In 'Jungle Girl,' engaging Bindi keeps the Irwin name alive

It was apparently decided long ago that Bindi Irwin, a crimp-haired 8-year-old from Australia, would be a prominent part of her father's "Crocodile Hunter" television empire. Plans for "Bindi the Jungle Girl," a children's wildlife show on Discovery Kids, were underway well before Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray in September. He had been filming portions of the show, climbing trees with orangutans and posing with his daughter beside a gorilla skull on the treehouse set.

So by the time the voice-overs were recorded, another decision was made: to keep Irwin alive for the purposes of children's TV. In this series, which airs Saturdays at 5 p.m., Bindi always refers to her father in present tense, as in, "Just like me, my dad loves pandas!" She perches on his shoulders and talks cheerfully about his handling of dangerous beasts. It's like Natalie Cole, singing duets with her father. Or Ted Williams' head, awaiting resurrection as his children look on proudly.

Psychiatrists might have a field day with this state of affairs, but Bindi seems, on camera at least, to be happy -- or, perhaps, to be happy as long as she's on camera. It's clear, at any rate, that she has long lived in a fantasy world of her parents' making, based on the values of affection for wildlife, love for publicity, and fabulous denial. Between the series and its website, we learn that Bindi is home-schooled, sleeps with a snake, and has spent her youth traveling the world, used as a prop from her earliest days in TV shows and promotional shoots. And in "My Daddy the Crocodile Hunter," a related Animal Planet special that airs again tomorrow, we learn precisely how much her father liked -- and anticipated -- being filmed.

The special tacitly -- if gently -- acknowledges Irwin's death, daring to use the past tense: "What a time we had, me and dad," Bindi sings a couple of times. But really, it's a tribute to the calculated use of (professionally filmed) home movies. "Thank goodness we have stacks of video from my early years," an upbeat Bindi tells the cameras, as if it's some sort of happy accident, but the fingerprints of design are everywhere.

In some of the special's earliest scenes, a camera follows pregnant Terri Irwin and her husband to the hospital, and Steve Irwin spins a charming, uninformed explanation of the machine measuring his wife's contractions. At another point, Terri Irwin congratulates her toddler daughter on her 231st airplane flight.

And we see that the Irwins, who made their fame and fortune on getting too close to dangerous animals, didn't exactly shield their daughter from their line of work. "It certainly could deliver a fatal bite to me, Terri, and Bindi!" Steve Irwin says of a poisonous snake in close proximity to his wife and baby. (Cameras also once caught him feeding a 13-foot crocodile while holding Bindi's then 3-month-old brother, Robert. The attendant uproar is not covered in the special.)

What sort of child emerges from this sort of upbringing? One who turns out, unsurprisingly, to be an engaging TV host. On her Discovery Kids series, Bindi speaks with a sweet lilt, sings in tune, and seems eminently comfortable handling snakes and other creatures. Yes, she smiles a little broadly when discussing endangered species, but she makes a convincing case for loving both the animal kingdom and the glare of the klieg lights. She has inherited her father's talent for TV, along with his team of producers.

The children's show is manic, in a "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" sort of way. Bindi has a lot to do, between introducing us to her array of pet snakes, answering reader questions, and performing choreographed routines with a team of fly-boy dancers called the Crocmen. (They're supposed to invoke the Wiggles, it seems, but they reminded me a little too much of the "Hot Cops" on the late sitcom "Arrested Development.")

What sort of childhood this represents is up for debate, though you'd be hard-pressed to find an 8-year-old who didn't want to live at a zoo and ride on the backs of elephants. At any rate, the Irwin franchise shows no sign of slowing. Terri and Bindi also share hosting duties for "Planet's Best," a Sunday night series of reruns of Animal Planet greatest hits.

Steve Irwin, it seems, will be with them all the way, living on in video that is both opportunistic and heartbreaking. When he plays with Bindi and Robert, in the children's show and the special, it's clear that he was a loving dad. And it's clear that he would have embraced this sort of voyeurism. The family that's filmed together stays together. Forever.

Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. For more on TV, go to viewerdiscretion.net.