Small Wonder… No other source of “entertainment” has convinced me more that robots are evil and will be human’s eventual demise. If the Terminator movies made you paranoid that your Speak and Spell is going to become self aware and kill you and all the ones you love then this show is certainly in your “Do Not Watch!” list. Far more disturbing than other shows of its time like ”Hey Roy Scheider! Let’s makes a sex video!” or “Charles in Charge”, and just like “Charles”, Small Wonder had one of the catchiest tunes on television at the time, though I’m too masculine to actually sing out loud, I find myself at times over analyzing its lyrics. One part always gets me thinking:

“She’s fantastic, made of plastic, microchips here and there!”

Lyrics like that just reaffirm my total hatred of this bastard show.

For those who don’t remember the show, It’s about a simple suburban family who just happens to have built a female robot as a substitute daughter, and the daily triumphs of raising a mentally handicapped cyborg child while keeping her mechanical secret from the neighbors.

Ground breaking television and all, few shows left so many unanswered questions or left me feeling sick to my stomach thanks to the sheer number of sexual jokes and innuendos told while in the presence of children. But so what if Vicki tap-dances all over your whole moral structure and sense of reality, it was the 80s! I mean there was another show on at the time about a girl who was adopted by a creepy old man with a heart condition, she gains tons of friends from all kinds of backgrounds (even though orphans are incapable of having friends), then Cherie gets stuck inside a vacant fridge!

Prepare to meet the idiots involved in this show which I can only describe as a back alley rendition of the Broadway musical “CATS”:

SUBJECT                 : Ted Lawson

ASSOCIATION         : Mad Scientist

SPECIAL TALENT  : Invisibility cloak of Mage +10 points (fucking nerd…)

As the head of the household, Ted knows the invaluable benefit of having an 11 year old slave girl disguised as a robot. Ted is currently being investigated by Child Protective Services for child endangerment

SUBJECT                 : Jamie Lawson

ASSOCIATION         : Mad Scientists Son

SPECIAL TALENT  : Chauvinistic asshole, hilarious social punch-line.

Meet Jamie.

He enjoys sports, the occasional board game and long walks by the beach. For more on Jamie press 4 on your touch tone phone now.

SUBJECT                 : Joan Lawson

ASSOCIATION         : Mad Scientists wife. Negligent mother to Jamie and Vicki.

SPECIAL TALENT  : Bimbo with the ability to set back woman’s lib five decades with one simple catch phrase: “That makes sense!”.

Meet Joan

If this show was blue berry pancake batter, she would be the sweet, tangy blue berries. What does that mean? I don’t fucking know.

SUBJECT                 : Vicki a.k.a V.I.C.I (Vaginal Insertion Computer Interface)

ASSOCIATION         : Ted Lawson’s evil invention/secret lover

SPECIAL TALENT  : Able to be tricked into setting tables, doing homework and housework.

Meet Vicki

SUBJECT                 : Harriet (played by Mario Lopez)

ASSOCIATION         : Resident noisy neighbor. Former “Save by the Bell ” stud.

SPECIAL TALENT  : Annoying D-list celebrity/talent show host.

As Harriet, Mario Lopez does an incredible job acting like an fucking annoying 9 year old fire crotch. Harriet is out to find out just who Vicki is and where she came from. 

For those who don’t remember the show, It’s about a simple suburban family who just happens to have built a female robot as a substitute daughter/house cleaner, and the daily triumphs of raising a mentally handicapped cyborg child while keeping her mechanical secret from the neighbors.

Let’s continue our painful swan-dive face plant into nostalgia by going through a few Small Wonder episodes from the first season for some “hilarious” highlights! Let’s take a look!

After coming home from a hard day at school, Jamie cracks a lame joke (the audience eats it up canned laugher and all) then he vents to his mother about frustrations of being a single child, hinting to his mom how she needs to have more sex …

Hey guys? Remember Webster? The show about the ugly fat guy with a mustache married to the ugly skinny chick that adopts the ugly short troll? And how the parents are always horny and blabbing about their sex life to everyone within earshot? Well only since then have I heard so many awful sexual innuendo jokes as commonly found in Small Wonder. In my opinion its right about here where the show jumps the shark, but being a glutton for punishment the producers decide the show must go on… WITH FOUR MORE SEASONS!!!

Harriet comes over for her daily visit and Jamie rebuffs her advances and explains to his mom how Harriet is a waste of a perfectly good vagina. This is staring off as a pretty good day!

Ted gets home in a pissy mood, it seems like the “company” has rejected his latest project:

The family seemed shocked as if Daddy brought home a pile of murder, but instead it turns out it was one of the worlds worst ideas neatly packed in a silver briefcase, the world’s first android female child slave.

Apparently Joan’s simplistic female mind cannot grasp the usefulness of an android and refers to it as an overgrown doll. But Ted sets her straight by smacking the bitch across the face! NO LIE! Ok, well maybe that didn’t happen, but it would have been pretty awesome if he did. I do not advocate the use of violent force against woman, just against stupid people. Then again, Ted’s full of shit, I mean come on now! How can suitcase full of robot gore look useful to anyone?

After some nonsensical techno-babble and several lame sex jokes later Ted puts on the finishing touches on Vicki and is ready to introduce her to the family. Best of all, Vicki comes with an assortment of wigs, which PROVES my point that Vicki’s was built with a more sinister purpose in mind, I mean what difference does it make if your maid has black or blond hair unless you’re thinking of fucking her?

