NO FEAR FACTOR FOR HIM INSECTS HAVE FREE REIN ON 'BUGGIN' WITH RUUD'.

Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer

Ruud Kleinpaste has giant cockroaches crawling all over his face - and he's laughing about it.

``Bloody hell,'' he screeches from inside a see-through plastic box that encases his head during a taping of a segment for his new TV show, ``Buggin' With Ruud.''

The series debuts Wednesday on Animal Planet and is described by the cable network as ``a global anthropod adventure that uncovers little- known secrets about the insect world and debugs myths about multilegged creepy-crawlie species'' - like, say, the Madagascar hissing cockroaches in which Kleinpaste is up to his eyeballs.

One is even hissing in his ear.

``Oh, I know it's just eating away in there,'' says a creeped-out Craig Meade, whose ``Buggin' With Ruud'' credits include director and producer.

But Kleinpaste is unfazed. He playfully traps a cockroach in his mouth, feigns fear with exaggerated expressions and hisses back at the big, brown insects that number in the 200s.

``What I do with things on my face and all that sort of nonsense is to show people that although the bugs might look gruesome, and people might have an aversion to them, they're not necessarily going to harm you,'' says the 50-something human guinea pig known as ``Bugman'' in his adopted homeland of New Zealand, where he's a celebrity of sorts.

Born in Indonesia to Dutch parents and raised in Holland, Kleinpaste studied forestry, which eventually led him to discover his love of bugs at age 20.

``My best study friend, his father was an entomologist, and he taught us a lot,'' Kleinpaste says. ``We started catching moths and butterflies and identifying them and ... it has been my hobby ever since.''

It wasn't until Kleinpaste moved to New Zealand, however, that he became known for being buggy about bugs.

In 1987, he founded the radio talk show ``Ruud's Awakening,'' the purpose of which was to change people's perception about his beloved insects. And to some degree, it worked.

It continues to be a top-rated show. In fact, it was the model for the TV series that now takes Kleinpaste's advocacy a step further by adding stunts to the mix.

He blacks out in the cockpit of a jet fighter while trying to show how fast a flea jumps.

And he's not even close.

``I was trying to get to 20 G's, where fleas go, and only got to 8 ... because I saw tunnel vision - and then I was gone,'' Kleinpaste says.

He jumps onto an airbag from a 30-foot platform while trying to re- create a dung beetle's unscathed fall from a 100-foot tree.

``If I were to do the same, I would have to fall from 43,000 feet without a parachute and survive the fall,'' he says.

And then there's the stunt in which he covers himself with 50,000 killer bees.

``When the queen goes swarming, she puts out a scent that is very pacifying so that the other bees follow her,'' says Kleinpaste, who during the stunt is smothered in the queen bee's scent.

When it's all over, he suffers only three stings, which under normal circumstances could have triggered an all-out deadly attack.

``It just goes to show that you can be a killer bee all you like, but you still have to respond to the natural scent of your species,'' he says.

Speaking of scents, Kleinpaste says the cockroaches have a ``lovely, sweet'' smell.

``Stand back, Paris Hilton,'' he says. ``This is a smell to market.''

BUGGIN' WITH RUUD

What: Bug specialist Ruud Kleinpaste offers viewers an eye-opening journey into the fascinating world of insects, big and small.

Where: Animal Planet.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays, starting this week.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

(color) ``Buggin' With Ruud'' host Ruud Kleinpaste gives his pet tarantula Dorothy a little face time. There's little he won't do when it comes to educating the public about insects.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer