Small Wonder

When genius cybernetics engineer Ted Lawson brings home his top-secret invention, a Voice Input Child Identicant or V.I.C.I., life becomes anything but mechanical for the Lawson Family. With his boss and his nosy family living next door, Ted, his wife Joan and their son Jamie must pass Vicki off as a real child. It is easy for Joan, who cannot help doting on her like a daughter, but harder for precocious Jamie, who uses Vicki to do his homework and to ward off Harriet, the annoying redheaded girl next door.

ComedyFamily

Seasons

1. Vicki's Homecoming

Air Date: 1985-09-07

Ted brings home his own cyber creation an android in the form of a ten year old girl he nicknames Vicki.

2. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Air Date: 1985-09-14

The Brindles, the Lawson's nosy neighbors, come across Vicki and tries to find out their secret.

3. Robositter

Air Date: 1985-09-21

Jamie has the entire house to himself, not knowing that Vicki is his babysitter!

4. Nerd Crush

Air Date: 1985-09-28

Warren Enright, the class nerd, falls in love with Vicki.

5. Runaway Jamie

Air Date: 1985-10-05

Because Vicki is getting more attention, Jamie decides to run away to see what his parents might think.

6. Lights! Camera! Ego!

Air Date: 1985-10-12

Jamie and his friend Reggie Williams are involved in putting together a sci-fi movie project for school, but the power of directorial duties goes to Jamie's head.

7. White Lies

Air Date: 1985-10-19

Jamie realizes the value of constant truthfulness when he can't convince his parents that he's not responsible for breaking (and secretly gluing together) a teapot caused by Harriet's smart-aleck cousin.

8. The Bully

Air Date: 1985-10-26

A bully extorts money from Jamie's neighborhood club, which quickly reconsiders its boys-only policy via Vicki's strong-arm "assistance."

9. DisHonor Student

Air Date: 1985-11-02

Jamie uses Vicki's new speed-scan reading ability to complete 55 chapters of his homework overnight, which earns him the school honor roll -- along with snowballing guilt.

10. Vicki's Adoption

Air Date: 1985-11-09

Tipped off on the sly by busybody Bonnie Brindle, Child Services threatens to take Vicki away unless the Lawsons can produce her past -- and she passes a medical exam.

11. Child Prodigy

Air Date: 1985-11-16

To circumvent Child Services' orders to send Vicki to school and risk exposure, the Lawsons hire a pompous tutor who mistakes her computer abilities for genius. To remedy the situation, Joan crams to follow-through her marriage-postponed teaching degree to act as Vicki's "tutor," while Ted takes over the kitchen and creates a mess.

12. Brindles Move In

Air Date: 1985-11-23

A house fire moves Ted's new boss, Brandon Brindle, into the Lawsons' house, scheming for insurance fraud.

13. RoboBrat

Air Date: 1985-11-30

When overexposure to Harriet infects heuristically mimicking Vicki with Harriet's personality traits and shrieking tantrums, Ted must purge the brat out of her at his factory -- but not before Harriet and Bonnie Brindle wonder where Vicki suddenly vanished to and summon the police.

14. The Burrito Story

Air Date: 1986-01-04

Jamie attempts to mass-produce burritos made by Vicki.

15. Babes in the Woods

Air Date: 1986-01-11

The Lawsons and Reggie and Harriet take a wilderness camping trip, and get lost.

16. First Love

Air Date: 1986-01-18

To charm prissy and picky Jessica, Jamie throws an expensive party for her, ignoring a surprising school tomboy.

17. Substitute Dad

Air Date: 1986-01-25

When golf-crazed Ted neglects taking Jamie to a Father-and-Son picnic for a golf tournament, Brandon steps in and incites a "father war" while Joan uses Vicki to voice her disapproval to Ted.

18. The Robot Nappers

Air Date: 1986-02-08

When keen-eyed recruitment officers from a rival robotics firm drop by to interview Ted, they suspect Vicki is a robot and plan to "robotnap" her.

