LOS ANGELES - Less than 10 months ago, Hanson arrived from the middle of nowhere with Middle of Nowhere. The album promptly went to the center of the universe - at least in the hearts and on the shopping lists of pre-pubescent girls, as instant hit single MMMBop triggered teen hysteria unwitnessed since New Kids on the Block excited the neighborhood.

Kid stuff? As if.

Initially derided as bubblegum, the cherubic trio from Tulsa has earned grudging respect from pundits and boomers. VH1, touted as the video channel for discriminating grown-ups, just taped a Storytellers special on Hanson. The 441 critics who voted in The Village Voice's prestigious Pazz & Jop Poll named MMMBop best single of 1997. And while the Spice Girls were Grammy shut-outs, Hanson is up for best new artist, record of the year and pop group performance.

Boy oh boy oh boy.

"It's just an amazing, humbling experience," says eldest brother Isaac, 17. "You think, 'I don't deserve this in the slightest.' We just make music. We cross our fingers and hope people continue to respond to it."

"The thing that blows me away is the sheer energy behind the fan power," says Taylor, 14, the soulful singer and anointed heartthrob (initially mistaken for a girl by some). "It just boggles my mind."

Taylor, Isaac and Zachary, 12, form a semicircle in a hotel suite jammed with camera gear from a previous media incursion. Between snack breaks, fidgeting bouts and Beavis and Butt-head impersonations, they manage polite replies except to questions they consider, like, sooooo boring. Ask them to sum up the past year in a nutshell, for instance.

Zachary: "I personally don't think you can fit it in one nutshell."

Isaac: "Depends on the nut."

Zachary: "Maybe one of those jumbo walnuts."

Taylor: "If you got a big peanut with two compartments, maybe you could squeeze some in both sides. Yes, we've had an amazingly hectic and awesome year. It's just impossible to explain in one sentence."

OK, how about one high point?

"I think the Concorde has been the highest altitude we've reached," Zachary quips.

The Hansons tend to bounce between extremes.

One is goofball juvenilia. Demonstrating the pressure fame brings, Zachary hurls himself to the floor in fake convulsions. Addressing the issue of growing up in the spotlight, Taylor cracks, "Up? Zac has grown sideways 'cause of all those hamburgers." Grilled about leisure activities, Taylor deadpans, "We go to bars and get smashed."

Then there's the worldly sophisticate stance. Zachary embraces the Boy Socrates role. Among his pearls:

"If fans say they don't like us anymore, that's just life."

"It's harder to play music when girls are screaming, but that's just part of life."

"If you are in this life, you are learning, whether or not you're in school."

"We had a tough year, but life is tough."

If the brothers Hanson feign maturity, it's because they're fed up with the media's fixation on their youth.

"I have to laugh when someone asks if we're missing our childhood," says Isaac, noting that they find ample time for in-line skating, arcade halls, movies, parties and hanging out with friends. Zachary continues: "When I turn 16, I can flip hamburgers for 5 bucks an hour, or I can go around the world and perform for thousands of people and make a lot of money. What am I missing?"

Taylor completes the thought: "You can flip hamburgers, save money, go to college and then start a band. We skipped all the in-between."

Isaac, who wrote his first song at age 8, adds: "We may seem young, but we've been doing this for almost seven years. It's a bit scary to look back now. I think, man, I didn't realize how young I was."

David Cassidy is older than their combined ages, but the Hansons are hardly neophytes. Their musical passions were stirred as toddlers and shaped by their parents' Time/Life rock oldies compilation. They honed their choirboy harmonies, penned feel-good pop tunes and picked up instruments - Isaac guitar, Taylor keyboards and Zachary drums.

Before linking with Mercury Records, the threesome distributed two CDs, wrote more than 100 songs and toured regionally, making their debut at a street fair in 1992.

Lawyer Christopher Sabec agreed to be the boys' manager after hearing them sing a cappella. A dozen labels rejected the group, but Mercury talent scout Steve Greenberg signed Hanson after catching an earful at a Kansas state fair.

Middle of Nowhere, recorded in Los Angeles with hip production duo the Dust Brothers, arrived in May and countered the dour vestiges of grunge with a fresh wave of sunny alternapop. The album has sold 9 million copies worldwide, and momentum isn't waning. Gus Van Sant, director of Good Will Hunting and Drugstore Cowboy, directed Hanson's new Weird video. A U.S. tour starts this spring.

"If you make it on the sheer novelty of youth, it's over when youth fades," Mercury chief Danny Goldberg says. "But like Stevie Wonder or Steve Winwood, Hanson can have a long career. They've got great prospects as long-distance runners because they're talented. These three guys sing in beautiful harmonies, wrote most of their album and play their own instruments.

"Though success depends on a certain amount of luck and the mysterious trends in the culture, it would be foolish to bet against Hanson."

The flaxen-haired pop cherubs are the oldest of seven siblings born to Walker, an oil company accountant, and Diana, a former singer. The high school sweethearts, who wed at 19, also have Jessica, 9; Avery, 6; Mackenzie, 4; and infant Zoe.

The ever-present parents "are cheerleaders," Isaac says. "It's remarkable how cool and supportive they are."

The brothers Hanson take pride in their wholesome upbringing. They were home-schooled (and continue to study under Mom's guidance) and raised as evangelical Christians. "Our faith is very important to us," Isaac and Taylor chime in unison. Yet they resent being dubbed America's only dysfunction-free family or, as Entertainment Weekly put it, "the anti-Simpsons."

"That is totally not true," Taylor says. "Everybody argues, everybody fights, everybody has stress. When you have fun or enjoy what you're doing, you have to run with it, because life is a pain most of the time."

Nor do they enjoy being likened to manufactured precursors like Menudo or current competitor the Spice Girls.

"We're known as Ike, Tay and Zac, not Posh, Butter, Spicy and Rare or whatever they are," Taylor says. "They do their thing, we do ours. I think they're cool. To get that successful, they worked their butts off."

Isaac says, "So more power to them."

"I guess you'd have to say more girl power to them," Zachary adds.

Oh, while we're on the subject of girl power . . .

"Girls have a lot of power," Zachary interrupts. "We were smashed against a car once by French girls."

Grrrr. Another evasive tactic. Trained gentlemen, the Hansons don't kiss and tell.

"If we had girlfriends, we probably wouldn't tell anyone," Isaac says.

They make light of the shrieking stampedes that pursue them from hotels to venues. But they don't dismiss them as inconsequential.

"Young girls are the main mass of record buyers," Isaac says.

"Guys just want to sit back and play football and hit each other," Taylor says. "We'll take as many fans as we can get. You never know when all this is going to go bye-bye."