THE POOF POINT

Marie and Eddie Bicker—who, in The Tiny Parents (1989), rescued their scientist parents after one experiment misfired- -cope with the results of another fiasco in their basement laboratory: though the senior Bickers still have adult bodies, their psyches regress, leaving the kids to deal with progressively helpless (and embarrassing) children in grownup guise. It's a promising idea but, here, clumsily developed. A series of further transformations after the older Bickers make it through the ``poof point'' (when their lives began) without vanishing altogether, and acquire the personas of earlier lives, is overextended; a subplot about an irascible neighbor is largely extraneous; and, worst, the kids are able to save the situation only because a mysterious adult, who by some unexplained power always knows what's happening and telephones in every crisis, tells them exactly what to do. Even the parents' childish squabbling—they live up to their name even in their normal state—is only mildly amusing. Over-contrived and under-funny. (Fiction. 8-11)