Philip J Reed, Author at Noiseless Chatter

The Venture Bros. Reviews: “Red Means Stop” (season 6, episode 8)

Another season down, and while I wouldn’t call this experiment a failure, I look forward to a much more traditional season to follow. It was ambitious, but I don’t know that the ambition really came to anything.

I’ve been down on season six as a whole, and I know that. But it’s mainly because the one-long-story device meant that things were elevated to “important” status which wouldn’t have been otherwise. When you’re watching everything unfold over a (relatively) unbroken period of time, you’re going to see a lot of stuff happening just because the camera is already there. In a standard half-hour show you’ll only see things for good reason; there’s not time to dawdle. Here we saw entire plots — or what seemed to be plots — come to nothing, presumably just because we were hanging around while they happened.

For instance, the Science Now conference. We were led to believe Dr. Venture’s reveal of a new invention was of prime importance to him…but by the end of the season the conference doesn’t even happen. There’s Dean attending school…which led to nothing apart from the fact that we can now type “There’s Dean attending school.” Hank’s courtship of Sirena fared much better, but still hasn’t led anywhere. It’s been all setup. Largely good setup…but setup all the same.

The new characters were almost uniformly a bust. Of the mess of them introduced in “Hostile Makeover,” only Warriana made an impact. (More on her later). And one-off villains like Harangutan and Think Tank were almost daring in how thinly they were drawn. Wide Wale was probably the worst and most confusing of the bunch, as I still have no fucking idea what he’s doing.

He’s this season’s big bad…except that he isn’t, and he’s just kind of wading around, hoping Jackson or Doc figure out something for him to do. But we’ve had a whole season to figure it out and we still don’t know why he was driving a wedge between The Monarchs, or to what end, why he cared about arching (and then not arching) Dr. Venture, whether the murder of his brother plays into this, or…anything, really. The show went out of his way to establish him as an important character, and then did literally nothing with him. If season seven opened with him falling out a window to his death, I can’t imagine it’d register as any kind of loss.

The disappointing new characters are made more disappointing by the established characters we don’t get to see. No Orpheus, no Triad, no Impossibles, no Molotov…these are rich characters that, to varying degrees, we care about. To say we can’t cycle in new characters would be insane, especially as we have Red Death, Warriana, and, to a lesser extent, Sirena to prove that Jackson and Doc can still give us great new creations on a near-regular basis. It’s just that most of the new creations weren’t great, and the absence of other characters we love is too clearly felt.

Having said all of that, “Red Means Stop” was a lot of fun. And it was pretty good. Between this, “Maybe No Go,” “It Happening One Night,” and “A Party for Tarzan,” I’d say half of the season was solid.

The problem comes from the fact that the format — the lack of a proper structure, and, in many cases, the complete lack of payoff — hamstrung the rest of the episodes, and I really hope we’re done forcing everything in a single narrative that doesn’t actually go anywhere. Keep the Ventures in New York; I’m okay with that. But please return to a format more suited to weekly installments.

Okay, have I bitched enough about a show I love?

Good. Let’s get into the good stuff season six did, which, fortunately, ties pretty tightly into what “Red Means Stop” does.

For starters, I think the season absolutely nailed Gary’s emotional journey. Like so much else it lacked a resolution, but unlike so much else it brought us to a very intriguing place, and I’m very excited to see what the show does with it.

While it was his idea to pull this whole Blue Morpho stunt in the first place — a fact The Monarch reminds him of this week, for maximum needling — he’s gotten gradually more implicated in these deaths, against his own wishes. He started by accidentally killing somebody (importantly, it happened in the service of actual good, as he rescued Billy) and moved on to deliberate, premeditated murder.

…at least, that’s what The Monarch expected of him last week. Kidnap The Wandering Spider, take him out to the Pine Barrens, force him to place a call that would establish The Monarch’s alibi…and then execute him. Gary wasn’t happy about this…and he may not have even killed the guy. We saw him burying something, but it could have just been The Wandering Spider’s gadgetry. Gary likely found a way to do his boss’s bidding — and take a supervillain out of the game — without getting blood on his hands.

But, hey, “Red Means Stop” twists again. Uncomfortable with murder, Gary’s instead been kidnapping villains and keeping them locked away in the Morpho Cave. A much more humane way of eliminating their competition…

…except that it isn’t. The Saw homages were…well, I’ll be honest here: I liked the episode as a whole, but the Saw homages were little more than Saw homages. I didn’t see much of an interesting spin on them, even if I loved the fact that Gary unwittingly became a Jigsaw figure. He didn’t mean to hurt anybody. At all. He meant to keep them locked away, yes, but he thought he was keeping them fed and safe. His intention was to not kill them, and he ended up creating for them a much more harrowing, awful, torturous end than a straight murder would have been. In attempting to be a good guy, he became a worse guy.

The Venture Bros. has been fairly cruel to its characters before, but never — to my knowledge — had it gone quite that far into hopeless darkness. It’s impressive that so much Saw made it into The Venture Bros. without being significantly softened…but it’s still just Saw, with the worst things happening off camera.

