Friends (and Ridley):
It’s nearly that time. When I started this series in…October 2013?! What the fuck have you people done to my life?
…okay. Anyway.
It’s nearly that time. When I started this series I sort of never expected to make it to the end. But I did. And I did because of you guys.
You readers, you commenters, you weirdos who only message me on Facebook or email me instead of commenting here. You people who spread the links. You late-comers who stumble upon the reviews somehow and blast through them all in a matter of days. You who laugh at my jokes, steal my screenshots, and wonder why I’m making that same exact Manchurian Candidate joke again.
So I want to celebrate. We still have a few more reviews to post, along with the season four bonus features and some wrap-up material, but it’s time to announce our big farewell celebration:
ALF Wiedersehen:
The ALF Reviews Finale Stream
Friday, May 20
7:00 PM Eastern / 5:00 PM Mountain
We’ll have live chat, as always, and we’ll stream six episodes of ALF. I’ll also include a few fun oddities, provide short introductions to the episodes (the tears will be kept to a minimum), and we’ll close out the evening with a live dissection of Project: ALF, the TV movie that wrapped up the sitcom and by all accounts sucks busted nards.
This is it.
Like, really it.
I’ll post a few things after the stream — such as the official review of Project: ALF — but I want this to be our big, enthusiastic goodbye. And I honestly, truly, deeply hope you’ll be able to make it. I can’t fly everyone out to Denver and give them tongue kisses, and I assume this is the next best thing.
So, be there. Mark your calendars. All you need to do is show up here, on this very website, at that time. Honestly, don’t miss it. Ending the ALF reviews is going to be like saying goodbye to a close friend. Or at least like hearing that your racist grandfather fell off a cliff. Either way, it’s nice to have closure.
So, things for you to do:
– Show up here May 20 at 7:00 PM Eastern. THIS IS MANDATORY.
– If you have any ideas for things to include, please let me know. Email, comment, Facebook, whatever. I have ideas, yes, but if you have suggestions of what you’d like to see, and how you’d like to celebrate, let me know. Contests? Special guests? Musical numbers? Say the word.
– …and, if you’d like to provide any words of thanks / criticism / anything else, send them over. I hear all the time from folks who appreciate these reviews, and their comments range from “they’re pretty funny” to “I had a really rough week and you helped me feel better.” And that’s great; I appreciate everything you guys have to say. But if you’d like to share it with the readers in general, get in touch and maybe I’ll do a feature that includes your summing-up messages instead of just mine.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Except one last thing:
I had a few folks suggest episodes to stream, and they all seemed to suggest the (relatively) good episodes, so that we can end ALF on a high note.
And you know what?
Thank you.
I’m really proud that in the course of ripping apart this dumbass puppet show, we all came out on the other end feeling positive. That means a lot to me, and it speaks volumes about the kind of community we have here. It would be easy for people say, “Just show any old shit; I’ll be drunk anyway.” Instead you guys said, “Hey, let’s see the stuff the show did right.”
And I kind of love that.
Thank you.
I’ll post reminders in the coming weeks, but, for now, get ready. Get your requests in. And let’s go out with a bang.
Do you mean 9:00 eastern? My boss is pretty cool, but will probably fire me on principle if I leave work a little early to watch some ALF.
No, I got no part of that right because I’m bad at math, time zones, and everything else.
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It’s corrected now. 7 Eastern, 5 Mountain.
Wait, I thought it was 5
Okay. 4 pm for me. I will be late, because I don’t get home from work until 5:30. :/
We’ll still be going then, but I recommend drinking on the drive home so you won’t fall behind.
RUSH HOUR SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS!
VIDEO
GAMES
What about like, trivia questions, and the winner gets a prize? Like a crappy ALF pin.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Alf-set-of-8-Buttons-Pins-Badges-1980s-1986-TV-show-Cat-Eating-Alien-from-Melmac-/231069563991
…wow. These are fucking terrible. Buying now.
Aww Phil, you shouldn’t have! May 20 is my birthday; what a wonderful present you have for me! Even better than that year you gave me a big heaping bowl of Ebola!
.
Wait.
.
You’re actually trying to give me a poetic birthday-death by destroying my eyeballs and brain via exposure to Project ALF, aren’t you? AREN’T YOU?
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Anyways, it probably goes without saying that you should include “Night Train”, certainly my favorite (and maybe best?) episode of the series.
Also, a longshot recommendation, maybe somehow stream some of the ALF game for Sega Master System? It is an amazingly atrocious, difficult and illogical game truly worthy of the ALF brand.
What other ones do you actually like, Dan? “Night Train” is a great choice, and the easy pick of the litter for me. Are there any others you don’t actively hate?
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And…no promises on the video game, but that’s an interesting idea. I have been considering doing a writeup on that game, so…we’ll see!
I’m betting we’re probably on the same page as far as eps to pick (i’m willing to bet you’ve got “La Cucaracha” on your short list), but i’d also suggest “Fight Back”, since David Horowitz is so dreamy…
Also, I’m glad you’ll be spending your birthday with Max Wright and a racist puppet. Lucky man!
We all know all puppets are racist. You can tell by looking into their dead soulless eyes.
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And i’m sure it will be orders of magnitude (POP POP!) better than the last time i spent with Max Wright. Though there probably be less crack this time. Some. Just less.
The fact that we want the better episodes is a direct result of you own feelings about the show, Phil. Way back when, at the very beginning, you identified the premise, the main conceit of the show, and came to the conclusion that it had merit. Hell, in the years AFTER Alf the premise has been used to great effect. So looking at this show, with genuine people like Anne Scheeden and Andrea Elson, (hell even Max Wright is somewhat sympathetic, given how crap the job was) doing their best (mostly) to make this show as good as they good. You always picked up on the well-done details in the show, the props work or the particular camera angle, that proved there were SOME people paying attention, even on this nightmare fueled shitshow. You noticed, so we noticed.
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Plus I personally don’t wanna sit through THAT many hours of absolute garbage.
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And really, as a community, we’re not the “look how shit this is” club. We’re built on positivity. Look at your work on Steve Zissou, and Wes Anderson in general. You didn’t pick a movie you hated to write up a detailed look at every scene. And you even picked up Alf cos you remembered liking it. That kind of positivity is much too rare in this binary coded sea, and I know I, for one, am glad to have found it.