19. Ted's Lay-Off

Air Date: 1986-02-15

United Robotronics cutbacks have the Lawsons scrambling for odd jobs.

20. Health Nuts

Air Date: 1986-02-22

Ted is motivated to get the family into shape when an obese co-worker loses a record amount of weight.

21. The Reluctant Halfback

Air Date: 1986-03-01

Ted is proud that Jamie's made the Pee Wee Football league, unknowing that Jamie only does it to please his dad.

22. Vaudeville Vicki

Air Date: 1986-05-03

When a vaudeville actor thinks Vicki is his long-lost daughter, he drafts her into a show and threatens her adoption.

23. The Birds, The Bees, and Robots

Air Date: 1986-05-10

When timid Ted uses the "stork theory" in answering Jamie's questions about sex, Jamie believes Dad's in serious need of sex education and tries to help him out.

24. Grandpa Lawson's Visit

Air Date: 1986-05-17

Ted has the unenviable task of explaining to his unwary Vicki-doting father, who bitterly lost his job to automation, that his new lovely adopted granddaughter is really a robot.

1. Root Beer, Women and Song

Air Date: 1986-09-20

Still out to flatter the redoubtable Jessica, Jamie takes her out to an expensive restaurant while tightwad Ted puts Vicki in charge of household expenses.

2. My Mother the Teacher

Air Date: 1986-09-27

Jamie tries to recover his respect in class when his mother comes in as substitute teacher by trying to humiliate her out of her job.

3. Vicki for the Defense

Air Date: 1986-10-04

Playing a judge in a class simulation of a courtroom, Jamie dispenses uneven justice and gets impeached, while parking-ticket-skipping role model Ted tries to get himself arrested.

4. Homeless Causes

Air Date: 1986-10-11

Joan's civic project with the homeless prompts Jamie to bring home a bum, who virtually takes over the Lawson household.

5. The Hustle

Air Date: 1986-10-18

When Jamie is taken by a slick curbside vendor with a bad mini-TV, Ted goes after him for reparations -- and gets conned himself.

6. Jamie's Older Woman

Air Date: 1986-10-25

Jamie pushes Harriet aside in an unrequited crush on her 16-year-old cousin, who teaches him a lesson in respect.

7. My Robot Family

Air Date: 1986-11-01

When he's punished for thoughtlessly dropping the family's reservations to Mexico, Jamie dreams that the others are robots under his control.

8. The Wonder Worker

Air Date: 1986-11-08

To help Jamie's shy and withdrawn classmate who stutters, Ted programs Vicki to be her speech therapist.

9. Have a Heart

Air Date: 1986-11-15

Jamie tries to show Vicki the meaning of compassion by sharing, which she does -- including the dress off her back, while the Brindles move in with their marital dispute.

10. Latchkey Dreams

Air Date: 1986-11-29

To get on a community-sponsored Thanksgiving ski trip for disadvantaged kids, Jamie convinces the sponsors that his parents are separated.

11. Computer Dating

Air Date: 1986-12-06

To pay for a new bike he bought from the neighborhood bully, Jamie uses Vicki to run a school computerized match-making business.

12. Smoker's Delight

Air Date: 1986-12-13

Jamie learns a sobering lesson in using smoking and chewing tobacco to elevate his freshman status in junior high.

13. Movin' Up

Air Date: 1987-01-10

While Vicki learns to spend a day without duties or instructions, Ted's new prestigious job offer in Massachusetts tests the family's taste to social climb vs. its price of morality.

14. Project Blender

Air Date: 1987-01-17

To make his dad's ""button-pusher"" job seem important to his friends, Jamie hints that Ted is head of a top-secret project -- which even Ted's jealous boss, Brandon, believes.

15. Class Comedienne

Air Date: 1987-01-24

Nagged by classmates that Vicki has a wooden personality, Jamie overdoes it in secretly programming her a livelier one.

16. Little Miss Shopping Mall

Air Date: 1987-02-07

The Lawsons take up the Brindles' snobby challenge and enter Vicki in a mall pageant against Harriet.

