There were all kinds of malfunctioning gags dreamed up for Vicki, from having her locked into doing cartwheels (which Tiffany does very well) instead of walking to Vicki grilling Brillo burgers for a picnic and to her riding Jamie's bike but cannot get off. Once Vicki was endowed with a polynucleotide processor (PNP) that allows her to eat, you couldn't stop all the ready bathroom jokes. (What does a constipated Vicki take? Answer: Drano) Some things you simply can't do on TV.

In "Fat's Where It's At," Vicki puffs out like a balloon due to a unspecified dysfunction with her PNP producing too much gas from "digesting" foodstuffs (which burns it into energy for battery storage). Techies recommended (after the episode aired) that it would've been better to explain that the problem was that Vicki's PNP's vent valve was jammed, thus backing up the gas into her body cavity and stretching her skin out. Technically you could get away with this concept, only more likely in reality she would've appeared more to have gained about 20 pounds or so before her cellular plastic-latex skin would've ruptured somewhere. That would've been a neat sight (especially to the saddened special effects and cosmetics people), and maybe even a little exciting since the likely gaseous by-product of her PNP would've been methane.

Similar PNP problems abound in "It's a Gas," where Ted discovers that Vicki's hiccups are caused by "instabilities" in her PNP, its venting value obviously acting up again, backing up the wrong way. When Ted tries adjusting it, it suddenly gushes nitrous oxide gas, which makes you wonder of the kind of witches' brew the thing's creating in Vicki's tiny tummy. The temporary remedy till Ted gets a handle of the problem is don't feed Vicki anything -- but you know she does eat, courtesy of Harriet -- and the result causes a riot in the house, though some might prefer witless laughter to a house smelling like a cow pasture. On the set, this episode was unkindly though accurately called "Vicki's Funny Fart," which, though embarrassing, everyone knows that that PNP's gotta slowly vent all those gases somewhere...

In "Haunted House", Vicki is accidentially struck by lightning, the surge damaging her Radiothermionic Generator (RTG) and causing it to induce uncontrollable AC currents in her titanium skeleton which creates powerful electromagnetic fields that nearly turns the house upside down as furniture flips over by itself and clocks are wildly whirling and frying pans and steak knives are literally flying all over the place. No wonder her unwary family thinks ghosts have moved into the house! The kitchen set was so rigged up with disaster effects that the movements of the actors were orchestrated so no one would get hurt.

After the fun of shooting "Haunted House" and seeing the havoc a malfunctioning RTG could cause, a brief but crucial (sure would've explained a lot!) edited scene (Leeds: "Cost too much!") was drawn up for "Vicki and the Skyjacker" with the Lawsons about to pass the airport's metal detectors. Ted, of course, has forgotten that Vicki's electronic body isn't shielded against that since she supposedly was designed to stay at home happily cleaning and not acting as a second-hand daughter. So when Vicki passes the gate, every horn and alarm goes off and S.W.A.T. teams pour in like oranges, and they get out of it only because Ted hastily whispers to Vicki to "burp your RTG!" He explains to Joan that it made Vicki surge an electromagnetic pulse through her metal skeleton to blow out the metal detector, and since the guards can't find anything suspicious on Vicki's person they let her go on -- and everyone else, along with guess who?

Vicki's thermal powers never malfunctioned on the show, but that doesn't mean that there weren't gags a-plenty for them! One of my favorites would've involved an activity we never caught Vicki in; taking a bath, but since bathroom scenes were an extra expense, the gag was considered for what instead became the raking leaves scene in "Doolittle Vicki." The gag was that it's a hot day and Jamie and Vicki in trunks and sundress are sitting outside with their feet in a little wading tub. Jamie asks (orders?) Vicki to chill his lemonade glass between her palms which she does -- enough to make ice cubes in it (in fact, her whole shivering body glows arctic blue -- and you smile because you can see what's gonna happen!) So when Harriet comes in with her parrot, Jamie starts to stand and finds he can't walk because the water in the tub has turned into a block of ice. This gag was struck because it would've "required too much preparation" (i.e.the opticals, the fake Lucite ice block, etc.), and it was deemed a fan blowing cardboard leaves was quicker and cheaper...a lame substitution because since when does one rake leaves in southern California?

One hilarious premise the writers conjured over pizza was having Vicki suffer a "Randomized Recognition Perception" bug, in which poor Vicki starts the day getting the identities of the family members all mixed up, mistaking Jamie for Ted and Harriet for Joan, and so on, creating a mess of mixed messages and fouled-up class attendance call when Vicki temporarily takes Joan's place doing it at her teacher's desk.

One episode where malfunctions tumble after malfunction is in "Jamie's Older Woman," where a power surge, after brainy Ted plugs her into the house mains for power during a blackout, scrambles poor Vicki's programming and causes her to talk backwards, echo everything he says, walk backward and imitate his moves. Tiffany and Dick genuinely had fun cutting up with the echo gag in which she repeated every word he said as fast as he said it even during breaks, which was fun to see.

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