TELEVISION : Suited for the Brain Game : Kids rely on knowledge and high-tech signals to navigate their way to prizes in popular ‘Masters of the Maze.’

They’re poised over their bells. The room gets quiet. The question is read: In “Sleepless in Seattle,” Tom Hank’s character was kept awake by a sleep disorder. Is it called insomnia, Indonesia, or kleptomania?

Ding! “Kleptomania!”

Uh . . . no. Next? “Indonesia?” No. Next?

“Um . . . I don’t remember what’s left.”

Clearly, these are not auditions for “Jeopardy!” But what 10-year-old needs a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax anyway? These kids, ages 10 to 14, are furrowing their brows to get a spot on “Masters of the Maze.”

The kids’ game show is entering its second season on the Family Channel (Channel 47 at 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday). The appeal is different for each wanna-be contestant. Some want to be on TV. Some want to wear the high-tech costume. Some are shooting for every show’s grand prize, a $500 gift certificate to the Sharper Image.

The game works like this: Three contestants get points for identifying pixilated images and answering multiple-choice questions. The first two contestants to rack up 50 points get to race through the maze. Each player brings a helper--a friend, sister, cousin--who steers the contestant through the maze. The helper sits at an electronic console that sends signals to the player’s power suit. The suit vibrates in the direction the player is supposed to go. Whoever gets through the maze fastest is the winner.

“Every kid in the country wants to be in the power suit,” says executive producer Richard Kline. “It’s got lasers. It’s got a helmet camera. . . .” He lists more gizmos than the Apollo 13 crew had. But despite the show’s high-concept style, Kline says, competition is based on the power of knowledge.

Competition is tough; out of the 500 applicants, many recruited at San Fernando Valley schools, only 120 will be on the 40 episodes that make up the season. There’s no secrecy about the criteria: big smiles, high energy, lots of personality. And some brains. The first hurdle is a 25-question test that has to be completed in eight minutes. Then, one by one, the children stand up and offer information about themselves, often organized in a string of “I like” clauses: “I like gymnastics. I like reading. I like my Mom and Dad. . . .”

The contestant coordinators try to be delicate. The test indicates that some children lack the knowledge to compete in the quiz round. Adults, at this point, would be given a thanks-for-playing dismissal. But here, all the children get a chance to speak. And if they get flustered while talking, coordinator Mark Low helps them along with a question or two, such as who will they pick to be their helper?

“This boy named Jake,” answers Danielle Judovits, 10, from Sherman Oaks.

“Is he your boyfriend?” asks Low.

“I wish, “ she responds. Giggles all around.

Bingo. That’s the type of moment that the coordinators are looking for. It doesn’t hurt that Danielle has Opie Taylor freckles, Becky Thatcher braids and a SAG card. She is one of the three or four kids on this Tuesday afternoon’s group of 15 who get a callback. The next Saturday, however, she arrives without Jake.

“See, I couldn’t find his phone number. And then I was going to ask someone else, but he couldn’t do it. And then I was going to ask this other guy, but he’s going to be a contestant. So then I asked her ,” Danielle says all in one breath while pointing to her partner, Allyson Pressman, 12.

The callback is the make-or-break point for kids and coordinators.

Anyone can pick contestants with natural talent or paralyzing shyness.

It’s the in-between types who are hard to read, and if the contestant is a dud, so is the show.

With a camp-counselor voice, coordinator Harv Salsby weeds out the inhibited with a mock tug-of-war as well as a continue-the-story exercise (which starts with a girl abducted by aliens who is turned into a boy, and ends with lots of references to boogers), and a blindfolded trip through a maze of folding chairs.

Still, some kids slip through who freeze up in front of the camera. That’s when game-show producers holler: “WHO BOOKED THIS PERSON!?” explains Salsby. Thus the rigorous audition. “Being a contestant is not easy,” he says. “If they can get through this process, they can do very well on the show.”

Richard Pajooh, 14, got through the auditions with no problem, acing his test. Unlike Danielle, who auditioned the same day, Richard has no entertainment experience. He just moved to Sherman Oaks from South Carolina in March and seemed unaffected by TV fever at his callback. “It looks fun. You get free prizes,” he says. “And you get to be on TV, which is pretty cool.”

He isn’t quite so nonchalant in the dressing room three weeks later after winning the quiz round.

Production stops while he gets wired into the power suit, and because the crew is trying to shoot five episodes a day, everyone’s in a hurry. Richard is already sweating through his spandex before he starts running through the maze.

Though Richard has some trouble in the ice cave--the barrier-filled section of the set’s foam and paint construction filling most of the 65-by-85-foot studio at the CBS Studio Center--Richard makes it through in a time of 3:02.

His opponent, Dwon Smith, is stopped near the end of the maze because of a technical foul-up.

With 2:41 on the clock, Dwon has to hit two targets with his laser gun and run to the top of the mountain. He eeks out a time of 3:01 and walks away with the $500 Sharper Image gift certificate, and a $200 gift certificate for his helper.

Richard may be disappointed, but only in the way that little leaguers are resigned to what may be a bad call by the umpire.

He and his partner each will get $75 gift certificates to the Sharper Image. Which, after all, is better than Turtle Wax.