Fans of the 1988 feature film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," and Warner Bros. Animation's 1990s animated series "Tiny Toon Adventures" and "The Animaniacs," are very familiar with the conceit that animated characters are merely actors who go on with their offstage lives just as human performers do.

A similar idea is at work in "Father of the Pride," the new NBC animated series from DreamWorks Animation, which produced the fabulously successful "Shrek" and "Shrek 2" movies (which take fairy tale creatures and give them lives outside of storybooks). The series borrows much of its rich, layered look and three-dimensional computer-animation technology from those films - but aims for a considerably older audience.

"'Shrek' has a lot of great adult humor," executive producer Jonathan Groff says, "but ours is an adult show. We're not trying to make little kids laugh."

Premiering at 9 p.m. Tuesday on Channel 11 (paired with "Scrubs"), "Father of the Pride" follows the offstage lives of the animals that appear in Siegfried & Roy's spectacular stage show at Las Vegas' Mirage Resort. They live in the Secret Garden animal compound on the hotel grounds, which is vastly larger, more elaborate and more populated than the real thing.

At the show's center is a family of white lions: dad Larry (voice by John Goodman), a working-stiff sort; wife Kate (Cheryl Hines), teenage daughter Sierra (Danielle Andrea Harris) and son Hunter (Daryl Sabara). Dropping by frequently is Kate's father, Sarmoti (his name is an anagram for "Siegfried and Roy, Masters of the Impossible," and he's voiced by Carl Reiner), a balding, Rat Pack-esque lion captured in "Ah-frica," who looks down on zoo-bred Larry.

There's also Larry's best pal, the fast-talking gopher Snack (Orlando Jones). Among the other inhabitants are an Indian elephant and his turkey roommate (JUST roommates, he emphasizes nervously), a testy flamingo who insists on "playing the pink card," some hip primates (including a chimp who has a brief, pheromone-driven attraction to Siegfried), and snooty, pampered white tigers Blake and Victoria (John O'Hurley, Wendie Malick).

Also wandering in and out are Siegfried & Roy (voiced by Julian Holloway and Dave Herman), whose flamboyance and eccentricity even exceeds the image of their flesh-and-blood counterparts.

"It's sort of adult," Reiner says. "It's at nine o'clock, thank goodness. Little kids will watch it because it looks cute, lions walking around, but every once in a while they'll say, 'Daddy, Mommy, what's foreplay?' It will give the parents an opportunity to instruct their children about things they don't know, make up a story or tell the truth, depending on how old the child is.

"There's no question about this stuff being funny and well-written. They treat subjects that you would treat with regular people. It's got the writing, the whole package."

"It's a luxury to get a funny script," says Hines, who also stars with Larry David on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." "Oddly enough, both of my fictitious husbands are named Larry. It's a sure sign that I should never have married anyone named Larry, because my TV husbands - no offense - leave a lot to be desired."

"I was blown away," Jones says, "by the idea of doing the sort of animation we've seen in 'Toy Story' and 'Monsters, Inc.' and 'Shrek' on TV. That took a while for me to wrap my head around."

The real Siegfried & Roy show was a particular favorite of DreamWorks co-founder (with David Geffen and Steven Spielberg) Jeffrey Katzenberg, who created "Father of the Pride" and shares executive producer credit with writer Jon Pollack, Groff (who developed it) and Peter Mehlman. Katzenberg loves the stage show so much, he's seen it 14 times.

"They are this combination of genuine brilliance and talent as magicians," Katzenberg says.

In real life, an onstage tiger attack on Roy Horn closed down the show last October, which caused obvious concern at DreamWorks, where work on the series was well under way. But Horn has made a near-miraculous recovery (less from injuries than from a stroke suffered afterward), and gave his blessing to the show continuing. He and partner Siegfried Fischbacher are set to talk to Maria Shriver in a 90-minute special airing this fall on NBC.

According to the producers of "Father of the Pride," Horn's misfortune didn't deter test audiences.

"It needed to be a big deal to us," Pollack says, "because we had to deal with it. But in terms of the show, it was a bigger deal to the press than to the people watching it."

Because of the laboriously slow process of computer animation (a reason why the first season is only 13 episodes total), the show was seen only in partly finished bits and pieces until well into August. Early advertiser reaction was definitely mixed, especially to a taped message from Horn and Fischbacher screened in May at the annual upfront presentation in New York. But in July, when assembled TV critics viewed a mostly completed episode (widely acknowledged as the show's raciest), a good percentage laughed out loud.

Finally, after all the time, work, worry and, last but not least, cash poured into "Father of the Pride," the audience gets to decide. And the show had better perform well out of the box, because only three or four episodes will get a chance to air before NBC must order a second season.

"They're fully expecting," Katzenberg says, "in four episodes, to have confirmed what we believe, which is this is something that's going to work."