#Small Wonder

[litsnaps]

[oldshowbiz]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Sometimes I've survived anger only one minute at a time, by saying to myself again and again that the best kind of revenge is some kind of life beyond this, some kind of goodness. And I can lay no claim to goodness until I can prove that mean people have not made me mean.

― Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder (2002)

(Robert Scott Horton)

[grrl-beetle]

Small Wonder

[periodically80s]

[theriu]

Was someone going to tell me there was an 80s family sitcom about a child android living with a human family that was popular with viewers but voted by critics as “one of the worst sitcoms of all time”

or was I just supposed to learn it from a youtube playlist of classic theme songs and Wikipedia

[waywordsstudio]

3 Word Review: “Small Wonder” by Barbara Kingsolver -

Kingsolver's post-9/11 essay collection on grief, love, environment, and mores feels at once insulated and imperative.

[dewthedew65]

[richardgin]

Download:

Happy Birthday, Montana! You would be 31 today. You were 28 when we recorded this on February 15th, 2020. It was almost 9 years ago to the day when we recorded our first song together. That was the first time I met Montana Elliot, your endlessly powerful alter-ego, and I learned that I was actually recording a powerful laser beam that could split open reality and pull everyone in earshot into another world.

Grief eventually calcifies into a reduction. Images, words, and songs to compartmentalize the full human being we miss. We all need to do this to survive, because it’s impossible to replicate a soul. It can be scary to watch these concentrations and symbols of a person stack up, while real and cherished memories of them stay locked in to a fixed amount. It’s natural, required to heal, and understandably harrowing to navigate. Ultimately, it’s deeply comforting. It creates a language for all of us to remember you. Grief also means learning so much more about a person through fragments and memories that don’t belong to you. We’ve all become this incredible coalition of Montana Experts. We’re always researching you and sharing our findings with each other.

These connections and conversations are an essential reminder that none of us are broken for loving you so much. If we were broken our love would drain out and disappear, but we’ve been walking around with our hearts filled to the brim and we haven’t spilled a drop. We continue to pour all of our love for you, and all the love you have for us, into each other. Forever and ever.

YRICS:

Forever and ever and ever.

Woke up tangled up

In every charger that I've ever plugged in

Feeling capable

Of giving love I thought I once abandoned

The window was hot from the sun

And the trees make warmer colors Just to show how long we're lovers

Leaves live up to their namesake

I can wait

I can wait

For as long as it takes

Cause

Can't think of anyone else worth knowing

My hearts a cup that you filled up

And now it's overflowing

Your jawline pressing up to mine

Singing unison

On every line

Two people in love

Just screaming

There are things

Still worth believing in

Can we stay together

Forever and ever and ever

Woke up feeling good

Like any falling brick could bounce right off me

Feeling understood

Like maybe there are secret codes in melody

Twisting the radio knobs

Making static sounds just to turn you around

I see you smile from the back of your head

The most beautiful songs have a sense of humor I guess

Can't think of anyone else worth knowing

My hearts a cup that you filled up

And now it's overflowing

Your jawline pressing up to mine

Singing unison

On every line

Two people in love

Just screaming

There are things

Still worth believing in

Why can bad habits easily come back to life

When something healthy can just drive away at night

Why do I always feel like love is not enough

Why do I always feel like

It's not

Why do I always feel like love is not enough?

[wolfw101]

I just found this Alphoi in Wallaru and instantly reminded me of Harriet from Small Wonder.

[tvthemesongs]

Small Wonder intro

[archivist-dragonfly]

Book 234

Small Wonder: Worlds in a Box (American Scene #4)

David Levinthal / text by David Corey

National Museum of American Art 1996

Introduced in the 1940s and produced into the 1970s, the Louis Marx Toy Company “playsets”included plastic figures, accessories, and even tin toy structures in a variety of locales and settings. Using playsets from the 1950s, photographer David Levinthal creates scenes of narrative drama and intrigue from even the most mundane of backdrops. Whether scenes of domesticity or adventure, Levinthal’s “small wonders” capture the pop culture mythology of mid-century America.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

The road to M3GAN

I saw M3GAN (or Megan) over the weekend and even though I was out of the target demographic I greatly enjoyed it. As I mentioned earlier, it played like a Black Mirror episode, or perhaps a somewhat edgy Twilight Zone. I’m glad it’s a hit. One way I describe it to people is “Small Wonder Meets Chucky”. I get a few blank stares from folks who perhaps “came of age” long after the obscure low-budgeted syndicated sitcom of the 80s. It got me thinking about previous stories about “gynoids” (apparently that’s the correct term for female androids) I’ve seen over the years.

Spoiler break as this will be a long one:

The Twilight Zone: “The Lonely” (1959)

The one that started it all in more ways than one. The first regular episode of the original Twilight Zone series to be produced starred Jean Marsh (years before her turn on Doctor Who) as Alicia, an attractive and caring android who is shipped to a lonely prisoner sentenced to life in exile on a deserted asteroid. He falls in love with her (and despite being a robot there are signs she’s developing feelings to), only to have his sentence commuted and a spaceship is sent to return him to earth ... but there’s only room for one passenger. Do the math. One of the more bittersweet stories of the original TZ.

