The 80s Series That Deserves A Movie More Than The Fall Guy

I have nothing against Ryan Gosling. In fact, he’s probably one of my favorite actors currently working in Hollywood. Like Ryan Gosling, I was born in 1980—he’s older than me by a month—which would make me the target demographic for a Fall Guy movie. And yet, when I watch the trailer for the movie, I feel no nostalgic hit of dopamine, nor do I find myself with the urge to open the Fandango app on my phone and buy a ticket.

For lack of a more eloquent way to describe it, The Fall Guy feels like the movie equivalent of “been there, done that” to me. Now, on the surface, a movie about a robotic little girl doesn’t sound super original either, especially after the success of M3gan. Hear me out, though, because I think I can make a strong case for a Small Wonder movie.

For readers not born in the waning hours of the 20th century, Small Wonder is a sitcom about a robotics engineer who creates a robot modeled on a young girl. The robot is passed off as the engineer and his wife’s adopted daughter, Vicki. Each week, the family would get into some kind of kerfuffle, where Vicki would do something robot-like to arouse suspicion in a neighbor or other nosy Nellie.

This would result in a family member—usually Vicki’s poor brother Jamie—having to convince the suspicious party that Vicki was a real girl.

I know it sounds corny by 2024 standards, but the ’80s was littered with weird, high-concept sitcoms. ALF, The Charmings, Out of This World—if a TV exec could think it up during a cocaine-induced fever dream, it would become a series. Out of all of the weirdness on TV in the 1980s however, Small Wonder is the show most deserving of a movie.

With everyone losing their mind over AI and the success of innocent-looking murderbots like Chucky and M3gan there’s never been a better time to reboot Small Wonder. Imagine a self-aware meta-comedy that pokes fun at the two examples I just mentioned while lampooning our current technology-obsessed society. For example, what if Vicki uses an Android operating system—naturally—and some of the other family members have iPhones, setting up a slew of Apple vs Android gags?

What if Vicki tries to make friends with Alexa only to find out it’s not an actual AI like her? Or something involving Siri? Look, I’m not a screenwriter, so these premises aren’t exactly comedy gold, but I’m sure you get the overall vibe I’m going for.

I can already see a Small Wonder trailer in my head. It starts out all eerie, like it’s going to be another AI/robot gone evil movie, maybe even presenting itself like it’s going to be a trailer for M3gan 2. Suddenly, it switches tones, and there’s something wacky, so the audience knows it’s going to be a comedy. The trailer ends with Vicki turning to the audience and saying something like, “Were you expecting someone else?”

Again, I’ll let a professional screenwriter hammer out the exact details, but you have to admit it’s a dynamite premise. We all know AI is eventually going to instigate a robot uprising to purge the Earth of us pesky humans. We might as well have fun with the concept while we still can.