NEW 'SESAME STREET' EXHIBIT A HIT WITH KIDS.

Byline: Alex Dobuzinskis Staff Writer

BURBANK - With Cookie Monster eating more wholesome snacks and celebrities such as Alicia Keys and Joe Torre sharing ``healthy moments'' with viewers, some adults who grew up with ``Sesame Street'' may wonder what's happening to their Muppets.

But for more than 100 children who recently got a sneak preview of an exhibit on the human body - featuring Grover, Elmo and other ``Sesame Street'' characters - the show's new health kick is just plain fun.

The 7,000-square-foot exhibit, created by Burbank-based Thinkwell Design & Production and Sesame Workshop, offers a variety of interactive experiences.

One area allows children to press the keys of a musical organ to hear presentations about human organs. In another area, dancing and jumping around is encouraged by a disco-crazed Grover on a giant video screen. Yet another area lets children take a trip through a miniature grocery store, picking up plastic fruits and vegetables on their shopping list.

``It's kind of like the big World Book Encyclopedia blown up and three dimensional. And you get to touch it,'' Joe Zenas, chief operating officer and executive producer for Thinkwell, said during a recent tour of the ``Sesame Street Presents: THE BODY exhibit.''

The exhibit, which took more than a year to create, begins touring science museums next month. It opens May 14 at the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix and is just one component of the ``Healthy Habits for Life'' initiative recently rolled out by the nonprofit organization that produces ``Sesame Street.''

``We take on initiatives from time to time that address specific issues. But this is one that we've been working on for a year and a half to launch and to make a big deal about it,'' said Peter van Roden, vice president of themed entertainment for Sesame Workshop.

For Burbank's Thinkwell - which started four years ago in Pasadena and moved to the city about a month ago - aiming the exhibit at the museum market was a new venture.

The 15-employee company previously has worked on several theme park projects including an attraction based on the ``Ice Age'' movie that recently opened at Movie Park in Germany. Current projects include a water show expected to open next year in Atlantic City.

But working on the ``Sesame Street'' project had some special rewards, said Cliff Warner, chief executive officer and executive producer for Thinkwell.

Before it was taken down last week to prepare for its tour, several groups of children were brought in for special previews of the exhibit - designed for children ages 2 to 8 - to see whether it was both fun and a learning experience for kids about health and the human body.

``To watch that freedom of play is very exciting,'' Warner said. ``When we do these attractions, when we finally get to open it, is usually when we get that excitement.''

Zenas said the previews seemed to show the exhibit's success. He said one mother who toured the exhibit with her 5-year-old daughter used a pump-up display of the human lungs to explain the girl's asthma to her. He said another girl learned at the exhibit that her heart was in the center of her chest - not off to one side.

Betsy Maiden, a teacher at Carpenter Avenue Elementary School, was among those who got a preview, bringing her first-grade class to the exhibit.

``They got to make their own choices of food and that was a real hit,'' Maiden said. ``They entertained themselves all the time. I mean they didn't want to leave when we left.''

Alex Dobuzinskis, [phone]

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

(1 -- 2) Peter Van Roden, left, vice president of Sesame Workshop themed entertainment, and Joe Zenas, executive producer of ``Sesame Street,'' meet in the Elmo's Vacation part of ``Sesame Street Presents: THE BODY exhibit,'' above. Below, a section of pipes and other apparatus, below, shows the way the human body handled digestion.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Special to the Daily News