Getting Typecast

[Smartboy]

Being that the new DVDs have finely arrived, there seems to be post after post about that topic! However, I happened to be thinking about something else and I would like to write about it. Let us take a look at the child stars of such shows as "The Brady Bunch" and "Different Strokes". These people were typecast to the point to where it was nearly impossible for them to find work in the business after they were no longer children and the show's run finely ended. Many of them have resorted to alcohol, drugs, porno or even suicide! Now one fact that a lot of you know is that Helen Hunt was considered for the part of Katie. She would have been an eighteen year old playing the part of a seventeen year old. As it turned out, Kari Michaelson ended up a twenty year old playing a seventeen year old. This was quite some time before Helen Hunt was a household name. She had been in the "Swiss Family Robinson" and made a few guest appearances on a few other shows. One of them was one episode of "Facts of Life" There was a five-year time lapse between the time that Kari's life as Katie Kinisky ended and the time that Helen's life as Jamie Buchman began. It was only after the success of "Mad About You" that Helen hunt was in movie after movie. What do you think that Helen's life would have been like if she had spent five years as the self-centered, air-headed blond known as Katie Kinisky? Do you still think that she would have found work as an actress in the adult world? Or do you think that, by the early nineties she would have been sleeping on park benches, smoking ciggerettes (or worse) and drinking beer?