But, man…that look on Gary’s face at the end…when he realizes not only that he’s killed again, but that he did the worst thing imaginable to people he never intended to hurt…

It reminded me of that incredible moment in “Return to Malice,” when he’s explaining to Hank and Dean why he’s on the warpath. He describes the circumstances surrounding the unforgivable murder of 24, only to realize in the process of speaking the words that he is responsible. He is the reason 24 died.

His face falls. His narration stops. He never meant any harm…but he caused harm. He’s been affected by that realization ever since.

And now he has more, worse unnecessary death on his conscience.

I don’t know where his character is going next. But he’s on a journey, and it’s potentially a great one. Does this push him over the edge, or make him shrink back? I honestly have no idea. Does anyone out there have any predictions?

Also, out of curiosity: do we think The Wandering Spider was in that room? I’d just imagined the guy walking home in the moonlight, glad to be alive, unseen during the conclusion of “A Party for Tarzan,” escaping into a second chance at life while we watched Dr. Venture escape into his own. But now I wonder if Gary tossed him in there instead, only for the guy to be partially devoured by an insane Maestrowave.

The sheer (suggested) violence and brutality of those scenes was interesting. This is a show that usually softens its blows with comedy, but there was no redeeming punchline for those poor villains…just the reveal that the craziest of them was dealt the longest chain. Death happens on this show, but rarely has a character’s end been so ruthlessly awful. So, yes, I liked the Saw stuff, even though I really wish it was more than just Saw stuff.

Speaking of “Just _____ Stuff,” Red Death repeating Liam Neeson’s Taken monologue word for word (as far as I could tell, anyway) was pretty disappointing. Once again, it was just “Here’s what happened elsewhere” with no interesting spin. That’s a shame, because, man, you’ve heard that speech often enough that you really need something extra to justify another reprise.

Instead it’s just Red Death repeating something he heard in a movie, I guess. And then Gary identifies it for us, which means these characters have seen Taken and we can’t really fall back on this being a fun coincidence.

It’s disappointing, because Doc Hammer is a strong enough writer that he could have given us a speech like that one which was more true to the character and the situation than one lifted wholesale from somebody else’s work. (Compare this to Hank’s Bull Durham speech in “It Happening One Night.” That had a recognizable origin as well as Venture-specific execution.)

Instead we have The Monarch and Gary terrified by a speech that’s been repeated so often it’s no longer terrifying. Give us something better than that. Jackson and Doc (as both writers and performers) are better than that. Clancy Brown as Red Death was terrifying, so it’s crazy to me that they didn’t believe in him or the situation enough to give him — and themselves — something original to work with.

There was a lot to love here, though, not the least of which being returns from Hunter and Shore Leave. (I fucking love Shore Leave.) The Guild / OSI teamup was great without being especially eventful, and it was sad to see both organizations turning their backs on former member Hatred so flatly. It was a good kind of sadness…the kind only a show like this, with such long and complicated interlocking histories for its characters can pull off. And we got to see Snoopy again, which was nice. (I fucking love Snoopy.)

Wrapping the whole thing up — this dangerous encounter with a truly dangerous villain — by having a few bad guys sit around and talk about their feelings gave this away as a Doc Hammer episode in the best possible way. It was a great ending, and while it lacked the punch of Gary’s arc, The Monarch is left in a really interesting place as well. Red Death doesn’t tell him to chill the fuck out and live life for a while…he tells him to burn Venture to the ground and crush his skull. And then chill the fuck out and live life for a while.

Red Death has found peace. Not as a villain, but as a human being. (If…that’s…what he is…) He’s been freed from genuine hatred and obsession simply because he killed what he hated and obsessed over. Now he can divide his professional life from his personal life…and everybody’s happier for it. He has a loving family, a great home, and can arch one night a year. For a horrifying demonic soul-stealing beast, he’s got his shit together.

The question is…will The Monarch get his shit together the same way?

Season six wasn’t great. It pains me to say that, but it’s true. The experiment dealt this stretch of episodes more handicaps than opportunities, but, on the whole, I think it made good on the opportunities it did have.

But, damn, I’m really looking forward to a more traditional season seven.

For now, just a few stray observations and talking points:

Warriana is great. Period. I love her character, and she’s yet another addition to The Venture Bros.‘ commitment to creating strong, well-rounded females. (They peaked with Dr. Girlfriend, but, man, any show would peak with Dr. Girlfriend. And I don’t think they’ve whiffed on any of them outside of Dr. Quymn.) She’s a great foil to Brock in a way similar to — yet distinct from — Molotov, and part of me is very excited by the prospect of the latter resurfacing in Brock’s life…now that he has a healthier relationship with the former. What an incredible conflict that could be.

Also, I’m pretty disappointed that Brock’s propensity for distraction didn’t come into play. It’s happened enough that I thought it was intentional, but the last few episodes just sort of ignored it entirely. (Granted, the guy was barely in last week’s.) I still wonder if that’s building toward some kind of payoff, or if it’s just an accident of the writing.

