09:53 AM EDT on Tuesday, August 31, 2004

BY ANDY SMITH
Journal Television Writer

NBC's new animated series Father of the Pride, which debuts tonight at 9 p.m., has two big problems. Problems, alas, that are too large for even a cartoon lion to overcome.

Problem Number One is that real life has made a traumatic intrusion into the fantasy world created by the DreamWorks animation team responsible for the show.

Father of the Pride is set at Siegfried & Roy's Las Vegas extravaganza, and stars the animals who perform with the famous illusionists.

OK, interesting concept . . . until Roy Horn was mauled by a tiger last October and nearly died. Their show has been shut down ever since.

Maybe viewers can get past that. I can't help thinking it casts a macabre pall over the show. There's something downright weird about seeing the cutesy, hyperactive Siegfried and Roy cartoon characters bickering and bouncing around the screen.

The second problem with Father of the Pride is a strange disconnect between presentation and content.

NBC Father of the Pride, a new NBC animated series which debuts tonight, explores the off-stage lives of white lions who perform with Siegfried and Roy.

The show has lots of cute animals -- lions, tigers, pandas, gophers, monkeys -- rendered in computer animation by the same team that did the wildly succesful Shrek movies. (NBC has not exactly been shy about bringing up the Shrek connection.)

Perfect for the kids, right?

Think again.

Pride is aimed at grownups, with plenty of sexual innuendo. It's going to take a lot of explaining if you happen to be watching with an eight-year-old.

In the first episode, for example, Larry the Lion (John Goodman) finds out that wife Kate (Cheryl Hines) is in heat. He rushes home for some leonine love.

"Hey, big daddy's home, and he's ready for lovin'," Larry announces. "It may be 9 o'clock in New York, but right here it's mountin' time."

Mountin' time?

Turns out Larry's needs have to wait while Kate comforts a depressed panda (Lisa Kudrow) who's fearful she'll never get a man . . . er, a male panda. After all, they are going extinct.

And then there's Carl Reiner, who plays Larry's sardonic father-in-law Sarmoti.

In the second episode, which centers around a Siegfried & Roy appearance on the Today show -- a little blatant cross-promotion for NBC -- Matt Lauer plays himself. Katie Couric does not appear but Sarmoti's got her figured: "Katie Couric's got that good-girl-but-probably-wild-in-the-sack thing goin' on," he says.

No doubt Couric is thrilled to be a crude punch line in a cartoon.

Father of the Pride looks cool, and an occasional line does draw a smile. But it's too smutty for kids, and not funny enough for grownups.

I've seen Shrek. I liked Shrek. As a matter of fact, I've seen both Shreks. And this, my friends is no Shrek.