RetroTV – Where Are They Now?

You know how sometimes you watch TV and then one day that show isn’t on anymore because one of the stars got shot or went on a heroin binge or whatever?  This isn’t about that, because you know what happened to those guys.  This is about people you forgot about.

Small Wonder was the most popular sitcom on television from 1985 to 1989 and again in the Fall of 2003 when it enjoyed a renaissance brought on by America’s love of robot children.  The show was about a man who created a robot child slave and pretends it’s his daughter and was hilarious, as you have already guessed.  But what happened to those pioneers of comedy who brought us a weekly dose of an offputting child robot maid and the creepy, unasked questions about why a man would make it look like a little girl?  Where are they now?

Dick Christie, who played the father, went on to star in epics like Mama’s Family as fan favorite Mr. Chetwind and an episode of the Tony Danza classic Who’s the Boss as Hitler’s great grandson who is also dying from syphilis but is in love with zany red-head Mona.  From 2001 through 2005 Mr. Christie made good cookies.  He currently lives with a roommate in a loft in downtown Detroit and enjoys crafts.

Tiffany Brissette, the titular Small Wonder, once ate three egg salad sandwiches.  On an unrelated note, titular sounds like it would be a synonym for boobtastic or hooteriffic, but it’s really not.  Tiffany Brissette is now in prison.

The Golden Girls was a show about old ladies.  So very old.

Betty White, who played the slow but loveable Rose on Golden Girls, was actually the reason for the show going off the air and not Bea Arthur’s perpetual five o’clock shadow as was reported in TV Guide at the time.  White, a prominent animal right’s activist, had gone to the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield Illinois and run afoul of an orangutan named Gus.  The two exchanged heated words and in what witnesses described as a bizarre display of elderly animosity, White fought the beast in hand to hand combat in a style reminiscent of early 30’s boxing matches whereby the two pugilists merely rooted their feet in one spot and exchange blows to the head until one fell down.  While it seemed like the physically stronger orangutan would be able to hold its own against the 68 lb lady assaulting it, no on could have forseen White’s knowledge of pressure points.  One sharp blow to the chest sent Gus spiraling into cardiac arrest.  A second unnecessary blow to the cranium set off an aneurysm that ended the ape before he knew what hit him.

Since that time, White has been running a mink farm in Oregon and will shoot any press who come to her home on sight.

Rue McClanahan, who played saucy Blanche on the show, was born in 1934.   This means she was practically 90 when she was on the Golden Girls playing an oversexed grandma.  Nasty.  That aside, since the show ended, Rue took some time off from acting to open a little haberdashery in Arizona where she routinely amazes locals and tourists alike with her stunning haberdasher skills.  Most weekdays around 4 you can catch her haberdashing if her hips feel up to it.  Admission is free with the purchase of a meat pie, which are made in the back by Estelle Getty and come in kidney, chicken or ham flavors.

Bea Arthur is now Robert Loggia.

Blossom – The show that gave the world Joey Lawrence was clearly awesome.  It also featured Mayim Bialik in a variety of hats.

Mayim Bialik – After Blossom was cancelled for encouraging heroin use in children, Bialik left show business to go to school at an unaccredited university on the small island nation of Kiribati where she lived on her own atoll and attempted numerous take overs of three neighboring atolls, two of which were populated by seals and one on which an elderly fisherman lived.  The seals and the fisherman proved too difficult to overcome.

After graduating with a degree in Funkology, Bialik joined the Parliament Funkadelic and is currently on tour with George Clinton where she eats fire.

Joey Lawrence, best known for being stupid before Keanu Reeves stole his shtick, enjoyed a brief career as a terrible musician, then a longer stint as a terrible unemployed person.  With the weight of the world on his shoulders and little intelligence pushing back, Lawrence attempted to turn to super villainy as a means of making ends meet.  His dabblings as an amateur Lex Luthor were seen in the 2006 season of Dancing with the Stars.  Ironically, Lawrence was one of the aforementioned stars.

Jenna Von Oy played Blossom’s neighbor and skanky friend Six.  You can tell she was interesting and quirky because her name is a number.  Zounds!  After Blossom ended, Jenna was returned to Wal Mart.

ALF revolutionized the television landscape by making a sock puppet the focal point of a primetime TV show and giving it lines funnier than anything Tim Allen has ever uttered, which is to say it wasn’t ha ha funny, but it could have been worse.

Gordon Shumway was the real name of the alien ALF.  He was from the planet Melmac and he loved cats.  Can you think of anything more zany?  Can you?  He loves cats!  To eat!!  HA HA HAHA!!  Anyways, Gordon was actually designed from six pairs of dress pants and a bag of dryer lint.  After the show ended, ALF and by extension the man with his hand in ALF’s furry rectum were banished to Hollywood Squares for 4 years until Whoopi Goldberg fired them for upstaging her.  They have not been seen since.

Max Wright tried his hand at a few additional sitcom roles but eventually settled on becoming a sexual deviant and posting online personal ads in Canada.

Benji Gregory, who played the son, left acting behind to become a tool of pain and can be seen at numerous mixed martial arts events where he fights under the name Chuck Lidell.  Benji killed the Ochmonek’s with his bare hands.

Doogie Howser was perhaps in the top ten greatest shows ever about pre-pubescent doctors.

Neil Patrick Harris, who played Doogie, is actually a genius and was not acting on the show.  Few people realize he possesses degrees in medicine, astrophysics and phys. Ed.  Fewer people realize his renaissance in recent years, with appearance in Harold and Kumar and a handful of adult movies is actually fraudulent and the work of his stunt double/evil doppelganger Kirby Masterson.  The real Neil Patrick Harris is a recluse who oversees a perfume empire.

Max Casella, who played Doogie’s friend Vinnie Delpino ceased to exist in a physical form after production on Doogie ended.  Once the last scene wrapped, Casella dispersed into the ether to become the source of all future weasely Italian stereotypes.

Mr. Belvedere was a show about TV’s awesomest butler with the exception of Benson, Geoffery from Fresh Prince, Alfred from Batman and Lurch.  Mr. Belvedere’s first name was Lynn, but he was a man.

Christopher Hewett played Mr. Belvedere for 57 years.   The show was only on TV from 1985 – 1990, but Hewett was crazy like a shit house rat strung out on Drano and had actually been living the role of the character from 1944-2001.  This including much butling for strangers and transients.

Bob Uecker played Mr. Belvedere’s slave-driving overlord.  After the show ended, Uecker made a comfortable living signing and selling photos of Tony Danza.  Today he lives on a big pile of ill-gotten Tony Danza money.

Designing Women was about four women and a fancy fellow who run an interior design firm somewhere in the South.  It was terrible and no one cares what happened to any of the cast members.

Out of This World is the only show in which the producers were so cheap when it came to props they tried to pawn a candy dish off as an alien.  That shit was weak, yo.

Maureen Flannigan played Evie Ethel Garland, a half alien, half human, half boring as shit character.  After Out of this World ended, Maureen went on to sell oranges in downtown Chicago while writing a sequel to CATS that was to be performed entirely under water.  Unfortunately, when the show premiered at the Charles P. Murphy Memorial Theatre in Bridgeville, Georgia the cats responded poorly to the pool and several patrons had to be taken to the hospital for blood loss and rabies shots.

Burt Reynolds provided the voice of Evie’s father Troy, which is a typical alien name.  You may remember Reynolds as a man who was once famous.  Though not widely publicized, Reynolds died in 2006.  Since that time he has starred in an Uwe Boll film.