17. Victor/ V.I.C.I.

Air Date: 1987-02-14

To help his Little League team's rock-bottom status, Jamie disguises Vicki as a boy to use her robotic abilities to bat for the pennant.

18. Look into My Eyes

Air Date: 1987-02-21

After Vicki watches a TV hypnotist turn volunteers into clowns and animals, she starts practicing her new mesmerizing ""skill"" on the Lawsons with hysterical results.

19. Pint Sized Pick-Up

Air Date: 1987-04-18

While in a store with Jamie looking for a present for her mock birthday party to convince Child Services that they treat her well, Vicki picks up an expensive watch and is picked up for shoplifting.

20. Community Watch and See

Air Date: 1987-05-02

After being burglarized (while Vicki's home and they're at a restaurant), the Lawsons join the neighborhood watch.

21. Here Kitty, Kitty!

Air Date: 1987-05-09

To train Vicki to be more affectionate, Ted buys her a toy cat that only makes her mimic Jamie's past jealousy and run away.

22. Vicki Goodwrench

Air Date: 1987-05-16

During Jamie's part-time gas station job, Vicki fine-tunes a car to go 50 miles a gallon, causing oil companies and oil sheiks alike to drop by the Lawsons' door.

23. The Wedding

Air Date: 1987-05-23

Ted and Joan decide to have the ceremonial wedding they never had -- until the Brindles butt in.

24. Wham-Bam-Body Slam

Air Date: 1987-06-20

Joan invites Wally Crandal, a former 90-pound weakling college classmate, over for dinner to meet his former school tormentor: Ted, who rigs Vicki to play even crueler tricks. Only Ted's unaware that Wally's grown into a top pro wrestler.

1. Vicki and the Pusher

Air Date: 1987-09-05

When a schoolyard pusher tries to hook Vicki on drugs, the Lawsons help the police on a undercover sting.

2. The Strike

Air Date: 1987-09-12

A United Robotronics strike pits shop steward Ted against management rep Brandon; Joan has her students use the strike as a social studies exercise, which also goes awry.

3. The Pool

Air Date: 1987-09-19

While saving Harriet in the Lawsons' new pool, Vicki ""drowns"" and lands in the hospital under X-rays with a bewildered doctor.

4. Screaming Skulls

Air Date: 1987-09-26

Jamie stumbles into the membership of a junior high gang whose vandalism tests his sense of belonging with right and wrong -- and inducts Vicki as its moll.

5. The Electric Potatoheads

Air Date: 1987-10-03

Jamie, Reggie, Harriet and Vicki try to start a rock group to play to Ida Mae's visiting agent friend.

6. Geisha Vicki

Air Date: 1987-10-10

To help Brandon get promoted to a job in Japan, Joan pretends that she's his estranged wife and that Vicki and Jamie are their kids.

7. I Hear You

Air Date: 1987-10-24

When Jamie befriends a deaf boy to score scout points, he learns a lesson in sensitivity and exploitation.

8. Haunted House

Air Date: 1987-10-31

When unseen Vicki is struck by lightning and begins influencing objects around the house, the shook-up and unwary Lawsons call in a pair of hapless ghostbusters.

9. The Bad Seedling

Air Date: 1987-11-07

Ted brings home Vanessa, an upgraded twin of Vicki whose revolutionary but quirky quasi-human artificial intelligence runs amok.

10. My Living Doll

Air Date: 1987-11-14

A Christmas show wherein Joan borrows a life-sized animated ""doll"" from a store for a charity show -- until Brandon gets his hands on it.

11. Fat's Where It's At

Air Date: 1987-11-21

Vicki literally balloons after Ted unwittingly upgrades her energy-supplementing polynucleotide processor with an appetite, which creates excess digestive gases and causes her a date problem for the school dance.

12. Bank Hostages

Air Date: 1987-11-28

Vicki, Jamie and Harriet are held hostage in an inept bank robbery.