“Red Means Stop” also gave us a fun addition to the roster of Venture legacy titles: Scamp. Prior to this season I think we only had Captain Sunshine and Wonderboy being identities that are passed down through the generations. More recently, of course, we added Blue Morpho and Kano to that mix. Now we have Scamp. And it’s kind of adorable (in…y’know…a tragic way) that even dogs in this world have legacy titles. God knows how many Scooby-Doos Shaggy and the gang went through…

And, man, Action Man is a fucking dick, isn’t he? Not that we couldn’t have concluded that earlier, but…man. Prior to the whole grenade flashback and discussion of him killing a baby — he claims it was a werewolf…or at least an ocelot — I would have been hard pressed to decide who was worse for young Rusty to hang around with: him or Colonel Gentleman. Now I think it’s Action Man by a mile. Colonel Gentleman is no prince, but I think he’s out of his mind in a much less destructive way. Kind of makes you wonder why he made him Hank’s godfather.

Finally, we can piece together a little more about the fate of The Monarch’s father: evidently Jonas was busted up about his death, so it’s less likely that he killed the guy himself. Reanimating him as Vendata could even have been an act of supreme grief rather than hubris.

You know, that whole character’s development is pretty interesting, as first he was just a silhouette on the Council of 13. Later Jackson and Doc needed a face for him, so they retconned him into Vendata. Now we’re learning more about The Monarch’s father, so we again reimagine him as The Blue Morpho. By no means am I complaining, mainly because the revisions of the character have been handled so smoothly and intriguingly, but I find it interesting how much effective mileage they’ve gotten from somebody who literally began as a shape.

Oh wait, finally for real this time: Dr. Venture remembers Kano as his father’s mute bodyguard. In “O.R.B.” we learned that Kano’s silence was penance for taking from this world “a great man.” At the time we and Brock concluded he meant Jonas Sr. But now we know for sure that he was mute when Rusty was still a boy. Whose life did he take? Was it the original Blue Morpho?

Lots of questions, fewer answers, in true Venture Bros. tradition. In the same tradition, we now wait.

And wait.

And wait…

ALF Reviews: “When I’m Sixty-Four” (season 4, episode 19)

We made it to the final DVD in the ALF box set! At long last, the end is in sight. We can do this. Right? There’s no way they saved the best for last — I realize that, believe me — but no matter what they throw at us, we will be able to limp past the finish line. We must be able to. We came this far…surely we can delay suicide for another six weeks. (I plan on committing it sometime during the Project: ALF livestream.)

This one is a Valentine’s Day episode…which is fine. Yes, we already had one of those, but that was about everyone pressuring Kate Sr. to spread her legs for some asshole she just met, so I’m perfectly happy for the show to take a different swing at it.

We open with Willie hanging up the phone and saying “Congratulate me” to his wife, which I like to think laid the sad and pathetic groundwork for Jeb Bush imploring his audience to “Please clap.”

It turns out that Willie managed to snag dinner reservations at a place called Emilio’s, and they talk for a while about how lucky they are, since it’s Valentine’s Day and all. I’ve got news for you: if you waited until Valentine’s Day and still got reservations, Emilio’s has a drive-thru.

You know, and, come on…why the fuck did Willie wait until Valentine’s Day to make reservations? What is it with this guy not doing anything for his wife ahead of time? A couple weeks ago he didn’t know what to get Kate for their anniversary…and by the end of that episode, he still didn’t get her anything. ALF just renewed their vows, which thematically fits just fine, but which logistically makes it look like Willie banked on the situation to distract everyone from the fact that he didn’t do anything himself. Thank god the guy didn’t have to be thoughtful. Making Willie show compassion must be like making a vampire drink holy water.

Now he can redeem himself a bit with some romantic Valentine’s plans…but he doesn’t bother trying to plan anything until 5:30 on the very night they’re supposed to be going out. What the hell is this guy’s problem? Divorce his sorry ass, Kate. I’ll marry you. Trust me, I’m a dickbag, too, but I’ll at least pretend to care about our relationship.

Thinking on it, that’s some more timeline shenanigans, too, I guess. Two weeks ago it was their anniversary…and while we don’t know the date of their wedding, we do know their honeymoon was in July. But now it’s February 14. So I guess that means they got married in January or something, but didn’t take their honeymoon for six months?

I’m sure that happens in real life. It’s probably more common that couples take their honeymoons quickly, but I can imagine plenty of reasons that it might be delayed substantially. Based on the shit I’m seeing here, though, I think it’s more likely that Willie just didn’t bother to plan a honeymoon until half a year after they were married. He’s a real catch.

Anyway, hearing that it’s Valentine’s Day makes ALF sad, so he waxes uninterrupted about wanting someone to fuck.

Yes, he goes on at great lengths about wishing his barbed Melmacian cock could slip up some poor, anonymous woman’s snatch for just one night, and he says this while sitting naked on the living room carpet with three people staring blankly at him because they have no lines.

Cupid, draw back your bow!

After the credits, ALF makes a joke about Willie shitting his pants. Great start.

Together they look at a newspaper and talk about how Louise Beaumont, some old film star, moved into the neighborhood. Is that news? Celebrities buy places in and around Denver all the time, but I’ve never seen a newspaper headline that said STAR OF ______ LIVES HERE NOW. And this is just dumbass Denver. Imagine fucking Los Angeles, where stars basically live by default. The hell kind of newspaper is this?

Ugh, fuck this show. Let’s see if we can identify that Kool-Aid juice box ALF has…oh. It’s Purplesaurus Rex.

That didn’t distract from the episode as long as I’d wished it would.

