The Little Couple

From LoveToKnow Reality-TV

If you are looking for a family-friendly reality show, which celebrates the human spirit and teaches important lessons about acceptance, then TLC's The Little Couple is must-see TV.

The little couple call Houston home.

About The Little Couple

The Little Couple debuted on TLC in 2009 and quickly attracted a loyal fan base. The reality TV series features Bill Klein and Jen Arnold, who both live with Spondylo-Epiphyseal Dysplasia, also known as dwarfism. Bill is four feet tall while Jen measures three feet, two inches.

The series documents the newly married couple as they negotiate life in an average-sized world. They may be small in stature but the couple is enormously appealing. Not only are they well educated, articulate and engaging, but they also have a wonderful sense of humor and a chemistry that makes for great TV.

Meet the Little Couple

Jen and Bill may be smaller than the average couple, but they have big dreams and high hopes that their show will shed light on what it is like to live with dwarfism.

Bill Klein

Bill is a New York native who owns a lucrative sales and telemarketing firm. Bill’s success in the world of business is well documented on The Little Couple, with numerous episodes featuring him struggling to balance career and family. Fortunately, Bill is not all work and no play. The fun-loving 35-year-old has a playful side that keeps his wife and viewers in stitches. From his daily jokes to his self-deprecating humor and silly pranks, it is clear that Bill enjoys making his wife laugh.

What is also evident on the series is that Bill adores Jen. Not only was he willing to move from New York to Texas to be with her, but he also shows her how much he loves her with small gestures such as surprise dinners, affectionate phone calls and random acts of kindness.

Bill is also a fighter. He has endured dozens of surgeries to help him deal with his dwarfism, including a potentially life-threatening hip operation that was shown on the series. Despite his medical challenges, Bill has the resolve of a true champion who never plays the pity card.

Jen Arnold

Jen is a force to be reckoned with. The 36-year-old whirlwind gets more accomplished in one day than most people do in a week. Jen is a successful neonatologist at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. The devoted doctor works long shifts in a unit of the hospital that cares for premature babies. It is here that viewers get to see how compassionate and caring Jen is. In addition to comforting babies with special needs, Jen is a rock for the newborns' parents. She is kind, thoughtful and professional. What’s more, her loving personality isn’t limited to the hospital. Jen is as tender with Bill as she is with her tiniest patients.

In 2006, Jen feared she was becoming a workaholic and gave online dating a try. She met Bill later that year on a popular dating website, and three years later they planned a dream wedding complete with a custom designer wedding gown for Jen and a honeymoon in paradise.

Episode Highlights

While the show chronicles Bill and Jen’s physical challenges as little people, the majority of the episodes feature the couple in situations that average newlyweds would encounter, such as:

Bill and Jen’s cross country road trip from New York to Texas
Bill buys Jen a specially modified new car for her birthday
Bill and Jen go house hunting
Bill accompanies Jen on a business trip
Bill and Jen celebrate their first wedding anniversary
Bill leaves on business and Jen must fend for herself
Bill tries to complete Jen's wish list of home improvements
Bill and Jen vacation in Hawaii and Florida
Jen enrolls in a self-defense class
Bill and Jen contemplate having a baby

Popularity

The Little Couple is a ratings bonanza for TLC. Bill and Jen are taking reality TV by storm, and not just because they have fabulous personalities. TLC executives say viewers have flooded the network praising the couple for inspiring kids who also have Spondylo-Epiphyseal Dysplasia.

According to Bill and Jen, one of the reasons they agreed to do the reality series is because they wanted to show children with dwarfism and their parents that they can have "fulfilled lives." In a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, Jen said the goal of The Little Couple is to "show kids with dwarfism that they can find love and do what they want to do in life."

The Little Couple raises awareness about people with differences and how they can live normal lives like everyone else. The series also offers wholesome entertainment, which is often void in most reality TV shows. In addition, Bill and Jen use the show to discuss how hurtful some people's reactions to them can be. However, Bill and Jen's remarks do not overshadow the show's main theme, which is to illustrate how their unique circumstances have made them better people.

Retrieved from "http://reality-tv.lovetoknow.com/The_Little_Couple"

Learn More

Slideshows and Quizzes

Top 5 Reality TV Articles

Related Articles

Comments

Iris, if you want to make sure that your well-wishes reach Bill and Jen you may want to visit the TLC network website.

