PHP serialize wont work?

[hiberphoptik]

trying to serialize an array and pass it in a form post but my simple test wont work

<?
$var1 = "hank";
$var2 = "bob";
$var3 = "joe";

$test = array($var1, $var2, $var3);

$serial = serialize($test);

echo "serialized array is $serial";
?>

all i get is N;

what am i missing here???