KIDS / SNEAK PEEK : KIDS FREE-WHEELING AND PG IN FREEZONE.

Go ahead and try it. Try and say something dirty. Try cussing and cursing and being nasty while logged into FreeZone, a kid-friendly Internet site and community.

You'll be sorely disappointed, potty-mouth.

Unlike many chat rooms on online services such as America Online and Compuserve, where any sort of conversation can go, FreeZone makes sure the talk stays at a PG-rated level. The site, run by a Chicago kid-stuff company called Curiocity, which also publishes a gee-whiz newsletter called Brainstorm, goes to great lengths making sure their 7-and-up readers don't face the Internet's ugly side.

``I think a lot of kids feel safe there,'' says Dan Gilbreath, a chat room monitor. ``They talk about going into other chat rooms and seeing sexual language and being solicited to go into private chat rooms.''

Staffers such as Gilbreath, 26, always join and monitor conversations to make sure topics don't stray into the foul, the violent, the insulting.

Plus, a computerized word filter instantly recognizes naughty lingo and replaces it with something surreal and harmless. Chit-chatters trying to type bad language will see on the screen, instead, stuff like ``Kiss my cutie'' or ``Smurf you.'' The filter even recognizes clever alterna-cusses kids have tried, like ``ss.''

Gilbreath, who joins the chats from his Seattle home, likes to keep the subjects fun, too, sometimes starting food fights (``dan gets a Jell-O banana pie in the face'') and helping kids with their homework and problems, while not going so far as to give advice.

``We offer a teen chat room a couple of nights a week where some topics aren't so taboo,'' he says. ``They'll talk about sex in school, for example, as long as it's done tastefully.''

Of course, FreeZone has more than chat. Kids can learn trivia about, like, the brain and stuff, enter short-story contests and explore a fictional place called Mooselandia, inhabited by a guy named Mooselips.

Membership on the site, http://freezone.com, is free. Just watch your smurfing mouth.

This doll's life: You shouldn't give up on dolls just because you didn't get a Tickle Me Elmo. Or because a Cabbage Patch Kid ate a chunk of your hair. Maybe it's time to step back from the toy aisle and see how lifelike, how intricate, how artistic a doll can be at the new exhibit at the Carole & Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures and Artist's Doll Gallery. Artist Anne Mitrani's eerily real showcase ``Members of the Wedding'' joins hundreds of other dolls this month at the museum, 5900 Wilshire Blvd. Admission is $5 for kids under 12, $6.50 for students and $7.50 for adults. Call [phone].

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Photo: (1) Along with chatting, kids visiting the FreeZone can explore a place called Mooselandia, home of a guy named Mooselips.

(2) Artist Anne Mitrani's lifelike dolls are showcased in ``Members of the Wedding'' at the Carole & Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures and Artist's Doll Gallery.