-- Contributed by: Tamsen Butler

Hi Bill & Gen

Thanks ever so much for making the do...entary that you made. You have given the rest of us "HOPE". I was fascinated when I saw your pictures in a magazine in the News of The World Newspaper in the UK. I was not able to see your do...entary as I did not have Sky Television.

I am a lady called Iris Henderson. I live in Scotland and I once was the Scottish Co-ordinator for a UK organisation called "The Restricted Growth Association",

I am 56 years old and I have the same medical condition as you, which is Spondy-lo-epipyseal Dysplasia. I am exactly Three Feet 4 Inches tall in height. I married a very tall gentleman called Tom in 1975. At that time Tommy was a reserve soldier in the Parachute Regiment. He also boxed in the regiments boxing tournaments.

We went on to have a daughter who is called Donna. I had Donna in a hospital called The Queen Mothers in Yorkhill, Glasgow. I gave birth in front of quite a lot of people. I did this because I wanted other women who had the same medical condition as me for, doctors to learn from my delivery and, be able to make things better for other women with the same condition who came at my back.

My beautiful daughter was born on the 13 August 1976 by a doctor called Dr Chatfield. She did not have any kind of dwarfism at all. I carried her in my womb for 37 weeks until I went into labour. This time the labour could not be stopped as I simply had run out of room.

Her birth weight was 6lb 10 oz. They reckon that if I went full term then I might have given birth to a lot heavier child. I had a photograph taken of her at One year old and another taken of her when she was 18. I did not want her to be in the public eye too much as I wanted her to have a normal upbringing.

She got married in India this year to a lovely Sikh man called Gurvinder. She was married in a village called Nawasha. Many people came to the wedding. She was a truly stunning Indian Sikh Bride. I have some beautiful pictures of this if you are interested in seeing them.

If I can help you in any way in your desire to have a family. If you contact me at my email adress I will happily help you in any way that I can. I did visit your country in my capacity as The Scottish Co-ordinator of the The Restricted Growth Association in 1998.

I was at a Convention for the "Little People Of America" which was held in Woodhills in Los Angeles, California. I was welcomed by the commitee of this organisation and made very welcome. I got the chance to see quite a lot of people like myself with Spondy-lo-epipyseal Dysplasia. It helped me immensely to see other people with the same condition as myself.

I was fascinated by the fact that I met people like myself who had been given lots of oppertunities in their country that I had been denied in mine. Mainly an education. I made friends with a lady called Noele. She was a Professor for people with disabilities. I also met a lady called Sharon from Alaska of which I sadly lost this ladies address and would love to get back in touch with her again.

When I was of school age my mother was not allowed to be able to put me into main stream education. She was forced to put me into a special school. She was given no other option. This angered me immensely as I was not given a chance to realise my abilities. Had I been allowed to get an education then, things might have been a lot better for me. The things that they did to people with Spondy-lo-epipyseal Dysplasia and to other people with disabilities was very shameful. For which the British Authorities should be throughly ashamed of themselves because they cheated a lot of intelligent people from being able to better themselves.

Well folks I will sign off now that I have given you a little glimpse of my life and what I have achieved. I also went back to college when I was 45 years old. It was quite daunting however I wanted to better myself educationally. This I managed to achieve although I would have liked to take it further.

However my parents were very ill and I had to nurse them. My beloved mother died only recently there on the 12 June this year. Maybe in time I might go back and do some more.

I wonder as well folks if you would be so kind as to tell me where this "Dating Site is for People with Spondy-lo-epipyseal Dysplasia". The reason I would like to know this is because I have been divorced fo many years now and have been on my own since my daughter has moved out and made a life of her own.

Now it is time for me to do something with my life now that my daughter is all grown up. Maybe if it happened for you two people who were able to meet on this dating site then, there might be hope for me.

Thanking you both again for sharing your live so openly with us all and helping others like yourself.

With Best Wishes

IRIS HENDERSON Glasgow, Scotland

-- Contributed by: Iris Henderson

Thank you for your comments, and for visiting LoveToKnow Reality TV.

-- Contributed by: Tamsen Butler

> See All Comments on this article