Small Wonder - Season 1

So, it finally happened. Cult, controversial, excessively cheezey and - to a great extent - utterly bizarre and slightly perverse 80s shitcom Small Wonder got a dvd release! Never saw that coming although I always lived in hope! Cute Tiffany Brissette stars as V.I.C.I. aka "Vicky" the superhuman robot slave girl who gets up to all sorts of antics whilst living with a supposedly loving and caring human family (who force her to be a maid and sleep in a closet). Other cast includes Dick Christie (check out that freaky grin on the titles!), the rather dishy Marla Pennington, the memorable Jerry Supiran (the subject of many a "whatever happened to him"), the extremely annoying Emily Schulman and the ever great (and annoying in equal measures) Edie McClurg. The show originally ran from 1985 to 1989 for four seasons totalling 96 episodes (24 per season).

The plot: Ted Lawson, an engineer/inventor for United Robotronics, creates an android in the form of a 10-year-old girl in an effort to assist handicapped children. He names the robot girl V.I.C.I (which stands for "Voice Input Child Identicant"), pronounced "Vicky". The robot is taken home by Lawson so that it can mature within a family environment. V.I.C.I.'s features include superhuman strength and speed, an AC outlet under her right arm, a parallel port  under her left arm, and an access panel in her back. Despite this, the Lawson family tries to pass the robot off as their adopted daughter. The Lawson family tries to keep the robot's existence a secret, but their disagreeable neighbours, the Brindles, keep on popping up at the most unexpected moments — especially nosy red-headed girl-next-door Harriet and her parents, Bonnie and Brandon; the latter just happens to be Ted Lawson's co-worker. The show's humor frequently derived from V.I.C.I.'s attempts to learn human behavior, V.I.C.I's literal interpretation of speech and the family's efforts to disguise the robot's true nature. To explain child actress Tiffany Brissette's aging during the show, Ted gave V.I.C.I. an upgrade in the series's third season. He aged her face, dressed her in modern clothes, and allowed her to eat and drink. The food passed through her naturally and the drink cooled her internal system.

Despite a lot of apparent negative reaction with Small Wonder during it's original (and I think only) run on pre-satellite/cable British television, many of my generation have fond-ish memories of watching this show mid-Saturday afternoons (or Sunday - depending on the ITV region) - although I'm sure there are some out there who would now attribute those memories to being awful nightmares. I was surprised to see this ran for four seasons because it was only shown on British tv on the ITV network for a very short time (only about half of the first season apparently) before being taken off - despite decent ratings. I never saw the show ever again until clips and low quality full episodes turned up on the net a few years back. Apparently, Sky One showed it in the early 90s - but I never caught it. Personally speaking, along with my younger brother and sister, I was a Small Wonder fan back in my kiddy years. In fact, I was a big follower of most US and British sitcoms back in the day so the obvious tackiness and more controversial ideas didn't wash over me back then and, at any rate, I was a sucker for a US sitcom with some far-out gimmick (Mork & Mindy and Soap were other faves of mine). For fans and newcomers alike, now you can see what all the fuss was about!...

Small Wonder - Season 1
1985
XVID
Approx. 22 mins (per episode)
174 mb (per episode)
MU / RS

If you enjoy this, then you might also want to check out the British robocom Metal Mickey...