Like, honestly, I saw the dinosaur and immediately thought “Purplesaurus Rex.” I looked it up to make sure that was actually its name…and I was kind of dismayed to find out that it was. That fucker is obviously a brontosaurus…so where does the “rex” come from?

Ugh, fuck this juice.

Willie and Kate leave, mentioning that they’re taking Eric to a sitter. Which is a pretty good logistical solution to the problem raised in “Baby, Come Back,” I admit. You don’t need to buy a babysitter’s silence after a night of being sexually tormented by a puppet…you just take the baby somewhere else.

But it does raise the question of where Lynn and Brian are. Sure, it’s Valentine’s Day so Lynn’s probably got mime makeup all over her inner thighs about now, but Brian? Is he already hanging around with Jimmy the Gent’s niece?

I’m noticing this because someone mentioned a while back that this is the only episode in which Lynn and Brian don’t appear. I think that’s wrong, though…I seem to recall Brian missing from a previous episode. Fucked if I’ll ever be able to remember which one; the kid might as well be played by a hat rack.

It’s definitely noteworthy that Lynn’s not in this one, though. She usually gets something to do in every episode, so the fact that she doesn’t appear at all is meaningful. You know. As far as anything related to ALF can be meaningful.

ALF spanks off to the newspaper a few more times, and then decides to sneak off to the retirement home and visit Louise, because of course he does. A few days ago I heard a recent interview with Paul Fusco, which was a solid half hour of decades-late damage control. He seems to think the cast should be grateful to have worked on the show that systematically destroyed each of their lives. He’s a great guy, that Fusco. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s just ALF without a cuddly exterior.

Anyway, he mentioned at one point that he was very careful about which characters got to see ALF, because it was important to the premise of the show that he was kept secret from as many folks as possible.

…and we know full well that’s bullshit.

Literally every recurring character apart from Mr. Ochmonek saw ALF. Seriously, Mr. Ochmonek was the only fucking one. And nearly all the one-off characters saw him, too. Now he’s about to go to a retirement home and meet a boat load of new ones.

So my fucking ass, Fusco, that you were selective about who saw ALF and who didn’t. I think they were “selected” on the grounds of whether or not you were cutting them a check. If you had to pay them, they’d better damned well stand still and listen to ALF perform a monologue.

ALF pokes around the outside of the retirement home for a while, dressed as Trayvon Shumway. While he’s out there George Zimmerman and some other unseen nobody shout to each other about the hideous beast they just saw…so, yeah. Fusco was so careful about who got to see ALF that two people without names or faces just saw him for no reason at all. They talk about murdering ALF in cold blood, just to get my hopes up.

Our alien hero stands around and babbles to himself for a while, because if this episode just featured things that happen it would be around 12 seconds long. When he’s jacked off enough to the sound of his own voice, he runs into the retirement home and some old people look at him.

You know.

Because of how selective the show was about THIS SHIT THAT HAPPENS EVERY WEEK.

In a nice bit of real-world resonance, the old folks at home are actually actors who have had long and varied careers. If you check out their filmographies you’ll find loads of parts in high and low profile productions spanning decades, and I think it was kind of cool of ALF to actually cast actors with such rich histories in a story like this. They were never huge celebrities or anything, but it’s a cute touch, and I like the fact that they bothered to find people with actual showbiz pedigrees. Like, I really do. It melts even my evil heart.

The woman on the left is Amzie Strickland, who has over 260 credits on IMDB, and who has a rad name like Amzie. She’s been in The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show*, and, most significantly for ALF, The Bob Newhart Show. Eric Christmas is in the center, with around 130 credits and a rad last name like Christmas. He had a recurring role as Father Barry on Cheers, and other regular parts in Wiseguy and The Sandy Duncan Show. On the right is Phil Leeds, who I feel like I’ve seen in everything. Seriously, the guy has a very familiar face, but I can’t pinpoint what I know him from best, because he has almost 120 credits, including a role in the Spanish Inquisition sequence of History of the Word: Part I.

Season four has really increased the number of actors who worked with both Paul Fusco and Mel Brooks. Prior to this I think we just had Cleavon Little, right? Now we have Phil Leeds, Mark Blankfield, and Jim J. Bullock. Am I missing any others? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I find it morbidly interesting that any actor should have to slip from working with Mel Brooks to working with Paul Fusco.

I might as well think about that for a bit, because God knows none of this other crap deserves my consideration.

The old people talk on and on about whether ALF is a talking dog or who gives a shit. Then one of them suggests that ALF might an alien, and the other old guy says, “Buenas noches!”

That’s…okay. It’s only the second time to my knowledge that the dual meanings of “alien” come into play, and there have been far stupider jokes on this show…but unfortunately it’s the runaway highlight of this scene. As a lesser joke in a better show, it would be fine. As the high water mark…sweet jesus.

The old people talk for a while about Cocoon, and whether or not ALF will make them young. Joke’s on them; all he does is make fun of their poor hearing, their fragility, their clothes, their impotence, their living situation, their poor memories, their odors, their need for medication, their poor vision, and the fact that everyone they’ve ever loved is dead.

What a guy!

ALF asks to see Louise Beaumont, but the old people tell him to suck their saggy sex organs. He then reminds them that the show is called ALF, not Elderly Actors We Could Replace in a Heartbeat, and they agree to take him to her room.

