line) and you know they have been thinking (about the questions) for a long time. They stump me many times.”

When “Carmen Sandiego” isn’t in production, Lee travels the country on weekends doing a modified version at shopping malls. “I think our smallest audience was probably a thousand,” he says. “Our largest was probably 9,000 in Pittsburgh. You just have to talk a little louder. (The kids) are so cool because everybody knows the show and the little goofy bits and they know all of my lines.”

He’s particularly fond of the “junior” gumshoe segment of the live shows. “They have to be under 5,” he says. “If you get them talking about what they know, they will talk to you about almost anything. They will give you an answer.”

Lee breaks into a boyish grin: “I just love that.”

“Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?” airs weekdays at 9 a.m. on KOCE, 4 p.m. on KPBS and 5 p.m. on KCET.