M3GAN, the new Blumhouse flick about a homicidal robot doll (in theaters Jan. 6), is not Hollywood’s first foray into little-girl AI.
A campy ’80s sitcom called Small Wonder followed the exploits of Vicki — an acronym for Voice Input Child Identicant — who was a child android played by Tiffany Brissette, then 10. The show was created by the late Howard Leeds, who wrote on Bewitched and The Brady Bunch. Leeds had also written on My Living Doll, a short-lived sitcom from 1964 starring Julie Newmar as a robot woman. He borrowed that premise for Small Wonder, which debuted in syndication on Sept. 10, 1985. (It aired on the newly launched Fox network from 1986 until its cancellation in 1989, then lived on in reruns.)
After a nationwide search for the role of Vicki, producers “just loved Tiffany,” says Dick Christie, who played her inventor dad, Ted Lawson, “because she could pull off that monotone for the first three seasons.
A campy ’80s sitcom called Small Wonder followed the exploits of Vicki — an acronym for Voice Input Child Identicant — who was a child android played by Tiffany Brissette, then 10. The show was created by the late Howard Leeds, who wrote on Bewitched and The Brady Bunch. Leeds had also written on My Living Doll, a short-lived sitcom from 1964 starring Julie Newmar as a robot woman. He borrowed that premise for Small Wonder, which debuted in syndication on Sept. 10, 1985. (It aired on the newly launched Fox network from 1986 until its cancellation in 1989, then lived on in reruns.)
After a nationwide search for the role of Vicki, producers “just loved Tiffany,” says Dick Christie, who played her inventor dad, Ted Lawson, “because she could pull off that monotone for the first three seasons.
- 1/6/2023
- by Seth Abramovitch
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Androids such as Mother and Father in HBO Max’s Raised by Wolves are unique among their robot cousins depicted in science fiction television. Instead of being metallic, mechanical servants devoid of any life-like appearance, androids are by definition built to look just like humans, and as a result, they are often written to have some of the same emotional strengths and flaws. But while their function may be to assist the humans that created them, they often are either caretakers like Father or killers like Mother, at least as it applies to her necromancer origins.
Reconciling those two sides is never easy, and androids weren’t always so realistic in the different eras of television, often acting as Pinocchios who wanted to be “real.” There have been many android characters in film and TV, but below are a few exemplars of each type among the main cast of some...
Reconciling those two sides is never easy, and androids weren’t always so realistic in the different eras of television, often acting as Pinocchios who wanted to be “real.” There have been many android characters in film and TV, but below are a few exemplars of each type among the main cast of some...
- 2/3/2022
- by Michael Ahr
- Den of Geek
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