M3GAN might be getting all the AI doll glory these days, but she wasn’t the first robot girl fans fell in love with. That honor probably belongs to Vicki (played by Tiffany Brissette) from Small Wonder. Remember the really odd sitcom where a robotics engineer built himself the perfect daughter? It had a good but short run between 1985 and 1989. But most people have probably seen the show via reruns. Still has anybody else wondered what happened to the actress who pulled off the stiff-as-a-board character in a red dress?
First, let’s take a time machine back to the 80s. Small Wonder followed V.I.C.I. — short for Voice Input Child Identicant. Brissette was just 10 years old when she landed the role after producers ran a nationwide search looking for a young star to play the robot. Dick Christie, who played Ted Lawson on the show, said they “loved Tiffany” because she was able to perform the flat and robotic delivery with ease (and without blinking, of course).
And for three long seasons, Brissette played the character with a straight face. But in season 4, the writers decided it was time for a system upgrade and gave the character a little more emotions. They also gave her a “growth chip” from Lawson, which was meant to explain why Brissette got taller and older as the show continued.
But while audiences tuned in every week to see what Vicki would be up to next, critics pretty much hated Small Wonder, even calling it one of the worst sitcoms of all time. But that didn’t matter much. See, the show was a huge hit overseas. It aired under different names across the globe, including Super Vicky and La Petite merveille.
Then… suddenly… the show ended and… Tiffany Brissette pretty much vanished. Nothing scandalous. She decided to unplug herself from Hollywood. Brissette, who had been working in the industry since she was just two years old, doing commercials for brands like IBM and Jell-O Puddin’ Pops alongside Bill Cosby, decided to do her own thing, but not before showing up in a few more shows, like Parker Lewis Can’t Lose and Equal Justice.
But by the early ’90s, she was pretty much gone for good.
By the mid-2000s, she’d moved to Boulder, Colorado, studied psychology at Westmont College, and later trained as a registered nurse.
She popped up again in a 2012 interview and said, “It was a great run … ‘Less is more,’ in my words. Moving forward and exploring life kept me normal. It was a fabulous run, but I was ready for what’s next.”
Not bad for a kid who used to sleep in a cabinet.
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