My Living Doll (1964-65)

Often unjustly listed as one of the worst sitcoms of all time (it’s a much better show than that), My Living Doll was part of the first wave of “fantasy coms” that included things like The Addams Family, Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, though it only ran one season. A pre-Catwoman Julie Newmar starred as Rhoda, an experimental android created by the US Air Force who ends up being “adopted” in a sense by her creator. Fun and hijinks ensue, partly due to her creator trying to keep her true nature a secret, people assuming she’s his girlfriend, and also the very strong indication (this is a recurring theme with such shows) that she may be becoming sentient (assuming her snarkiness and sense of humour wasn’t programmed in, of course!). Newmar and her co-star Bob Cummings reportedly didn’t get along so midway through the first season a new co-star was brought in. One reason why Living Doll is remembered as one of the worst sitcoms, aside from being looked at through modern-coloured glasses, is the fact it’s one of the few US prime time network shows to actually be virtually lost (almost; enough episodes were located to generate a partial Season 1 DVD set; the hunt is on more missing episodes). So other than an intentionally male-gazy opening credits sequence few had actually seen the show until those DVDs. The No. 1 reason why this show works is Julie Newmar’s endearing performance that often leaves you wondering if Rhoda is actually a robot (and you can see signs of her later Catwoman in the performance too). Plus, it’s a full series starring Julie freaking Newmar.

Small Wonder (1985-1989)

Some 20 years later, one of the producers or creators of My Living Doll (possibly both) revived the idea for the made-for-syndication, low-budgeted Small Wonder, with the major obvious difference that this robot, VICI (a.k.a. Vicky), played by Tiffany Brissette, had the form of a little girl who, other than a completely monotone voice and some weird abilities, was easily mistaken for (and disguised as) inventor Ted Lawson’s daughter. The rationale behind the creation of Vicky also was more altruistic than in My Living Doll; rather than a military asset, Vicky was designed to help disabled children and was intentionally “adopted” by Ted (Rhoda was “adopted” due to being seen by the wrong people and her inventor needed to engage in a form of cover up to keep her secret) in order for her to grow and adapt to living with a family (and once again the question of how much humanity she picks up along the way is raised). I never particularly cared for the show (it did skew to a much younger demo than my teenage self after all), but it has the distinction of being the longest-running show on this list, lasting 4 seasons and just shy of 100 episodes. Don’t try to remember the theme song if you know it, you’ll go crosseyed.

Mann and Machine (1992)

There is a subgenre of TV involving robotic police officers. Not cyborgs (machines built around a human core) in the sense of Robocop, but full out androids created in part to save human lives by getting into harm’s way. A 1970s sitcom called Holmes & Yo-Yo (from the producer of Get Smart and featuring a character inspired by CONTROL’s android agent, HYMIE) was the first of the genre, and was followed by a similar series called Supercop a few years later and only a few years ago Karl Urban starred in yet another robot cop+human partner show, Almost Human. 1992′s Mann & Machine, from the creator of Law & Order (of all things), stands out for built around a female robot, Eve Edison (played by Yancy Butler). Set in the “near future” (approximately 2000) the show ran for about 6 weeks during which Yancy presented a rather appealing character who (here we go again) appeared to be learning human characteristics as she trained as a police officer under a veteran cop who was none too pleased to be paired with a machine (guess what his surname was). I recall one episode made some prescient predictions (pardon the redundancy) about climate change. This show deserved to run longer, but was a little ahead of its time and the media insisting on comparing it to the (frankly nearly unwatchable) failed Holmes & Yo-Yo didn’t help matters (I guess they could have compared it to My Living Doll which in some respects would be worse). The next year Butler starred in another Dick Wolf series, the Modesty Blaise-esque South Beach, before moving on to projects like the NYPD Blue-esque cop show Brooklyn South and superhero series Witchblade.

Bride of Chucky (1998)

Yeah, OK, so Megan isn’t the first insane killer doll on the market. But I bet Tiffany can’t dance for s*it.

(Credit to the original gifmaker!). Incidentally, as there has been some discussion as to why she breaks out into dance somewhat randomly, the films writer has actually explained in a few interviews why and it makes perfect sense (but requires a major spoiler to explain).

This post is already long enough, so I don’t really have space to include other one-off female androids over the years, such as Lal, Data’s “daughter” from Star Trek: The Next Generation (you know, the one the writers of Star Trek: Picard forgot about); the fembots of both Bionic Woman and the Austin Powers movies (headcanon - they share the same universe); Rommie from Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda (technically a flesh avatar but still an android); Cameron from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles; and of course most of the cast of Westworld.

[danndesigns]

VICK-3

[theeighthbeacon]

lmao Someone did it.

[dufrau]

Were u a small wonder kid?

oh yeah when i was 5 years old i was sure i was gonna marry that robot