Tiffany Brissette's robot back panel was a show device second in popularity only to
her unenhanced robotic monotone, and gave her the distinction of being (and Christie the boast of the "pleasure" doing) one of the most unzipped
females on TV. The garment resembles a flesh-tone waist-long vinyl vest. Eight or
10 wafer battery cells straddle a shallow back recess panel with a top-hinged
flap. Inside the housing was a "lightbox" circuit board of dummy
computer chips, capacitors and three live LEDs in the first model, evolving later
into 20 tiny incandescent bulbs with ripple-fire flashers. Three were refitted as
Brissette grew. To show up under stage lamps the bulbs were the brightest you can
buy (far more than LEDs) and guzzled batteries dry in about ten minutes; by then the crew joked you could warm tacos inside the panel. It was snug as a corset so as not to show under pinafores in scenes requiring it, and Christie joked that Brissette had the world's first electric training bra. In time, that would be close to a painful truth for her.
In addition to the panel, under each arm opening was, on the right, a dummy three-prong 220V socket, and on the left, a parallel port by which Ted plugged Vicki into his terminal to up/download and perform diagnostics, both inputs accessible through three-inch slits below the armpit of her pinafores. These sockets, along with the rigidity of the vest, tended to prop Brissette's arms from her sides when at rest. It was clammy and hot enough wearing by itself, much less under hot glaring stage lamps underneath lacy layers of starchy pinafore and pettipants. During breaks Brissette rested on an inclined slab instead of sitting down so as not to rumple her taffeta crinoline and pinafore, and the vest made that posture even more necessary. The panel vests were a source of great bloopers and off-set hi-jinks, especially when Brissette suddenly couldn't unplug from Christie's computer.
Ted Lawson's home computer grew from the 1984 pilot's Tandy TRS-80 with 5.25-inch floppy diskettes and oversized modem box in his bedroom to the surplus Wang assembly housed in the living room closet afterward. Had the fifth season worked out, Ted's whole computer system would've moved into the "new" Vicki/Vanessa's bedroom. (See The Mechminx's Lost Season.) The home computer was properly to have had a far greater role in Vicki's technical plausibility than as the mere auxillary memory and diagnostics unit aired, and even this was as a compromise to Ted maintaining Vicki's memories and "soul" in the United Robotronics mainframe, where the Small Wonder bible stated it ought to be. For more information, see the Technical Background.
Of course, to create the effect of Vicki's robot powers, set designers made considerable use of collapsible and breakaway furniture, "sugar" glass and chinaware, balsa trees and rocks, and plastic foam walls. Many elaborate opticals were used for the time on personal computers: first on Amiga 1000s and then, toward the close, on Macs where Commodore computers wouldn't work. Often props either didn't cooperate or missed their cues, or "breakaways" proved too durable for their own good, as occurred often in shots where Brissette was supposed to have delivered a smashing blow to a table or chair.
The most recognized stand-alone prop was Vicki's cabinet, actually Jamie's toy closet but graduated as a girl robot's "bedroom." Three cabinets were built: two around 2 feet wide by 5 feet high (one for the first season, and the other for the third through fifth seasons), and an oversized 6-foot-8-inch one used only once (for "My Robot Family"). Each had breakaway doors and was anchored to the floor to prevent being tipped over by excitable kids. Marla Pennington once suggested painting the cabinet pink since it was now Vicki's "home," but Leeds -- and Supiran -- would hear nothing of that!
To Be Continued...