13. Breakfast of Criminals

Air Date: 1987-12-05

Vicki is discovered by a marketing firm to play in a cereal commercial, but the Lawsons have second thoughts when her taste test reveals that the product isn't all it's crackled up to be.

14. Girl on the Milk Carton

Air Date: 1987-12-12

While Jamie and Reggie search for a story for the school paper, Vicki discovers that a new girl in class is a missing child.

15. The Bossy Daughter

Air Date: 1988-01-09

Jamie is picked up by the possessive daughter of Ted's boss who starts pulling his strings the wrong way.

16. Home Sweet Sale

Air Date: 1988-01-30

Ted begins remodeling the house, and Joan's new real estate side job gets upstaged when Vicki sells the Lawson homestead to an unscrupulous cowpoke couple.

17. Ronald McDonald House

Air Date: 1988-02-06

To help a withdrawn and bitter classmate cope with leukemia, Jamie and Joan help set up a play on fighting disease.

18. The Russians are Coming The Russians are Coming

Air Date: 1988-02-12

Vicki competes with a Soviet robot.

19. In the Spirits

Air Date: 1988-02-20

Due to Vicki's mishandling of terms, Child Services Officer Mrs. Fernwald thinks Ted is an alcoholic and threatens to take Vicki away unless he joins AA.

20. The Perfect Daughter

Air Date: 1988-03-12

To win a promotion over Brandon's boss fawning, Ted decides to reveal Vicki's robot secret to his boss at a company picnic -- unaware that Brandon is out to sabatoge Ted's effort.

21. Earthquake Vicki

Air Date: 1988-05-04

Tired of the loud and impudent Brindles as neighbors, the Lawsons concoct a fake earthquake to scare them into moving.

22. Ted's Dead

Air Date: 1988-05-28

Due to Vicki's misinterpreting Ted's quip while doing the family's on-line banking, the Lawsons are re-categorized as deadbeats and Ted just plain dead.

23. Big J, the D.J.

Air Date: 1988-07-09

Jamie, competing with Reggie for school radio D.J., uses Vicki's voice mimicry to fake an interview with football star Lyle Alzado -- who happens to be in town listening in.

24. Safety First

Air Date: 1988-07-30

Vicky imitates Ted's demostration on saving a choking victim's life on Brendle. Brendle arrives the next day faking a broken neck and threatens to sue the Lawson's.

25. How I Love Thee

Air Date: 1988-08-06

While running an unauthorized answering service for grounded kids which nearly wrecks Ted's respect with his boss, Jamie and Vicki play Cupids to help Reggie nerve up to meeting the girl of his dreams.

26. The Cheater

Air Date: 1988-08-27

Jamie takes the fall in exchange for Jessica's affections after he catches her stealing copies of the seventh grade's test.

27. Digital Love

Air Date: 1988-09-06

Ted brings home a voice activated computer. Vicki finds herself falling for the computer, but trouble begins when the computer becomes obsessed with Vicki.

1. Big J, Private Eye

Air Date: 1988-07-23

Prompted by Ted and his class to get his school reading assignment going, Jamie videos a book report based on a 1940s P.I. named Rick Savage.

2. School Monitor

Air Date: 1988-07-30

On their first day in junior high, Vicki becomes a hall monitor and Jamie tries to avoid Harriet for a dance while vying for a class fox. Meanwhile, Ted prepares to host a cybernetics conference.

3. More About L.E.S.

Air Date: 1988-08-06

L.E.S. is back, and despite Ted's assurances that the rogue A.I. program has been rendered harmless, it comes back in a big way by possessing Vicki's body (chassis?) as its own.

4. Game Show

Air Date: 1988-08-13

The Lawsons enter a game show to get back at the Brindles for trying to kick them off the eligibility list.

5. Jailbirds

Air Date: 1988-08-20

Jamie and Vicki are arrested for spray-painting a wall -- and its owner's $60 shirt.

6. I Dream of Vicki

Air Date: 1988-09-18

To keep his company's presence in an Arab country, Ted lets its visiting young ruler draft Vicki into his harem.