Louise Beaumont is reading Hollywood Babylon, and I’m pretty sure that’s the first real book cover we’ve seen on this show.

I’ve never read it, but it was a pretty notorious book that was at one point banned for reasons of basic human decency.

Seriously. That sounds like a joke, but I’m not kidding. Its big selling point was that it spilled dirt on Hollywood stars spanning every era of film history, but it was poorly researched at best…and knowingly made up at worst. It misrepresented and outright invented scandals for the sake of selling copies, and it was a tactic that, sadly, worked.

That was far from the worst of it, though; Hollywood Babylon contained actual photographs of the dead bodies of celebrities, including Jayne Mansfield and Lewis Stone, against the wishes of their families. It was, unquestionably, awful stuff.

So, yeah, it’s a pretty gross thing to read, and here’s Louise Beaumont flicking herself off to it. What an odd bit of unintentional characterization. (Maybe it’s a good thing they keep taking the dustjackets off of whatever Willie and Kate are reading in bed. God knows what horrific shit the props department would stick them with.)

Anyway, ALF comes in and she immediately tells him to go fuck himself.

So, you know what? She might like looking at unethical photographs of dead bodies, but I’d get along more easily with her than with anyone else who’s ever been in this crap.

Back in the dayroom, some night attendant or whatever comes in, and ALF hides. The night attendant talks about how he’s fucking the tits off a hot chick in the other room, so all these old people better tell their jokes about being old people quietly.

ALF returns with a thermometer in his mouth and says, “A hundred and fourteen point eight. Perfect!” But way back in “Help Me, Rhonda” we learned that 425 degrees was a healthy temperature for Melmacians. Granted, 114 makes a lot more sense (ALF would literally cook everything and everyone he touches if he really were 425 degrees) but for as little as we’ve learned about this fucker, can’t the writers keep something straight?

Anyway, if you guessed that the whole reason any of that happened was so ALF could stick a rectal thermometer in his mouth and make a joke about eating old people’s feces, then congratulations; you’re one with ALF‘s philosophy on act breaks.

After the break we get an establishing shot of the nursing home, which hilariously zooms in to a second floor window when we already learned that the room we’re in is on the ground level.

ALF and the old folks are playing poker, and he bitches about how they’re not enjoying life. You know, like he does when he jacks off into that little gap between the couch cushions.

He tries to get them to do something fun, and offers to take them up to the roof and show them where he comes from. Which sure would be interesting, since the planet doesn’t exist anymore, even if Melmac had been somehow visible from Earth.

The old woman says, “This isn’t just a trick to use us as sex drones to repopulate your planet?” Huh. It’s rare that a character makes my joke for me, but I’ll take it.

Anyway, he keeps trying to talk them into going outside and seeing something of the world around them, which is pretty funny since just one episode ago he was being a dick to elderly Willie who just wanted to look out the window.

You’ve got to love how much better ALF treats complete strangers than the guy who’s gone to prison multiple times on his behalf.

ALF tries to get Louise Belmont to join them on the roof, but she won’t even look at him. Man…what a pro. Now I want to track her down in a nursing home and show my appreciation, too.

He feeds her some bullshit for a while, and she tells him to fuck off again.

He tries to let her know that he understands what it’s like to live an exciting life one day and be stuck within four walls the next, but she doesn’t want to hear his story. Great choice, Louise. You’re too old to sit through 500 fucking fantasy episodes about running for president and meeting Elvis.

Then there’s some sad music while ALF tells her that meeting her is still one of the happiest moments of his life and I guess it’s touching to her. But come on. If you were sitting alone in your room and some hideous, pantsless monster waddled in and asked to take your picture, would you be touched or would you beat it to death with your Hollywood snuff book?

Louise Beaumont is played by Frances Bay, who was in loads of things and went on to play Aunt Ginny on The Middle a few years ago. She also played Mrs. Choate in a few episodes of Seinfeld, so this crap was nowhere near the end of her filmography. Good for her. She and the midget are the only ones who managed to escape the career-crushing gravitational collapse of ALF.

Oddly, the IMDB credits for this episode are screwed up; nobody is credited as Louise Beaumont at all, and Bay is credited as playing someone named Virginia Russell. The episode itself credits her correctly, though, so I assume ALF has melted brains all over the internet.

Anyway, the old people come in and announce that they heard the night watchman getting a noisy BJ, so they’re free to go on the roof.

There’s a bunch of boring shit with the old people just standing and looking, like a bunch of crippled Rory Calhouns. I do like the detail — which you can barely see in the screengrab — of the retirement home still having its Christmas lights up. That’s a great, unspoken, sad little joke that I really enjoy. Even when ALF lights them up later, it feels like a subtler, smarter touch than anyone involved with this show usually gives it. And I appreciate that.

Then we get a legitimately great joke. Really, we do! The olds remind him to show them where he’s from, and he points. Then he says, “Yep, right there. See? It’s that cheap white tract home, three houses in from the corner.”

Fuck you. I laughed.

Unfortunately he steps on the punchline by then explaining “OH ACTUALLY I MEANT THAT IS WHERE I LIVE RIGHT NOW ON EARTH REALLY MY PLANET BLEW UP SORRY I MISLED YOU.” And Jesus Christ if that’s not proof positive that the writers don’t know what’s funny, even (especially?) when it comes to their own damn material.

