pinafores

We were talking about pinafores at breakfast (the outfit, not the dessert – how do you spell that one?) and the one that defines it for me is Vicki (Voice Input Child Identicant/V.I.C.I actually) from Small Wonder.

Fire up Google, and found this site: http://members.surfbest.net/[email protected]/index.html 

Now I know that it’s blogging easy pickin’s to go find some fan site for something relatively obscure, but trust me here.

This site really covers more than you can imagine possible about a tv show from the 80’s. I can understand a show that came on the air after the internet (web) was popular, people can collaboratively build a huge library of data, but going back to the 80’s for your material has got to be a challenge. 

Just a small sampling of the stuff available: Message boards and insider chat, episode guides, series & technical backgrounds, FAQ, theme song audio, lost spin-off, cast and character bios, Q&A with creator Howard Leeds, and Tiffany Brissette fan club page, the math and myth behind Vicki’s science and the social ramifications that a real-life V.I.C.I. might pose in families, religion, society and sex and of course fan fiction.

Why weren’t we constantly thinking “I would like to punch each and every person on this show in the face?” Were we all just a little bit more innocent back then – cause I’d really like to punch them all in the face.

My #1 top favorite item is the Small Wonder seriously section’s “Is it really a good idea to keep lovely and obedient Vicki in Jamie’s Bedroom?”

Perhaps the most downplayed but subtly volatile situation posed on Small Wonder was parking Vicki in her junior jock pubescent “brother” Jamie’s bedroom. Of all themes driving salacious “X-rated” Small Wonder fanfic on the web, this was it. Naturally, a sitcom geared for a younger audience was able to gloss over the ramifications by non-admission, but the real world isn’t that blind or innocent. …

The question foremost in storing Vicki in Jamie’s room is whether she poses too perfect a human replicate for a young pubescent boy with perking hormones to simply dismiss as an appliance or a toy. Like the perfect hypnotized subject, Vicki presents to any young boy the ultimate “play doctor” partner (primarily as a petting object since she’s only externally anatomically correct); totally docile, obedient, and obliging. She has no will, conscious, sense of morality, shame or modesty. She doesn’t blab and will permanently keep and encrypt or delete an experience if so ordered. The knowledge that Vicki’s non-biological and has no “mind” or true feelings to bruise or traumatize or have qualms about adds a notch of guiltlessness that’d encourage Jamie’s response to Vicki’s affect. Also, that she’s physically very comely can only exasperate Jamie’s pose of brotherly disinterest in her. So would he or does he? Jamie certainly has ample opportunity and privacy to carry out any wanton whimsy in his bedroom, so the question is, assuming he is like most boys his age, would he willfully and spitelessly move on his own “sister” or does he regard Vicki enough as one not to?