VIRTUAL VIRTUE

By GINIA BELLAFANTE

No other project could have more effectively balanced PBS' image as an unrestrained purveyor of cultural liberalism. Next week (Sept. 2, 8:00 p.m. edt) the network launches its first-ever animated prime-time series, and it is anything but Simpsons-esque. Based on The Book of Virtues, conservative ideologue William Bennett's 1993 manual for "moral literacy," the series (set to air sporadically throughout the year) aims to illustrate for children and their families the values of perseverance, honesty and self-discipline through the use of mostly well-known myths, fairy tales and fables.

But there's one virtue Adventures from the Book of Virtues does not adhere to: subtlety. Each episode puts little Zach and Annie into some quandary that leads them to seek counsel from a cast of sing-songy animals who barrage them with stories and platitudes intended to persuade the children to do the right thing. "Big or small," a bird instructs before one tale, "promises must be kept."

Fables, by definition message-laden, certainly do not need the extra coat of preachy exposition that this series slaps on so thickly. Worse, Adventures offers some dangerously anachronistic images of gender. An episode preaching the importance of honesty uses a Native American tale in which two elder sisters maim their youngest sibling so that she will not win the heart of an eligible warrior. The older girls are unattractive; the young Morning Light, a goddess. Beauty is virtue, ugliness vice. For that message children can subscribe to Cosmopolitan.

--By Ginia Bellafante