The Journey of Small Wonder to Becoming a Television Sensation

Emily Webster has hazy memories of her days on Small Wonder, but one thing she vividly recalls is Lou.

Lou, a man in his 50s of short stature, drove a Cadillac equipped with foot pedals and sported a drooping grey handlebar mustache. During rehearsals, he would stand behind the camera in the shadows, laughing loudly—Ha, ha, ha, ha!—to signal the cast when to pause for the live audience.

“His laugh was eerie,” Webster recalls. “It was a bit unsettling for a child of six.”

Lou’s laughter was a necessity, as he was already on set serving as a stand-in for the young actors. Given its limited budget, Small Wonder couldn’t afford to hire someone solely for the purpose of laughing. As one of the first syndicated half-hour shows, it was a straightforward sitcom centered around Ted Lawson, an engineer who creates a robot designed to look like a 9-year-old girl. He names his invention VICI (Voice Input Child Identicant, or Vicki), claiming she was adopted after her parents tragically died in an accident.

Rather than capitalizing on his groundbreaking invention for immense profit, Lawson hides Vicki in a cabinet. Over four seasons and 96 episodes, Vicki’s literal thinking, immense strength, and robotic voice create chaos for the Lawson family and draw criticism from television reviewers.

The show was a hit among children, senior citizens, and even sci-fi enthusiasts, who often wrote in to dissect the flawed logic of its artificial intelligence portrayal. Despite this, they were thrilled by the existence of a “sci-fi sitcom.” Premiering two years before Star Trek: The Next Generation, Small Wonder became a syndication success, though it’s often regarded as dull. Nearly 35 years later, the series is both cherished and heavily criticized.

“You,” a stranger once remarked to Webster, “were part of the worst television show ever made.”

The bluntness of Small Wonder is often attributed to Howard Leeds, a former child actor turned successful TV writer. He co-created Silver Spoons and contributed to Diff’rent Strokes, as well as the 1960s series My Living Doll, which starred Julie Newmar, pre-Catwoman fame, as an android attempting to assimilate into human society.

In the early 1980s, Leeds conceived an idea about a robotic child gradually acquiring human characteristics, designed to be broadly written and acted for a young audience. He pitched it to NBC, where he had a contract, but they declined. Leeds then repurchased the idea and sold it to Metromedia, a company venturing into the first-run syndication market. Stations sought new, cost-effective content instead of expensive reruns of popular shows. At the very least, Small Wonder offered something unique.

“Honestly, the whole concept seemed dubious,” recalls Marla Pennington-Rowan, who portrayed Mrs. Lawson. (A character so poorly developed that she was often introduced while chopping carrots.) “Syndication wasn’t well understood. I doubted anyone would even watch it.” During one taping, Pennington-Rowan was upset when the audience didn’t laugh, only to later realize they were Chinese tourists who didn’t understand English.

Metromedia greenlit 13 episodes with a budget of $300,000 each, which Leeds believed was the lowest for any sitcom at the time. Little was allocated for special effects showcasing Vicki’s abilities—like rotating her head 360 degrees or lifting a refrigerator. Green screen scenes were filmed on Thursdays, requiring the cast to arrive early. Tiffany Brissette, the 9-year-old playing Vicki, once struggled to breathe after a green stocking was placed over her head, prompting her mother to intervene.

When not at risk of suffocation, Brissette, a pageant contestant who had auditioned for the lead in Punky Brewster, faced a surprisingly challenging role: maintaining a blank expression and speaking in a flat tone, which doesn’t come naturally to a child. To avoid smiling, she would bite the inside of her cheeks.

Brissette also excelled at unusual impersonations when required. “She did a great John Wayne,” recalls her mother, Diane. Out of 400 girls Leeds auditioned, Brissette stood out—likely because none of the others could mimic John Wayne. This made Leeds overly protective, fearing she might get injured. “Howard worried about her horseback riding and ice-skating. He was scared she’d hurt herself.”

Brissette spent weekdays rehearsing and studying, while weekends were reserved for international promotional tours with her mother. Small Wonder was licensed to over 20 countries and became a massive hit in Italy, France, India, and Brazil, where it was known as Super Vicki. Brissette once performed for a crowd of 30,000 in Bogotá, Colombia.

“She put in a lot of effort,” Diane remarks, “and deserved higher pay. That was a major issue. The adults earned significantly more than she did.”

Despite Small Wonder resonating with its target audience, there was surprisingly little merchandising support. A Halloween costume was released one year, but plans for a Vicki the Robot doll never progressed beyond prototypes, and a cartoon adaptation was considered but abandoned. One theory is that Fox, which acquired Metromedia, had little enthusiasm for Small Wonder and only honored the two-season renewal initiated by Metromedia for seasons three and four. (The show’s low budget made it nearly impossible to lose money.)

As Brissette matured, both she and her mother pushed for her character to have more depth: a wardrobe change, a more natural voice, or even singing—anything to highlight Vicki’s adaptation to her surroundings. “Tiffany was incredibly talented, but excelling in such a restrictive role was a mixed blessing,” Webster notes. “She couldn’t showcase her full range.”

Writers requested more creative freedom, but Leeds refused. Mel Sherer, one of the writers, had worked on Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and even Andy Kaufman’s unconventional acts. Small Wonder felt out of place in his portfolio. One script included an eight-page dialogue exchange—cost-effective but artistically dull. It led one writer to joke whether they were crafting a sitcom or a still-life painting.

“The upside was, it was the most relaxed schedule I’ve ever had on a sitcom,” Sherer recalls. “We wrapped by 5:30 every day. But the show’s quality was so glaringly poor that it was beyond repair. The ratings baffled us, but it was exactly how Howard envisioned it.”

Having Small Wonder on a resume wasn’t exactly a badge of honor. “You can’t erase it,” Sherer admits. “People would glance at my resume and say, ‘Ah, so you’re well-prepared for a career in showbiz.’”

A mix of Fox’s indifference and Leeds’ desire to move forward—he passed away in 2017 at 97—led to the show’s cancellation in spring 1989. Brissette focused on her education, eventually becoming a registered nurse. She even donned Vicki’s pinafore for a 2007 Details magazine feature. Despite often appearing on lists of the “worst shows ever,” it’s not drastically different from the family-friendly sitcoms on The Disney Channel today.

When the show ended, Fox hosted a wrap party for the cast and crew. “Some of us were emotional, while others were ready to move on,” Webster shares. “But I finally confessed to Lou that he had always scared me.”

This story was originally published in an earlier version back in 2015.