The Apples in Stereo are a band just crying out to be made into a Saturday morning cartoon. Though they are vaunted by the indie rock press, their onstage personae owes more to the clean-cut, happy-go-lucky world of Hanna-Barbera than the smoldering thrift-shopping superciliousness of indiedom. Their records bear playful titles like "Tone Soul Evolution" and "Fun Trick Noisemaker" and bespeak a sixties revivalist impulse that hearkens more to the simple pleasures of the Beach Boys and Paul Revere and the Raiders than the proto-postpunk of the Velvet Underground. At their performance at the Theatre of Living Arts tonight, four of the five band members sported what looked to be vintage adidas, but they also wore conservative button downs, or in the case of the Schneiders (drummer Hilary and ringleader Robert), simple maroon pocket tees.

When we called ahead to find out about ticket availability, the operative at the TLA box office mocked us for even considering that it might be wise to purchase tickets in advance: who wants to see a bunch of no-name 60's rock revivalists on a Wednesday night. Indeed, when we strolled out onto the venue's concrete floor at about half-past-eight, the crowd was sparse indeed. But varied: the audience ranged from clusters of indie kids in light-weight jackets and black skirts (one even had a skinny tie) to a middle-aged Indian fellow with thick glasses and a Tone Soul Evolution T-shirt who waddled up to the front of the stage to a dancing cardboard robot. And by the time Robert Schneider had finished fiddling with his "sixty-five distortion pedals," the rest of the band had finished debating the best spot on the floor to stick the setlist, and the Apples kicked into a little instrumental snippet by way of introduction, the crowd was thick enough for Schneider to remark ingenuously: "oh, you guys rule. Thanks so much for coming to see us."

Robert (let's dispense with the formality) beams and says "thanks so much, you guys" as though he were a kid brother finally allowed to tag along with big brother and friends, or a schoolyard nerd being let off easy by the neighborhood bully. Beginning to bald and slightly paunchy, with his neatly clipped bright red beard, he is at once childlike and fatherly. Actually, he is a father: that was obvious when he picked up his water bottle after the first tune and mumbled something about a "drinky-poo." When we talked to him after the show, he apologized that he couldn't stay long enough for a more formal interview because he had to get back home to his eight-month old. (He did stick around long enough to show us a picture of Max, and he promised to kiss him goodnight for us.) Hilary looks similarly parental (she reminded me of my high school health teacher.) She wears a perpetual grin, and her Ringo-ish drumming doesn't get more complex than the sixteenth-note hi-hat groove on the tune "Go."

That song is the opening track on their most recent, most accomplished album, "Discovery of a World Inside the Moone" (SpinArt 2000.) Also their worst title, but what do you want? They played five songs from that album Wednesday, mixed in with older tunes from "Tone Soul" and a hefty dose of material that was unfamiliar to me. "Discovery" is a perfect encapsulation of their sound as captured on record: chunky strummed guitars with block chord riffs, winsome melodies textured with shimmery moogs and hammonds, punctuated with harps and tambourines, cheerful horns and chiming harpsichords. Idyllic lyrics about rainbows, streams, golden afternoons, bird singing in trees, and of course submarines. The Beatlesque-ness is inescapable, as is the cartoon-like quality I mentioned earlier.

In live performance, the sound is a little different. Gone is the psychedelic experimentalism of their brilliant mini-album "Her Wallpaper Reverie." Gone is the plaintive balladry of tunes like "The Afternoon" from "Discovery." The cartoonishness is still there, but it's less Alvin and the Chipmunks and more Josie and the Pussycats. Less George Martin orchestral excess and more stripped-down pop nuggets. Less twee and more noise. A lot more noise: I was wearing earplugs, but the amps were cranked up so loud that I could hardly tell. When I experimented with removing the plugs, it was hard to distinguish between chords. Most of the band members had earplugs as well - keyboardist Chris McDuffie, whose contributions were all but drowned out, had bright orange ones - but it was clear that they weren't some bunch of staid tetragenarians. They were there to rock.

And rock they did. Perhaps most of all when their hour-and-a-half-plus set finished and they came back on for an encore. Robert flashed us a peace sign and muttered "shucks," and the band burst into a thrashing version of the Beach Boys classic "Heroes and Villains." Not so coincidentally, perhaps, the Apples recorded that song for the Saturday morning cartoon series the Powerpuff Girls. (As guitarist Eric Allen told us afterwards, the show's producer just happened to be a fan of their music, so he called them up, and the band ended up gaining significantly in notoreity.) After thanking the opening acts, the venue, and the cardboard robot from space that was in the crowd, the ever-paternal Robert stood on stage and regarded his fans adoringly. "I love you guys," he said. Just think how embarrased Max must feel.