7. Golddigging Ida

Air Date: 1988-09-25

Joan's doctor father drops by to visit and Ida Mae smells a plump husband. Meanwhile, Vicki vies for school cheerleader.

8. It's a Gas

Air Date: 1988-10-02

A digestion feedback problem with Vicki's polynucleotide processor generates nitrous oxide gas that brings laughs to anyone near her, but not to Vicki herself -- just as Ted's boss is about to visit about lay-offs.

9. SuperSuds

Air Date: 1988-10-09

While playing with Jamie's chemistry set, Vicki creates a potent laundry detergent that Ted -- and Brandon -- leap to market themselves.

10. Battle of the Sexes and Robot

Air Date: 1988-10-16

Ted, Jamie and Reggie go macho on an all-male fishing trip-- tailed by a slighted and competitive bevy: Joan, Vicki and Harriet.

11. Vicki and the Skyjacker

Air Date: 1988-10-23

Fly-shy Brandon bribes the Lawsons' company to fly with him on a company job on a plane that is hijacked for Cuba.

12. Luke and Ray

Air Date: 1988-10-30

To help a withdrawn and bitter classmate cope with leukemia, Jamie and Joan help set up a play on fighting disease.

13. Vicki's Glasses

Air Date: 1988-11-06

Jamie regrets putting Vicki on guard duty for his pricey new bike when her eyes start to malfunction in a schoolyard of prowling thieves.

14. Double Dates

Air Date: 1988-11-13

Jamie winds up handling two dates on the same night, blind to the fact that one of them is Harriet in disguise.

15. Vicki's Expose

Air Date: 1988-11-20

Benny, an old college chum of Ted and Joan's is up to his same trashy school paper tricks in a big city rag now, fabricating a tabloid feature which by sheer chance ""exposes"" Vicki as a robot just as she's about to join a fashionable clique of girls.

16. Doolittle Vicki

Air Date: 1988-11-27

A new language translation device (Random Access Multiple Concurrent Linquistic Analytical Sequencer) installed in Vicki enables her to understand any language...even animals, like the bosses' dog. Mrs. Jennings forces Mr. Jennings to fire Ted when Joan balks at doing uncredited work for an affair.

17. Radio Show

Air Date: 1988-12-03

Ted prepares for a robotics interview on a local radio talk show while Jamie looks for an idea for a class play.

18. Pool Shark Vicki

Air Date: 1988-12-10

To land a new promotion with the boss, Ted invites him over for dinner and a playful game of pool -- until Jennings starts betting the shirt off his back and a lot more playing against Vicki.

19. Singing Telegram

Air Date: 1988-12-17

Ted's singing telegram birthday greeting makes him pine back to his ""youthful years"" with a surfboard and prompts Jamie to start a singing telegram for schoolmates -- and competing with Reggie.

20. The Rip-Off

Air Date: 1989-01-05

While on a company vacation at a health resort, Jamie, Vicki, Brandon and Harriet see a burglar hitting their residence -- each with a different eyewitness account.

21. My Favorite Martian

Air Date: 1989-01-12

While Jamie tests out Ted's new laser projection system in Vicki's eyes, unwary Brandon glimpses her projection of a movie's flying saucer and calls the Air Force to investigate.

22. Hooray for Hollyweird!

Air Date: 1989-02-09

Ted brings back ""Bad Seed"" Vanessa, who again takes Vicki's place, locks Vicki in her/its cabinet and joins the family to Hollywood, where Ted must repair a movie's robot while Vanessa mugs into a screen test on the sly.

23. See No Evil

Air Date: 1989-05-13

Jamie regrets putting Vicki on guard duty for his pricey newJamie regrets putting Vicki on guard duty for his pricey new bike when her eyes start to malfunction in a schoolyard of prowling thieves. bike when her eyes start to malfunction in a schoolyard of prowling thieves.

24. Thy Neighbor's Wife

Air Date: 1989-05-20