VisionQuest Just Brought Back Small Wonder. Here's Where the Cast Is Now
I did not expect a Marvel show to send me down a 1980s sitcom rabbit hole on a Monday morning. And yet here we are.
Episode 3 of VisionQuest, "Reboot", has a quiet scene that's stuck with me. Vision (Paul Bettany) and Thomas Shepherd (Ruaridh Mollica), the boy who believes he's the reincarnated Tommy Maximoff, are hiding out in a hotel. Vision is running simulation after simulation of how to tell Thomas he can't possibly be his son. Every version ends with Thomas storming out.
And what's playing on the hotel TV? Small Wonder. Ted Lawson is losing to his robot daughter Vicki at chess. She's beaten him in five moves, and she points out she could have done it in four if he'd programmed her properly.
It's a clever choice. Thomas says old sitcoms filmed in front of a live studio audience comfort him. Vision notes that Wanda loved them too, which is the whole foundation of WandaVision. And Small Wonder is a show about a father who isn't sure whether the child in front of him is real. The roles are flipped, of course: there it's the kid who's the robot. But the ache is the same.
If you need to catch up on the bigger picture, we broke down VisionQuest episodes 3 and 4 here. This piece is about something else entirely. Where did the Small Wonder family go?
First, what was Small Wonder?
For anyone who didn't grow up with it: Small Wonder ran in American first-run syndication from 7 September 1985 to 20 May 1989, across four seasons and 96 episodes. It was created by Howard Leeds, who had co-created Silver Spoons.
The setup is gloriously simple. Engineer Ted Lawson builds a robot shaped like a 10-year-old girl, officially a V.I.C.I., or Voice Input Child Identicant, and brings her home to learn how to be human. The family passes her off as their adopted daughter, Vicki, while the nosy neighbours next door keep almost finding out.
It was made on a shoestring. Metromedia's first order was 13 episodes at $300,000 each, which Leeds believed was the lowest budget of any sitcom on television at the time. Critics were brutal. USA Today's Robert Bianco named it a contender for the worst TV show of all time in 2002. Audiences didn't care. It still found a loyal following.
Critics called it one of the worst sitcoms ever made. Audiences watched it anyway.
The Small Wonder cast: then and now
Tiffany Brissette (Vicki)
Then: The monotone voice, the pinafore dress, the cupboard in Jamie's bedroom where she "slept". Tiffany Brissette was Vicki, and in later seasons she also played Vanessa, an evil robot lookalike. When she grew older, the writers had Ted "upgrade" Vicki in season 3,
ageing her face and letting her eat and drink.
Now: Brissette kept acting for a little while after the show, with roles in Parker Lewis Can't Lose and the series Equal Justice, her last professional credit, in 1991. Then she walked away. As of 2007, she was reported to be working as a registered nurse in Boulder, Colorado. The girl who played a robot with no feelings went into a profession built on care. You couldn't write it better.
Dick Christie (Ted Lawson)
Then: The well-meaning inventor dad who built a robot daughter and then had to keep her secret from the whole street.
Now: Of the main cast, Christie is the one who never stopped working. Born on 21 October 1948, he turned 78 last week. He's since popped up in Breaking Bad (2009), the Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water (2016), and had a long recurring run as Charlie Webber on The Bold and the Beautiful from 2013 to 2025.
Marla Pennington (Joan Lawson)
Then: Joan, the mum who treated Vicki as a real daughter more than anyone else in the house.
Now: Small Wonder was Pennington's last acting job. Before it, she'd worked on Soap, Diff'rent Strokes, Magnum, P.I. and Charlie's Angels. In 1988 she married entertainment lawyer Tom Rowan, son of comedian Dan Rowan, and when the show ended in 1989 she retired to focus on her family. She did reunite with her TV family on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet in January 2009 and recorded commentary for the season 1 DVD in 2010.
Jerry Supiran (Jamie Lawson)
Then: Jamie, the son who mostly saw his robot sister as a get-rich-quick scheme. Before Small Wonder, Supiran had already played young Almanzo on Little House on the Prairie.
Now: After the show he had guest spots on Highway to Heaven and Mr. Belvedere, then stepped away from acting. He's married and lives a private life, and he's earned the right to keep it that way.
Emily Schulman (Harriet Brindle)
Then: Harriet, the nosy girl next door with a huge crush on Jamie and a talent for turning up at exactly the wrong moment. Schulman won two Young Artist Awards for the role.
Now: She also starred in Troop Beverly Hills and Caddie Woodlawn in 1989, and her last acting role was on the series Christy. She then moved behind the scenes. She ran the commercial division at Acme Talent & Literary for 13 years before moving it to Talentworks in 2008, and she now teaches acting in Connecticut.
The Brindles: the neighbours who made the show
Edie McClurg (Bonnie Brindle)
Then: Bonnie, Harriet's mum, for the first two seasons. She was written out after joining The Hogan Family, though she came back for one more episode in season 3.
Now: If you know McClurg's face, it's probably from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where she played Grace, Principal Rooney's secretary. Her voice is even more famous: Minny in Cars and Cars 2, and Mary in Wreck-It Ralph. She has since retired from acting.
William Bogert (Brandon Brindle)
Then: Harriet's dad and Ted's colleague, who stole Ted's ideas and became his boss.
Now: Bogert kept working for decades, including as Kent Wallace, the deadpan host of the Frontline spoofs on Chappelle's Show. He died on 12 January 2020, aged 83.
Alice Ghostley (Ida Mae Brindle)
Then: Brandon's know-it-all sister, written as a near-twin of his wife Bonnie.
Now: Ghostley was already a legend by the time she arrived in Small Wonder. She won a Tony Award, played Esmeralda on Bewitched and Bernice Clifton on Designing Women. She died on 21 September 2007.
The fun fact Indian viewers already know
If Vicki looked oddly familiar to you, there's a reason. In January 2003, StarPlus launched Karishma Kaa Karishma, an Indian remake of Small Wonder starring Jhanak Shukla as a robot girl built by her scientist father. A whole generation of Indian kids met this story through Karishma, not Vicki.
I've written a full then-and-now on the Karishma Kaa Karishma cast, and trust me, a few of those child actors went on to very big things.
Why it still matters
Small Wonder was never a great show. It was cheap, corny and wonderfully strange. But VisionQuest understood something about it: under the canned laughter, it's a show about a family deciding that a child who's "not real" is real enough to love. That's exactly the question Vision is asking about Thomas. Forty years on, a sitcom critics hated is helping a Marvel show land its most human moment. Not bad for a robot in a pinafore.
Frequently asked questions
Which episode of VisionQuest shows Small Wonder?
Episode 3, titled "Reboot". Thomas Shepherd watches Small Wonder in a hotel room while Vision runs simulations of how to talk to him.
What is Tiffany Brissette doing now?
Tiffany Brissette, who played Vicki, left acting in 1991. She was reported in 2007 to be working as a registered nurse in Boulder, Colorado.
How many seasons of Small Wonder were there?
Four seasons and 96 episodes, aired in first-run syndication from 7 September 1985 to 20 May 1989.
What does V.I.C.I. stand for in Small Wonder?
Voice Input Child Identicant. The family called her Vicki.
Was Small Wonder remade in India?
Yes. Karishma Kaa Karishma, starring Jhanak Shukla, was a Hindi remake that aired on StarPlus from January 2003 to April 2004.
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