Heidi Klum hangs with 'Seriously Funny Kids'

They are the lines that, decades after they're uttered, continue to crack you up.

Maybe it's when your son, upon whom you have pinned such high hopes, says he wants to be a dolphin when he grows up. Or when your daughter, looking angelic, asks your husband's boss why she's a hooker.

Children are funny, as Lifetime intends to remind us, in "Seriously Funny Kids," premiering Tuesday at 9 p.m. Since early television, many - notably Art Linkletter and Bill Cosby - have had hilarious chats with children.

Lifetime is betting on Heidi Klum, supermodel and host of "Project Runway," to do the same. The knockout Klum has graced the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and strutted in Victoria's Secret fashion shows. Yet she is also the mother of four, all younger than 6, and she knows how funny kids can be.

"It is light and fun and crazy," she says of the show. "There are a lot of commercials on my show, and basically I am interviewing the children, and there's some hidden camera stuff, so it is a mixture of different things. We do a skit where I have a giant booger shoved up my nose."

Kids will do commercials the way actors in the 1950s did. Viewers will send in videos and still photos.

Klum and executive producer Eric Schotz stress that although it is a show featuring kids, it is not a kids show. There is no set format. Some half-hour episodes may feature 20 snippets and others fewer. The crucial aspect is to allow kids to be themselves.

SEE PHOTOSSupermodel Heidi Klum

"There is nothing for grown-ups about kids," Klum says. "It is such a fun and happy thing to watch kids speak their mind."

Klum dances with every child on the show, though Schotz explains dancing is expanded to include basketball, karate and all forms of movement.

"I have learned a lot of new dances. The hit-the-golf-ball dance and reel-the-fish-in dance. We used to do the stir-the-cabbage-in-the-pot dance," Klum says of her childhood in Germany.

Between Klum and her husband, R&B artist Seal, he's definitely the funnier one, she says. "Just because of his looks," Klum says. "He is so tall and looks very rugged. He's a tall rock star with leather pants and a leather jacket, and he is on the floor and they do hop-on horsey. It looks pretty funny to me."

Klum, naturally, knows how to talk to kids, and she remembers the indignity of adults talking down to them. "I talk to them like people, and I don't treat them like children," she says.

As such, a 4-year-old explains aging. "She says when you laugh a lot and have so much fun, you get wrinkles that go around the eyes, and the gray hair is when follicles lose color," Klum says.

She asks the usual, including what they want to be when they grow up, but also asks, "What is the meaning of life?"

"Some say there is no meaning," Klum says. "Some say you are there to have fun and grow up and have a family. I am always interested to see what point of view a child has."

As any parent knows, kids don't censor themselves, which Schotz appreciates.

The new series rides on the shoulders of old shows such as the 1998-2000 revival of Linkletter's series "Kids Say the Darndest Things" (which Schotz helped produce). A child proved that title remains true during a recent taping for "Seriously Funny Kids."

Klum asks, "Where do we come from?"

Schotz quotes the boy: "Well, Jesus took a potato and made man."

Art Linkletter was the darnedest host

BY FRANK LOVECE, Special to Newsday

There's an Art to talking to kids - Art Linkletter, who pioneered the cute-'n'-convoluted, out-of-the-mouths-of-babes format with his 1945-1967 radio show "House Party"; his prime-time "Life With Linkletter" on ABC (1950-1952); and his long-running CBS daytime show "Art Linkletter's House Party" (1952-1969, retitled "The Linkletter Show" for its final season).

Amid the chat, quizzes, household tips and audience participation portions, Linkletter, who died in May at age 97, made broadcasting history with his segment "Kids Say the Darndest Things." Asking innocent leading questions of an estimated 23,000 schoolchildren throughout the years, he elicited answers both heartfelt ("What does your mommy do?" "Nothing, she's too busy having babies") and heartbreaking ("If you had one wish, what would it be?" "Daddy back from heaven").

The segment spawned two books, "Kids Say the Darndest Things!" and "Kids Still Say the Darndest Things!" - both with rare non-"Peanuts" illustrations by Charles Schulz and the first with an introduction by Walt Disney - and proved enduring and endearing enough that in 1990 it was part of the syndicated revival "House Party With Steve Doocy," starring the future Fox News Channel morning-show co-host.

More prominently, it became the whole point of CBS' "Kids Say the Darndest Things" (1998-2000) with host Bill Cosby. Linkletter would drop by to introduce clips from his classic show, and the series brought back some of the now-adult original kids to reminisce - though doubtless they could never come up with comments half as good as what they'd say when they were 6.