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MTV's newest cartoon, "Spy Groove" (10:30 p.m. Monday) poses the question: Does Generation Y need its own Bond spood? Does the world need another spy show, period?

This bubblegum-colored series offers one up, anyway. Our heroes are the ultra-generic Agent No. 1 and Agent No. 2 (their actual names, a la "Get Smart". This week their job is to save Miami from imminent doom. But like nearly every animated show these days, "Spy Groove" is less story line than pop-culture mural. There are tributes to "Charlie's Angels," the "Batman" TV series and director John Waters (who is the obvious inspiration for tonight's villain).

This thing has the shelf life of strawberries — there's a gag involving an inflatable Ricky Martin doll — which means five years from now we'll still be watching reruns of "Daria" and "Beavis and Butt-Head," but not this.

Educational TV: A three-hour detour

The federal government in 1996 made children's television a priority by encouraging commercial TV stations to broadcast at least three hours per week of educational-informational programming aimed at kids. The good news is that nearly all stations have complied with the three-hour rule. The bad news is that much of what they're airing is hardly academic fare. No "Quiz Kids" or "College Bowl" revivals — instead it's "Hang Time" on NBC, "Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century" on Fox and "Anatole" on CBS.

In its fifth annual survey of the state of children, media and the home, the Walter Annenberg Center for Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania reviewed a sample of educational programs and polled parents and kids. Their results are released today.

Read all about it in my report in today's Kansas City Star

On this date...

in 1983, soap veterans Agnes Nixon and Douglas Marland decide the ABC daytime lineup could use a little "Loving." Lauren-Marie Taylor will be the only actor to remain with the show for its entire run (always near the bottom of the ratings charts), until it is fatally revamped in 1995 as "The City." -- Tom Heald

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