TV Reviews : Goofy Learning on ‘Time Travelers’

The Fox network, which has basked in the critical success of its Saturday morning educational cartoon series “Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?,” today is adding another children’s edutainment program to its weekend roster. Sort of. Actually, “A.J.’s Time Travelers,” a live-action miniseries highlighting historic people and events, will preempt “Carmen” throughout December.

Judging from the series’ first two episodes, it’s not a fair trade.

Not that the ambitious, well-intended new show, which includes brief segments of instructive film footage and animation, doesn’t try hard to mix fun with infobits. It tries too hard.

John Patrick White is A.J., the teen-age commander of a spaceship-style time machine with an unusual crew that includes a wisecracking insect. For conflict, arch-enemy Warp (Larry Cedar) tests A.J.’s newly acquired knowledge after each adventure and threatens dire consequences for a wrong answer.

In the first episode, the great Egyptian architect Imhotep shows up to talk about pyramid-building; in the second, space travel is the subject, with guest Sir Isaac Newton.

Breathless and busy, information whizzes by, delivered with hyperkinetic quips, cartoonish sound effects and forced enthusiasm, eyes and mouths wide, brows raised in perpetual amazement.

And, while the show’s slogan is “knowledge is power,” what are children being taught when historic figures are reduced to capering buffoons? This Imhotep delivers fussy interior decorator tips, and Sir Isaac fares even worse: He’s cross-eyed and buck-toothed and talks around great gobs of partially masticated popcorn.

* “A.J.’s Time Travelers” premieres at 10:30 a.m. today on Fox (Channels 11 and 6).