There has to be better protection for child stars from their parents' financial irresponsibility. It's less common now than it was 50 or even 25 years ago, but so many child stars were broke because of their parents. It's really annoying.

What makes it worse is that she probably didn't make that much money on Family Matters.

I thought I heard something concerning this when the John & Kate marital problems originally surfaced. From what I understand, there are laws regarding child actors (the more strict being established in California) requiring that at least a portion of the money child actors make be "held" for them, in a trust (if I'm not mistaken), until they are old enough to do with the money what they wish.

I would look this up now if it wasn't 4am. Maybe tomorrow :)

Wait... found this at least.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coogan_Law

Didn't one of the Cosby Kids disappear too?...Maybe I am just making that up.

ETA: No, just googled. A kid appeared, not disappeared.

Well for alot of the first seasons they didn't show Sandra, they just mentioned her. But at least they acknowledged her existence lol

I never understood the purpose of that character. He just appeared, was on a few episodes, then disappeared without a mention.

It was kind of ratings ploy, but I think some of it might have been emotional. The character was pregnant (Peggy) because the actress was in real life. I've heard conflicting reasons as to why they didn't go ahead with just that baby, from she didn't want her real kid on camera with her to that she miscarried. :(

He served the same point as cousin oliver on the brady bunch and the little girl Raven or whatever on the cosby show and the twins on full house, they needed cute little kids for the ratings, since they were family shows, or so thought the producers.

Wasn't Seven a relative and not a child of the Bundys (something like Cousin Oliver)? I think they were going to bring in a separate child when Peggy was pregnant, but when she miscarried in real life, they made her pregnancy a dream (a la Bobby Ewing).

I also think Olivia and Jessie's twins from Full House were there because the younger children (Rudy and Michelle) had gotten too old to be cute. And that was the point when both shows jumped the shark.

This sounds about right.

The thing with J & K's kids is that there is apparently no verbiage in the Coogan Law to cover children on nonscripted (i.e. reality TV) shows. Writers (yes, reality TV has writers) and editors in the reality sphere are facing a similar problem.

Yea, I found something else regarding that. Obviously this is probably why it came up when the John and Kate scandal hit the news. But I didn't pay too much attention because I really don't care all that much about it.

And again, California has some of the stricter laws concerning this issue. Some states have none. If a reality show that included children were filmed in, let's say Arkansas, I can pretty much guaratee there wouldn't be any laws protecting them.

Ahhhh!!! Now I remember! Thanks!:)


True and true!;)

Actually, I think that in the first episode, they said they only had four children, and then all of the sudden there was a fifth.

/hijack

The directions these threads take are so funny sometimes.

/end hijack