Boo.

I hate ALF. Like, I honestly can’t stand this crap and I’m embarrassed for having ever enjoyed it as a kid. If I could carve out the piece of my brain that contains ALF memories I’d stick a screwdriver up my nose and do it right now. But even with my strong, overpowering hatred of the show in general, you know what I hate most? When ALF is portrayed as some holy being that teaches the world about beauty and wonder.

He used to do that more in the early episodes, I think. “Weird Science” existed just for that purpose, as far as I can tell. And he gave a speech to Mrs. Ochmonek in “Take a Look at Me Now” along the same lines. Then there was the sappy, wall to wall horse shit in “ALF’s Special Christmas,” an episode which was, to put it politely, the single worst thing humanity has ever inflicted upon itself.

For the most part, though, his “Your life is better now for having met me” crap had taken a backseat since then. Which is good, because all he ever does is fuck and murder the people important to Willie, so, y’know, the whole “great guy” stuff sorta rang false. Call me crazy.

Anyway, it’s back now, of course, because the show’s ending, and we really have to make sure nobody will miss it. ALF is a magical space rapist who fixes everything forever, so the old people feel young again and dance.

This show sucks.

Louise Beaumont comes out, also because ALF is a magical space rapist who fixes everything forever. This is a great time to remember, once again, that last week Willie just wanted the curtain open and ALF smacked him across the face with the urn containing the remains of Uncle Albert.

Louise Beaumont asks ALF where he’s from so he can tell the same joke again, which made the writers’ job easier and that’s the most important thing.

But then he lies and tells her he’s from a star, which he points at. I guess he doesn’t want to say his planet blew up because that would depress her? I don’t know where they were going with this…and I don’t know why she’d give a shit if his planet blew up anyway. She wasn’t all that shook up by seeing an alien in the first place. Must have been all those celebrity autopsy photos she was dripping over earlier. She’s well beyond feeling.

And, come to think of it, he didn’t seem too worried about depressing all these other old people if that was his concern, so who knows.

He then forces Louise Beaumont to dance with one of the old guys, because pressuring the elderly to fuck is sort of ALF‘s Valentine’s Day tradition.

ALF talks to a bird and I have no fucking clue what I’m watching.

The short scene before the credits begins with another zoom in to a second floor window even though the scene that follows takes place on the roof, so really the show is just fucking with me at this point.

ALF asks Louise Beaumont if she thinks he has a big dick. Then Willie shows up to punch ALF to death with a fistful of rusty screws.

This one was garbage. Happy Valentine’s Day, assholes!

Countdown to ALF getting his belly slit and a midget tumbling out: 5 episodes

—–
* This episode sucks a fat one, but there’s a nice joke when she remembers Cocoon as being directed by “Opie.” That’s a cute nod to her work — as various characters — on that show.

The Venture Bros. Reviews: “A Party for Tarzan” (season 6, episode 7)

There are few things on television more satisfying than a great episode of The Venture Bros. For the second week in a row, we got one.

I really love how thoroughly season six is making me feel like an ass for ever doubting it. In fact, “A Party for Tarzan” makes me wish I voiced one of my earlier concerns…and that’s significant, because I only wish I voiced it so that I could look more like an ass.

See, last week gave me plenty to talk about, and I ended up removing a tangential complaint from that review before publishing. Here was the complaint: the one-long-story approach of the sixth season meant that we couldn’t get a format breaker.

What’s a format breaker? Well, that’d be something like “Escape to the House of Mummies, Part II.” Or the jolting, abrupt chronological shifts of “Blood of the Father, Heart of Steel.” Or the longform detective fantasy of “Everybody Comes to Hank’s.” Or…erm…this very episode.

With one big plot to tell across eight episodes, each of which seems to pick up directly from the end of the last, I didn’t see how we’d break format, and that was disappointing for two reasons. Firstly, because the format breaker is a great injection of variety into a show you believe you understand. Episodes like that are often remembered, after all, for their novelty if for nothing else. They stand out, and they make you pay attention. They’re telling stories that are so important, they redefine the very experience of watching the show. It’s a bit of narrative trickery that elevates — cheaply or not — the material contained within. It makes it feel like an event.

But, secondly: not getting a format breaker would be disappointing simply because The Venture Bros. is so. Damned. Good at them. Look at my examples above. Toss in “The Trail of the Monarch,” “Shadowman 9: In the Cradle of Destiny,” “The Invisible Hand of Fate,” “The Lepidopterists”…and, man, it sure does look like you’re compiling a list of the best things the show’s ever done, doesn’t it?

The one thing I figured season six could do to break format was give us an episode full of tiny stories in which Dr. Venture indirectly disposed of a parade of antagonists…with a little help (seen or unseen) from The Blue Morpho. It’d be a way of thinning out the web of arches and sub-arches within a compressed timeframe, allow for a quick joke or two with each, give us the big, important moment that should stick in our minds, and then move on. A sort of condensed season in one episode. Don’t worry if you think that’s a lousy idea; I’m in no danger of being invited to write for the show.

Instead, and with unexpected placement just before the season ends, we got “A Party for Tarzan.” And holy cow, I think I’m in love.

