For months before its Sept. 19, premiere, CBS' "Kid Nation" raked in more publicity than any unseen show.

The premise of this Wednesday reality show, which sounds like a cross between "Lord of the Flies" and "Lost," has 40 children, between ages 8 and 15, live in a 19th-century New Mexico ghost town and form a society free of adults.

Since the show was taped earlier this year, the New Mexico state legislature is considering revising its child labor laws, the Internet is abuzz about the show, and at least one participant's parent has filed a criminal complaint.

One child was burned while cooking, and another accidentally drank bleach. The powers behind the show say that could have happened anywhere.

Pundits continue to weigh in on the program's ethics, though ethics so rarely enter the mix with reality shows. Still, these are children, not lovelorn or obese adults, cognizant of their decisions and implications.

Undoubtedly to keep the publicity buzzing, the show remains shrouded in secrecy before its premiere. Though standard to give review copies of TV shows to the press, all CBS would parse out with this was a teaser reel, revealing little.

Here's what we were able to pry out of the show's executive producer, Tom Forman, in an exclusive interview.

Zap2it: How many other adults were on the set?

Answer: Around 250.

Zap2it: Simple math has it that there were at least six adults for each child. That's a stretch from what is being advertised as children alone in the wilderness, forging a society. Who were all these adults, and why were they there?

Tom Forman: Cameramen, sound men, wardrobe, transportation, catering for the crew, two pediatricians, full-time EMS, a child psychologist -- one on [duty] at all times -- a wilderness expert who specializes in taking kids on tour, an animal wrangler, cast associates, producers.

Zap2it: Were you there?

Forman: My job is to circulate through.

Zap2it: Tom, this seems disingenuous, to put it mildly. CBS is promoting this as kids forming a society by their lonesome, and you're saying that the ratio of adults to children is higher than it is in most homes or schools. Which is it?

Forman: Like every reality show, it takes some suspense of disbelief. I think the viewers are savvy enough to know the images came from somewhere.

Zap2it: The show is being touted as some sort of emancipation of the children, but it strikes me that with this army of adults, someone was keeping tabs on the children. Is that correct?

Forman: I wanted a daily update on what each kid was doing.

Zap2it: Eight to 15 is a wide age range. Why mix younger children with teenagers?

Forman: I thought everybody could bring something different. The older ones are more physically strong. The younger, you don't know what they'll come up with. There are exceptional 8- and 9-year-olds.

Zap2it: What are you trying to do here?

Forman: The best reality show is a loud, bold, outrageous idea that is executed really well. That's exactly what I would say. You can't just have a loud, bold, outrageous idea. There's pre-production, editing. We knew it was provocative.

Zap2it: That's an understatement. You have children, some young enough to still sleep with stuffed animals. They're in the middle of nowhere and feeling alone. The few scenes you've shared, we see weeping. What's going on with them?

Forman: It's not man versus beast.

Zap2it: As the mom of two, who fall within these ages, I could not imagine entrusting my children to you or to other strangers, or letting them go off into the wilderness, ostensibly unsupervised. How did you persuade parents to let their children go?

Forman: It was parents who really trusted their children. There are unique kids on the rodeo circuit, kids who take class trips out of the country.

Zap2it: This is not, as far as I can see, a matter of trusting the kids. It is, however, a matter of trusting who is supervising them. And incidentally, international class trips are usually at the end of high school, past your upper age range, and with many chaperones.

Forman: The parents who sent their kids off to the program, a lot of parents know what their kids could do.

Zap2it: How many hours of tape did you amass?

Forman: 5,000 hours.

Zap2it: What did you learn?

Forman: The way kids behaved with each other wasn't any different from what they do on the playground every day.

Zap2it: With all due respect, Tom, I have never seen children forage for food or cook on the playground. Did they shower?

Forman: Every kid took a shower every few days. And the pediatrician would step in and watch the diet.

Zap2it: During the press conference just before this interview, I asked if any of the teens had sex, and you said no. I also asked about drugs. You said there were none. How did you monitor the teens' behavior?

Forman: We policed it the same way every summer camp does.

Zap2it: Did you finish with the same 40 with which you began?

Forman: A few chose to go home.

Zap2it: What was your goal with the show?

Forman: I'm trying to make a show that would really interest everybody that I could. I'd watch it as a 35-year-old viewer of reality television. And as a parent, it gave me insight into children, and I'd watch with my children. And it says something about the world in which we live. Kids wrestle with the hot-button topics.

Zap2it: During the 40 days, were parents notified about what was going on with their kids?

Forman: We had a producer who did nothing but talked to parents. They were called every three days. Messages of love were passed back and forth.

Enter the Zap2it 'Kid Nation' Sweepstakes.