''The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys''

If the Saturday-morning TV audience is half as enraptured by The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys as is the show’s creator, executive producer, and star, Howie Mandel, it’s sure to be a runaway hit. ”Everyone is mesmerized (by the show)…every element of it is extraordinary,” claims Mandel of this new half hour that combines live action, animation, and puppetry. Quite simply, Mandel says, ”there’s never been another show like it.”

Based on the brine shrimp sold in the back of comic books, these ”snot-like…mucous friends,” as Mandel affectionately calls the Sea Monkeys, trot through such adventures as getting involved with a 1-976-DATE line when Mandel — who plays the professor who has created them — leaves them alone in his lighthouse laboratory. Sound like a riot? ”When I read the script I laugh,” Mandel says. ”When I give it to my friends to see if I’m biased…well, it’s really funny.”

Mandel knows what makes kids laugh: Not only does he have two young ones of his own, he has also starred in and produced Fox’s Saturday-morning Bobby’s World for the past three years. ”When I started Bobby’s World, all of a sudden I had fans coming up and tugging on my pant leg,” he says of his small-fry followers. ”It’s such a joy to have that audience.” Mandel believes that ”it’s important to give kids good entertainment.” Exactly what Sea Monkeys will provide is still unclear. It’s ”a homage to those (old) Warner Brothers cartoons” but with a modern edge, Mandel explains: ”It could be the next Ninja Turtles.” Sounds fishy to us.