Granted, it worked its way immediately into my heart with a flashback of Gary (Fisher!) getting kidnapped on his trip to Washington, D.C., the third and clearest piece of that puzzle. Just about any time the show hurls us back in time, I know it’s with good reason. (See also: the original Blue Morpho stuff, and the abbreviated reign of Turnbuckle’s terror in this very episode.)

That flashback ended, but we found a new narrator. Now we follow Dr. Girlfriend’s thoughts. Later we’ll follow her husband’s. And Dr. Venture’s. And they all crisscross and weave a story that’s neither very complex nor all that important. The shifting narrators and jazzy interludes give the episode a weight that it might not deserve, but which it still absolutely earns…culminating in a brilliant cross-section of fragmented narration as the bullet sails toward Dr. Venture’s heart.

We know he won’t die. He’s our main character. He won’t die. We learn in the episode that the Blue Morpho’s suit is lined with Kevlar. He won’t die. The trigger is pulled. He won’t die. We follow the path of the bullet. He won’t die. We watch him fall lifeless to the ground. He won’t die.

We know he will not die.

…and yet, it matters.

It matters because the episode promised us that this story matters. It matters because the disparate perspectives twist together toward this moment, drawing our attention artfully along with them. It matters because in a season that seemed to go nowhere this story went somewhere.

And once we get there, we know he won’t die…but we feel connected to the moment.

And the episode toys with us. The Monarch narrates the brief aftermath of Venture’s death (a sequence that reminded me of Phantom Limb’s excellent, shocking monologue at the start of “Bright Lights, Dean City”) just long enough that we start to wonder.

The episode pulls back, as it must, but it doesn’t feel cheap. It feels like a joyous end to a playful installment of a truly great show…an installment that flirted with death, and even pulled the trigger, but found itself alive after all, refreshed, buoyed by a big band tune and swept forward, for another week at least, along the greater story that is life.

My god what a fucking great episode.

“A Party for Tarzan” really does just feel happy to be alive. There’s got to be a certain thrill for Jackson and Doc inherent in the fact that this parody of Jonny Quest is wrapping up a sixth season in a new city, with its original characters grown and evolved almost beyond recognition, genre pastiches having long given way to extended character meditations, a dense universe of backstories, histories, agendas…

Look at how far the show has come, how beautiful it looks now, the kinds of actors they can attract to voice one-off characters, the literal world of possibilities stretching out ahead…

Life is pretty great, isn’t it? One day it will have to end…but today was not that day. You wake up started and sticky, but you can get right back on your feet and walk away.

Is there any reason to be happier than that?

I have more that I want to say about the season as a whole, but I might as well wait until next week, so instead I’ll work through a few lingering thoughts and questions.

For starters…does anyone else find it odd that Phantom Limb was forgiven so quickly and welcomed right back into the fold of The Guild? And aside from a single note of concern (unless I’m forgetting about another) The Monarch isn’t even too concerned about the guy spending so much time with his wife. As much as I love that character, I don’t know if this season has any idea what to do with him, and Jackson and Doc are just sticking him on the Council because he’s one of very few recurring villains who survived the massacre in “All This and Gargantua-2.”

Speaking of surviving villains: please never, ever kill Dr. Z. In fact, if The Venture Bros. must end, give us a Dr. Z. spinoff. Words cannot express how much I love that guy.

Speaking of “surviving” villains: how’s everyone handling Gary’s feelings of guilt? It was a bit uncomfortable to watch him this week while The Wandering Spider begged for his life. (I mean that in no way as a criticism…it was appropriately weighty, and effectively dark.) Do we think he let The Wandering Spider survive? If so…will that go anywhere narratively? It’s not like he was tasked with taking out a familiar face…

Gary’s arc is an interesting one this season, and I definitely was not expecting it. Commenter / Battleaxe regular Casey said a few weeks back that he didn’t really understand why Gary signed back up with The Monarch at the end of season five…and I think that’s a valid question, especially considering how hard season four worked to provide him with a fresh direction and a sense of personal ambition. Sure, season five crushed those things several times over, but that doesn’t mean the return feels natural.

Here, though, with Gary fretting over the lives that he’s taken — and his boss pressuring him into taking more, this week for the sole purpose of keeping up appearances — I think we’re experiencing another great arc for the character…even if it’s one that required a bit of inelegance up front.

Some folks elsewhere have mentioned that Gary’s taken lives before and it never bothered him — the therapist in “Self-Medication” and Short Division in “SPHINX Rising” come instantly to mind — but there are dozens of reasons that one death might hit harder, and in a very different way, from another. Remember, even super killguy Brock faced this crisis himself in “Viva Los Muertos.”

I don’t know. Maybe it’s a cheat. It doesn’t feel that way to me…but if it feels that way to you, I suggest you push through anyway and let yourself take the ride, because The Monarch losing his own murder machine has some serious story possibilities…and Gary being put through the emotional wringer yet again could lead us absolutely anywhere.

