Retro TV Review: Small Wonder-Super Suds
Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 03.19.2008
Vicki gets snuggly soft with a new laundry detergent
“Super Suds”
Original airdate: March 1988
Regular Cast
Vicki the robot: Tiffany Brissette
Ted Lawson: Dick Christie
Joan Lawson: Marla Pennington
Jamie Lawson: Jerry Supiran
Harriet Brindle: Emily Schulman
Bonnie Brindle: Edie McClurg
Brandon Brindle: William Bogert
Ida Mae Brindle: Alice Ghostley
Reggie Williams: Paul C. Scott
Guest Stars: Mickey Morton as Mr. Johnson and Cooper Neal as Mr. Bertrand. Johnson and Bertrand would later form a law firm in Pierre, South Dakota.
The kids are playing with a chemistry set that grandpa set them. Since it’s grandpa and not grandpa and grandma, we would assume this came from Joan’s father recently in the episode “Golddigging Ida.” The fact that I actually made that deduction kind of scares me. Don’t you think that Vicki playing with a kid’s chemistry set is like Jeff Gordon riding around on a big wheel?
The parents leave to go shopping, or Joan will shop and Ted will stand around holding packages and groping for his wallet. Harriet enters. Jamie says he’s making a freckle remover. Let’s call Lindsay Lohan. Vicki mixes a bunch of colored gunk together and it turns green. Jamie knocks it over. Hey, you got your gunk in my freckle remover. You got your freckle remover in my gunk. And that, children, is how RC Cola came to be. Vicki fetches an old towel from under the sink to clean up the mess. Jamie washes it out and finds that it has become instantly clean. It has also changed color, shape and material. Jamie wants to market the gunk as a detergent and Vicki sings the ring around the color song. It’s before your time, don’t worry about it. Next they will claim it’s an ancient Chinese secret. Harriet comes up with the idea that they should charge people to clean their clothes and they can use that money to buy more chemicals so they can make more gunk. That’s how George Jefferson got started.
Jamie and Vicki knock on the door of a man that looks like Bill Irwin. They have to hurry their pitch because he’s got a knockwurst in the microwave and they explode. Exploding Knockwurst was a ska band I was in during college. Irwin says he doesn’t need a laundry service, because he has a wife. Damn straight. Vicki fakes passing out and Jamie lays on a story about how their dad got laid off and they need money. The man relents when Vicki turns on the waterworks. Literally. She looks like Daffy Duck drinking a glass of water after getting poked by a rake. We further go into cartoon land when Irwin’s sandwich blows up and it sounds like when Tom puts a bomb in Jerry’s hole and he hides behind the couch with his fingers in his ears, but Jerry sneaks the bomb behind him and it goes off leaving Tom looking like a racist caricature of a pygmy tribesman. You know what I’m talking about.
The kids work on clothes in the kitchen when the ‘rents come home. Ted recognizes that a pair of shorts with red hearts on them isn’t his. I’m guessing because there are no holes and no stains. Vicki confesses the sob story they gave the neighbors and they also laid some food on them. Joan feels humiliated, but when doesn’t she. Harriet’s dad, Brandon, enters to gloat over the Lawsons being destitute. They tell the adults about the detergent they invented. Vicki draws on Brandon’s shirt with a marker and Jamie goes all Billy Mays in demonstrating how they clean it. Brandon’s undershirt has a teddy bear on it. “Hey, I like teddy bears. Is that ok with you?” That’s probably the best response there. Brandon tries to horn in on the action. Ted and Joan tell him no dice, because they’re going to steal the kids’ idea.
Ted does math in the living room to figure out how much moolah they need to get the cleaning business started. It’s more than they have. Jamie and Harriet continue to work in the kitchen. Jamie pulls out a giant bra, or what might be a watermelon bag. He says the day that fits Harriet is the day they get married. I hear Dolly Parton actually gives grants for underdeveloped girls to have breast enlargements. After I write that Harriet says, “Even Dolly Parton had to start somewhere.” I’m a little unnerved at first, but when you think of big tits, who doesn’t go with Dolly Parton. Vicki tells Jamie they don’t have the money to start the business. He then asks Harriet if Brandon will invest.
Brandon comes over to interrupt dinner. He can put up every cent they need, but he wants 70%. Ted offers 49% and Brandon takes it. Ted’s a dumbass because Harriet already had 2%, so he has 51% and controlling interest in the company. We now know this will end bad, because the Brindles always get screwed. Karma’s a bitch.
Everyone gets ready to meet with the detergent company head. The kids sing a jingle to the turn of “Johnny Comes Marching Home.” Vicki doesn’t sound too bad. I can’t even make a joke out of it. Brandon arrives wearing a couch cover from 1978 as a jacket and carrying a giant picture of himself in said jacket holding a bottle of detergent. That’s hanging in Dave Chapelle’s bathroom now. Ted schemes to get controlling interest of the company back by having Jamie sweet talk Harriet. He doesn’t want to do it. He then turns to Vicki. This is the first time a possible lesbian entanglement doesn’t entice me. Vicki gives Harriet a salesman pitch. She thinks that’s weird so Vicki spills the beans that Harriet can have anything she wants for her shares. Naturally, she wants Jamie. That’s ok by them. Ted’s gloating is short lived as the detergent rep shows up.
George Bertrand looks like Jennifer Aniston’s father, John, star of “Days of Our Lives.” Not that I would know anything about that. I’m an “All My Children” man myself. They go into the kitchen where the kids do the pitch. Bertrand produces his own dirty shirt and they clean it in a jiffy. Well, in a bucket actually. They’re offered $500,000, but Ted refuses. He gets the guy up to $1 million and Ted continues to play hardball. In this week’s installment of plot contrivance theater, Irwin comes over to reveal that his clothes fell apart 24 hours after getting them back. Everyone starts pulling at their clothes and they shred apart. Brandon and Ted go outside to discuss matters with Irwin. He gives them a double noggin knocker and beats them up. See, you didn’t think the Bill Irwin reference was going anywhere.
The 411: This was basically a retread of the “Vicki Goodwrench” episode with a sampling of Vicki’s salesman impression to trick Harriet from “The Hustle.” Hey, you got my one crappy premise in your other crappy premise! And what do we get out that? Some green gunk that will dissolve your clothes with its awfulness.
