Bodily functions at the Discovery Science Center? It helps to be a kid

In case you grown-ups missed it, there came a point somewhere between the advent of Nickelodeon’s awards-show slime and Eddie Murphy’s transition to PG-rated movie star that goop and flatulence stopped being objectionable material and transformed into the stuff of family fare.

This revolting development may be extremely depressing to you, but kids love it -- and, it turns out, so do the folks who run newfangled science museums. Santa Ana’s Discovery Science Center, an institution that knows shtick from Shinola, rather proudly presents Animal Grossology, an exhibit that opens Friday and runs through Sept. 7. Science Center spokesperson Julie Smith rather proudly brags that the “yuckiest creatures on Earth” will be featured. Entrails and feces and blood -- oh my!

“Slime is yucky, but it’s a very important part of how some animals move,” she says.

Smith, who somewhat awkwardly insists that she works hard to “remove myself from the poop part of it,” explains that an incidental-seeming education will be transacted at Animal Grossology. While young museum-goers engage the interactive exhibit Party Pooper, they are actively discovering -- for disgusting example -- what’s on the menu for beetles. The Slime Game, Tapeworm Tug and Dungball Rally are other titles that are bound to please . . . if you are 9.

The exhibit revisits the spirit of Sylvia Branzei’s 1996 children’s book “Animal Grossology: The Science of Creatures Gross and Disgusting.” Branzei’s work is in itself highly interactive, aided by Jack Keely’s over-the-top illustrations and a structure that allows recipes, jokes and tongue-twisters to lie side-by-side. Discovery Science Center’s take on Animal Grossology was produced by Advanced Animations, a Vermont company that has contributed works to popular Universal Studios rides (E.T.’s Adventure, Men in Black) and FAO Schwarz stores -- not to mention an earlier touring exhibit based on Branzei’s “Grossology” series.

“Exhibits like Animal Grossology are neat scenes, and then the children learn all of the science that they didn’t necessarily expect to learn,” Smith explains. “Our whole point is the entertainment component. Kids want to be wowed.”

Wowed by innards, waste and stuff that comes from all of God’s creatures’ orifices, it should be noted. Everything but the earwax.

But it doesn’t take a child to be wise to the fact that how a male Darwin’s frog gives birth -- storing eggs in his vocal sacks and burping them out -- is flat-out interesting. And, be grossed out all you want, but the Transfusion Confusion showcase material is bloody interesting, especially if you stay up nights wondering how mosquitoes spread the West Nile virus.

“I’m the most squeamish person. I’ve been almost dreading Animal Grossology,” Smith admits. “I have a 1-year-old at home that I’m raising, and we haven’t gotten to that stage -- yet. [But] kids like talking about pooping and farting and barfing. It’s just hilarious to them.”