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

BY ANDY SMITH
Journal Television Writer

Here's a little known fact, courtesy of Carl Reiner: lions have the worst breath of any animal in the world.

How Reiner knows this is not entirely clear, although he did live near enough to the Bronx Zoo as a child to hear the lions roar.

And now he voices a lion, the cranky Sarmoti, in NBC's new animated series Father of the Pride. which starts tonight at 9 p.m. Cheryl Hines plays his daughter, Kate, who is married to Larry (John Goodman).

In a conference call with TV writers, Reiner and Hines spoke about Father of the Pride, which is set in the Las Vegas extravaganza of illusionists Siegfried & Roy. Larry plays the lead lion in the show.

Reiner said he's never met the two showmen or seen their animals; Hines said she has.

Since Father of the Pride was conceived, Roy Horn was mauled by one of his tigers and nearly died. Their show, which had been at the Mirage Resort in Las Vegas for more than 13 years, is now shut down.

Reiner and Hines said Siegfried and Roy themselves were determined that Father of the Pride continue. Siegfried called David Katzenberg of DreamWorks, which created the show, and urged him not to give up on the show.

Siegfried and Roy appear on the show as goofy cartoon versions of themselves. "Their characters are very funny," Reiner said. "The sillier we make them, the happier they are."

(It's probably no coincidence that NBC is airing a show centering on Roy Horn's recovery, called Siegfried & Roy: The Miracle, on Sept. 15. Maria Shriver will interview Horn.)

Whether viewers will be able to get past Horn's injury and embrace Father of the Pride is anyone's guess.

The show has also taken some criticism for its sexual innuendo, delivered in a medium that's bound to appeal to kids.

Reiner said that even if children happen to be watching the 9 p.m. show and ask questions about, say, panda foreplay, it's not the worst thing in the world.

"You better answer their questions, because if you don't, someone on the street will do it for you, and do it badly," Reiner said.

Reiner, a comedy veteran whose career goes back to Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows in the '50s, is probaby most famous as writer, producer and sometime actor for The Dick Van Dyke Show, one of television's classic sitcoms.

He said he was impressed by the quality of the scripts for Father of the Pride, and particularly enjoys playing Sarmoti, a cynical showbiz veteran.

"I'm the curmudgeon in the piece, and the curmudgeons get all the best lines," he said. "It occured to me that it's the lion version of Alan Brady [Reiner's character on The Dick Van Dyke Show]. The writing is extraordinarily good. It's a pleasure to come to work."

Hines said she was approached by Katzenberg to work on the project, and immediately said yes. "I felt like I was about to be part of something really big," she said.

Hines also plays Larry David's wife in the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. Reiner pointed out that she's become the master of dealing with husbands named Larry.

Hines laughed, and said her actual husband is named Paul.

She said working on Pride is a very different experience than working on Curb Your Enthusiasm, on which the situations are spelled out in detail but the lines themselves are all improvised.

On Father of the Pride, she said, the scripts are very carefully written and there is very little deviation from the written word. The voice actors on the show don't work as an ensemble, but record their parts separately in the studio.

"It's the opposite of Curb, where everything is improvised, and it's all about listening to what your scene partner is doing," Hines said. "This is a very different process."