Jamie seems so impressed by Vicki he asks his dad if he can keep her in his cabinet with all his other “toys” and of course being the fuck-tard that Ted is says without hesitation he sees no problem with it, which brings me to this point; This show is about a robot created in the image of a small girl, who is kept in a cabinet in her “brothers” bedroom and lives out her existence cleaning up after all the slobs around her. It’s also disturbing that whenever someone stands up for Vicki’s rights, Ted reminds everyone how she’s not a child or even alive, that she’s an “it” as he tries to justify his exploitation of Vicki.

Another thing I noticed is that in nearly every episode when Vicki malfunctions, Ted tries to explain to Joan in technical terms just what is happening to Vicki, she responds with “That makes sense!”… What a fucking bimbo!

When Harriet’s family has a power outage at there house, the neighbors decide to drop by the Lawson family without warning and invite themselves for dinner. Harriet brings her new toy along, a pathetic excuse for a robot. Hilarity yet again ensues…

Meet Rodney the robot! As Harriet demonstrates, Rodney can cook, can clean and even does windows… I mean he would have IF he wasn’t made out of a spare lawnmower motor, toilet paper rolls and egg cartons all held in place with duct tape. Instead he wobbles up to the table and attempts miserably at the simple task of picking up a glass of milk.

Naturally Jamie isn’t impressed, but then again that’s because he’s been spoiled by a monotone mongoloid named Vicki. I don’t even want to think of what they do together at night while the parents are sleeping. *Shutter* Creepy!

Everyone arrives at the Lawson’s house for dinner, but notice’s that Vicki isn’t around and since robots can’t eat or drink, Ted gives an excuse that Vicki’s sick and isn’t feeling well. Of course this perks Harriet interest as she sneaks into Jamie’s room and finds Vicki standing it the cabinet. Jamie says they where paying hid and seek and must have forgotten all about her, man everyone in this town must have stupidity polluting their tap water…

After dinner Rodney the robot introduces himself to Vicki but inadvertently shorts Vicki out with the magnet on his hand, sending her into all matters of convulsions which the neighbors find very odd. WAKE UP PEOPLE! SHE’S A FREAKIN’ ROBOT! But Vicki's all right and all is forgiven. Besides Vicki likes Rodney! As she puts it in her own special way: “He turns me on!”.

During the shows run, the producers became more and more absurd by using the show as a vehicle for cheap visual gags and not so special effects. Vicki could do it all, from shrinking and growing, to stretching or twisting her neck in all different ways, to using magnetic fields to gravitate objects in mid air, one effect creepier then the last.

It’s no secret that such an irresponsibly stupid show would catch the attention of some misguided morally diluted organization, somehow that happened to be feminists. They weren’t very happy with the image of a pre-pubescent female being exploited as a chamber maid. It’s nice to know what feminist watch while there not burning their bras or castrating men around the world. Take that feminist! *Makes an Izzy face* ZIIIIIIINNNNG!!!!!!

So after the show wrapped up it’s forth and final season, Fox was working on a new spin-off series to Small Wonder named “Too Good To Be True” aimed towards the broader teenage audience and focused on Vicki’s new found personal liberation.

The story continues on where Vicki’s body is merged with her “Evil” twin sister’s personality chip, creating a new super naughty fem-bot by the name of Vanessa. Equipped with a superiority complex and inability to control herself in front of others,

The Lawson family decides to give the rebellious but new and improved Vanessa to the in-laws, where the senior Lawson’s decide to raise her as their own grand daughter. Chaos and hilarity ensues!... YET FUCKING AGAIN!!!

Have we had the pleasure to see that show, this is what the lyrics to the new theme song would have been:

“Demon dear, you're packed up neat, parting's sweet, we are beat,
Good-bye Mechminx,
You were built the perfect girl, cute in curls, skirts a-swirl,
Good-bye Mechminx.
But instead of turning out our darling angel,
We've a terrorist just born to mangle,
Now it's off to Granny's house to bite the dog and torch the mouse,
Bad Seed, Good-bye!”

Wow! Demon dear? Skirts a-swirl?!  Terrorist just born to mangle?!!! I know that the first theme song was no incredible musical achievement by any standards. Actually it sucked, but to actually go as far as describing they dumped her on to her grandmother because shes such a fuck up is really something else. It kinda reminds me of the premise for Poltergeist III where the Freeling family dumps Carol Ann on to her unsuspecting aunt and uncle.

What is there else to say other than this show would have been doubly fucked up, thank god it never went past the pre-production stage.

While doing some fact checking before writing this article I found several fan-sites dedicated to Vicki and all things Small Wonder. Among them I found one with a Fan-fic (or fan fiction for those who don’t look up stupid useless shit on the internet) about an imaginary story where Ted Lawson is the head Scientist to a robotics company and is being interviewed by Phil Donahue from 80s talk show fame. They introduce Vicki as the world’s first android and dismiss her as nothing more than a “robotic domestic aide” with “other” possible applications. Donahue goes on and says that she/it could be marketed as an artificial child to “the bachelor that has everything”. What the hell exactly is this bachelor going to do with poor Vicki? Then Donahue continues to spew every line written in the “How to be an old creepy child molester” guide book, further proof that any Small Wonder fans or anyone that fondly watched the show have no healthy concept of sex or moral standards.

I think the real Phil Donahue should sue the writer of that story, not just because they involved him in a very boring and badly written fan-fic, but also because they made him out as a child hungry pedophile, I mean what the hell is going on with this world?

I don’t care who you are, if you enjoy seeing an 11 year old girl prance around in a baby doll dress like a French maid while doing hard labor, you got some fucking serious issues and I have all the reasons to physically neutralize you as a threat to the general population. Small Wonder fans… I mean take a look at Howard Leeds, the shows creator:

I’m not saying he looks like a creepy pedophile (as my lawyers have suggested), that judgment is up to you to make.

Good Bye Mechbitch… Good riddance!