Small Wonder (TV series)

The story lines revolve around V.I.C.I. (an acronym for Voice Input Child Identicant, pronounced "Vicki"), an android in the form of a young girl. Vicki was built by Ted Lawson, an engineer/inventor for United Robotronics, in an effort to assist handicapped children. Lawson takes the robot home so that it can mature within a family environment. Vicki's features include superhuman strength and speed, an AC outlet under her right arm, a data port under her left arm, and an access panel in her back. Despite this, the Lawson family initially tries to pass Vicki off as an orphaned family member whom they legally adopted as their daughter. The Lawson family tries to keep the robot's existence a secret, but their disagreeable neighbors, the Brindles, keep on popping up at the most unexpected moments—especially nosy next-door neighbor Harriet, whose father happens to be Ted Lawson's co-worker. The show's humor frequently derived from Vicki's attempts to learn human behavior, her unprecedented echolalia, the robot'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, the series' producers had Ted give Vicki an upgrade in the series' third season. He aged her face, dressed her in casual clothes, and allowed her to eat and drink. The food passed through her naturally and the drink cooled her internal system. == Cast and characters ==

• Dick Christie as Ted Lawson - Jamie's father, Joan's husband and Vicki's creator. A robotics engineer who originally created the Vicki robot as a domestic servant with a female child's appearance. • Marla Pennington as Joan Anderson Lawson - Ted's wife and Jamie's mother. Joan, more than anyone else on the show, regards Vicki as a real person. • Jerry Supiran as Jamie Lawson - The 10-year-old son of Ted and Joan. • Emily Schulman as Harriet Brindle - The nosy neighbors' daughter who has a crush on Jamie. • Tiffany Brissette as Victoria "Vicki" Ann Smith-Lawson - A robot modeled after a real human girl. The robot was a Voice Input Child Identicant (V.I.C.I.), but was nicknamed Vicki. She has realistic hair and skin. She possesses superhuman strength and speed and runs on atomic power. Vicki has an access panel in her back, an electrical outlet in her right armpit, and an RS-232 serial port under her left armpit. Vicki's artificial intelligence is not perfect; she is incapable of emotion, speaks in a monotone voice and interprets most commands literally. She does manage to blend into the real world to a point. Vicki attends school, and no one but her family members and a few trusted friends know her secret. Occasionally, Vicki had rare abilities that seemed to only appear in one or two episodes, such as elongating her neck to reach a door's peephole, shrinking her size to become as small as a doll or making herself ten feet tall to get noticed by everyone. Somehow, she could also channel enough electricity through her hands to jump-start a car (or with more control, serve as a defibrillator to save the life of a person suffering a heart attack). One recurring theme was that Vicki had a super-powered learning system which enabled her to improve something such as a new detergent or to greatly increase the gas mileage of cars, which Jamie often saw as a chance to get rich quick, only to find her improvements were not perfect. Vicki lives in a cabinet in Jamie's bedroom, and becomes more human-like over the course of the show. Recurring • Kelly Britt as Mrs. Fernwald - the bothersome social worker. • William Bogert as Brandon Brindle - Harriet's father. Becomes Ted Lawson's boss after stealing Ted's ideas. Also a neighbor to the Lawsons. • Edie McClurg as Bonnie Brindle - Harriet's mother and Brandon's wife. Written out after the second season after McClurg joined the cast of The Hogan Family, though Bonnie appears one more time in a third-season episode. • Alice Ghostley as Ida Mae Brindle -Brandon's outspoken, know-it-all sister who is nearly identical to his wife Bonnie. • Paul C. Scott as Reggie Williams - Jamie's best friend and sometimes rival. • Lihann Jones as Jessica - Jamie's sometime girlfriend. • Daryl Bartley as Warren Enright - Jamie's sometime school friend. • Tiffany Brissette as Vanessa - Evil robot who looks identical to Vicki, but does not speak in a monotone (seasons 3–4). ==Reception==

Despite proving popular among viewers, it has been regarded by some critics as one of the worst sitcoms of all time, such as Robert Bianco, TV critic for USA Today, who listed it as a contender for one of the worst TV shows of all time in 2002. According to the BBC, it "is widely considered one of the worst low-budget sitcoms of all time." ==Awards==

Shout! Factory has released the first two seasons of Small Wonder on DVD in Region 1. ==See also==