Not Your Standard Christmas Special : Television: Two holiday programs aimed at children are blurring the lines between infomercial and entertainment.

Tricks R Us.

Kids are the currency more than ever this Christmas season as two of the nation’s largest toy retailers are hitting the airwaves with animated TV specials featuring characters either identical to or corresponding to ones that can be bought in their stores.

Toys R Us has purchased a half hour of airtime on stations across the nation, at 7:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving, to air “Nick & Noel,” a half-hour holiday story that animates two new stuffed animals available only at the giant toy store chain. There are two sizes of cuddly Nick the dog and Noel the cat--which are prominently displayed in the company’s 1993 Christmas catalogue--and Toys R Us also is selling a “Nick & Noel” book and tape set and a “Nick & Noel” videocassette.

In other words, TV’s “Nick & Noel” appears to be an infomercial--a program-length commercial--subtly disguised as a TV program.

In which case, said Kathryn Montgomery, president of the Center for Media Education in Washington, “Nick & Noel” may violate limits on commercial minutes in children’s programs, set by the Children’s Television Act of 1990. Those limits are 12 minutes per hour on weekdays, 10 1/2 per hour on weekends. She said that attorneys for the center, a public advocacy group, plan to request a tape of “Nick & Noel” from Toys R Us.

On Dec. 3, meanwhile, NBC will air “The Twelve Days of Christmas” at 8:30 p.m., a half-hour cartoon whose animated characters are linked to an ambitious holiday promotion by Kmart. Executive producer Bert Stratford said Kmart has purchased half of the program’s commercial minutes.

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“These people want to turn the world of children into a giant mall,” charged Peggy Charren, a media consultant who founded Action for Children’s Television. “It’s the beginning of the end of broadcast responsibility to children. I think this is worse than violence on adult television.”

The Toys R Us and Kmart ventures may hike Christmas sales. If so, this trend--an extension of the infomercial revolution that is sweeping through the television industry, providing appealing hard cash to stations in soft economic times--will probably expand even faster.

The main victims would be children. If even some adults have difficulty distinguishing between infomercials and real programs, imagine the task facing the younger set.

To some extent they’ve already faced it in the form of programs such as “G.I. Joe,” the animated kids series that was spun off from the toy, and even with the beloved Barney, whose product spinoffs may outnumber even his words of wisdom. But Toys R Us is now taking the genre to a new level.

“Nick & Noel”-type marketing strategies “confuse selling and entertainment” in the minds of young kids, said Joyce Newman, director of Consumer Reports Television. She is also executive producer of “Zillions TV,” a holiday shopping special for kids (airing at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 27 on KCET-TV Channel 28) that aims to make them smarter consumers.

“It’s really painful for me to see little kids that vulnerable,” Newman said. “It’s unfair to them because they don’t have the tools, intellectually, or the training to judge shows like this. They’re buying the experience. They’re seeing it as something very cuddly.”

Toys R Us spokeswoman Carol Fuller denies that “Nick & Noel” is a manipulative, program-length commercial. “It’s a kids’ cartoon,” she said. “We are trying to do something for family television. I saw it, and it was adorable.”

Which may be one of the dangers, as parents repulsed by TV’s incessant violence seek more serene programs for their kids to watch. “It’s going to be soft and sweet, and parents are going to be susceptible to that approach,” Charren said.

Toys R Us is a toy retailer “being driven by marketing first,” as Newman notes. But Charren puts primary blame for “Nick & Noel” on the stations that are selling time to present it. “They are the villains,” she said. “They have a legal mandate to serve the public.”

Toys R Us spokeswoman Fuller said the “Nick & Noel” lineup included stations in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest TV market, but she declined to say which ones. None of the city’s major network and independent stations reported plans to air “Nick & Noel.” (It is scheduled, however, on KEYT-TV Channel 3 in Santa Barbara, KESQ-TV Channel 42 in Palm Springs and XETV-TV Channel 6 in San Diego.)

Charren advocated that stations accepting “Nick & Noel” run a “commercial” disclosure “on the bottom of the screen in big letters the whole time it is on.” Fat chance.

Nor will NBC run a “commercial” label with next month’s version of the traditional Yule tale “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Although Kmart Corp. spokesman Steve Pagnani said the firm is rolling out a line of spinoff items tied to the show, executive producer Stratford said the show’s characters are different from those being sold by Kmart.

When told what Stratford said, Pagnani responded, “Really? Let me check that out.” He called back later to say that he had learned that the special was related to Kmart toys “only in a thematic sense.”

The animated protagonists of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” are named Squire Hollyberry and Princess Silverbelle. Pagnani had said earlier that the Kmart toys being promoted and sold in conjunction with the special are named Squire Very Merry and Princess Merrybell. They were developed, he said, by Those Characters From Cleveland, the American Greetings Corp. subsidiary behind the blockbuster Strawberry Shortcake doll line.

Pagnani said that the two toys tied to the special will be available in plush and vinyl versions, and that stores will also be selling children’s clothing, infant sleepwear, candy, Christmas ornaments, stockings and gift wrapping tied in with the characters.

Nonetheless, he agreed with Stratford and Rick Gitter, NBC’s vice president for advertising standards and program compliance, that “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is not a program-length commercial.

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Stratford said that he and his partner, the late Romeo Muller, were approached two years ago by Those Characters From Cleveland to submit ideas for “a merchandising campaign for Christmas.” He and Muller (who had previously written TV versions of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman” and “The Little Drummer Boy”) came up with a concept for “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

“It was pitched to Kmart by Those Characters From Cleveland as a promotion for Kmart,” he said, “but when we went back to NBC, they said we would have to change the characters and the names, and we did.”

NBC’s Gitter said that he hadn’t seen the special, but that even if there were “some similarity” between its characters and the Kmart toys, he wouldn’t regard that as “terribly significant.” NBC’s intention, he said, was “to ensure this wasn’t a 23-minute commercial. And based on the information we have, it isn’t.”

On the other hand, notes Charren, “anyone who thinks the differences are enough should reflect on the fact that half of the program is paid for by Kmart.”

And anyone who thinks that NBC can’t be corrupted just a little bit should note its plan to preempt “seaQuest DSV” on Jan. 23 for something titled “Treasure Island: The Adventure Begins.”

Just who is raking in the most treasure remains to be seen.

NBC spokeswoman Pat Schultz confirmed that Mirage Resorts has paid NBC about $1.7 million for the hour, and that “Treasure Island” is set at Mirage Resorts’ Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas.

The hour will not carry a “paid-program” label, she said, because “it’s a family special, an action-adventure type story, an hour of entertainment.”

One that promotes the hotel? “I actually couldn’t answer that,” Schultz said.

Mirage Resorts can.