Gary’s such a great character to kick off the Goodfellas-style narration, too. The Venture Bros. is populated entirely by normal people living abnormal lives…the stuff that comic-obsessed dreams are made of. Gary may have been kidnapped, but he also got his wish. As far back as he can remember…

And, okay, I liked this episode and all, but what the fuck is Wide Wale doing? What’s his angle? He was dying for arching rights to Dr. Venture, but then subbed them out to other villains. Those are getting rubbed out, which gives him a reason to finally take action, but all he wants to do is have someone else snipe the guy, I guess. And a few episodes ago he was investing a lot of time and energy in working Dr. Girlfriend and The Monarch against each other, but to what end? None of those manipulations had anything to do with The Blue Morpho, nor are they tied in any way to the attempted assassination here.

It just seems…odd. Every season so far has a secondary antagonist (one: Underbheit; two: Phantom Limb; three: Sgt. Hatred; four: Monstroso; five: Augustus St. Cloud; six: Wide Wale) with The Monarch being the main thorn in Dr. Venture’s side, but with this one, I have absolutely no idea what’s meant to be happening, or why he’s even involved with what I do know is happening.

Yes, we have one more episode, but so far…fuck this guy.

Anyway, hooray! I got to end a review of a great episode on a really sour note. Go me! I made myself mad!

Well, as long as I am upset, let me just say that if Doc and Jackson don’t make the end credits song available to us they’re the most horrible human beings who ever lived.

Thanks for reading, everyone. I have absolutely no idea what will happen in the next (and last) episode of season six, but for the first time I’m excited by that prospect rather than worried. Good on you, “A Party for Tarzan.”

Guest Post: A Look at the ALF Comic Series (Part Two)

This week Casey Roberson completes his court-mandated review of the ALF comic series. If you haven’t read the first part yet, do so here, otherwise his suicide at the end of this part won’t make as much sense.

Hello again! I left you on kind of a depressing note last time, with the idea that not even a comic writer could weave a touching story about an alien on Earth at Christmastime, at least as long as that alien was ALF. But don’t despair…or, as comics ALF would say “don’t despair tire” or “don’t despair ribs” or something equally shitty!

ALF the comic kept going for another two years, because there were plenty of interesting stories left to tell, such as…

Issue 27 – “Blow Your Own Horn of Plenty”

ALF and Brian play trumpets.

Issue 30 – “Kung Food for Thought”

It’s inevitable that the comic book would repeat stories from the show–as well as itself–multiple times over its run. There’s only so many stock stories about families, and only so many relatable ones, even if you are dealing with an alien. The fact that it didn’t happen more often is impressive–especially when you consider that ALF the comic had just the one writer, and each issue had two or three stories. Though we can point at times to very similar starting points (“Swimsuit Issue” and “Food for Thought” both were based on Willie fearing that people outside the family might discover that Lynn has a vagina), they’re never the same story.

I imagine that Phil would disagree about how impressive this is, given that many episodes of ALF arguably had no story, but I’d counter with this: Michael Gallagher, if he shared this opinion about the show, didn’t allow himself to share in its lazy attitude toward storytelling and worldbuilding. The nature of a long-running comic–and perhaps the nature of its source material–forced Gallagher to create a bigger world. And if I may make a guess, perhaps readers are more demanding than watchers? Maybe a comic in the 80s was held to higher standards because it could be experienced, dwelled upon, and then re-read? Perhaps there was greater accountability because they still had letters pages?

In re-reading Phil’s review for “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” from season 2, I’m struck by how it not only is an episode that’s supposed to be about Brian dealing with a bully at school, but then isn’t about Brian; it’s also supposed to be an episode about ALF helping Brian that then isn’t about ALF. ALF, by necessity, has to advise Brian not to fight, because otherwise you’d have to hire a small person who can fight–and pull it off in a way that’s funny. As it was, ALF was reduced to pretending to chop a board and, if that review’s screenshots are any indication, disappearing until later in the episode, when he literally just phones in the plot resolution. Here, we get a much better story.

Brian comes home, not only with dirt rubbed on his face, but with torn clothes and a black eye, the victim of out-and-out bullying by someone who called him “Tan-nerd”. ALF, incensed that someone else in the world made a dumb joke, instantly sets out to teach Brian the ancient Melmacian art of Kung Food. Kung Food involves throwing food at someone. That’s it.

Whereas sitcom ALF does one Karate chop, comics ALF can actually use his legs to kick if the word balloons don’t take up too much space at the top of the panel. Whereas sitcom ALF just mentions in passing that his whole world blew up, and then moves on, comics ALF has a rich planetary history of overeating he can draw on. (I don’t know if this aspect was played up on the cartoon show, but here it’s always on full-blast. Many stories feature ALF belching up bones, apple cores, etc.) We get a montage of ALF training Brian in the garage and then–in the rarest of ALF sights–Kate demands that ALF clean the garage. When ALF flippantly dismisses the task as “women’s work”, Kate lectures him on chauvinism; the lecture happens off-panel, but still.

The story ends in a way that makes me wish this had been an actual episode of the show. The principal of Brian’s school calls Kate to tell her about Brian taking on the school bully. He thanks her “off the record” because he agreed that the bully needed to be taken down a peg. Can you imagine, with the right actor for the principal, and better writers, how well this could have been the final third of a sitcom episode? The principal, trying his best to convey his thanks to Kate while they both try to conceal, respectively, their thanks and pride from Brian? How Anne Schedeen would have totally crushed a scene where she’s trying her damnedest to not let ALF’s wasteful, messy behavior be encouraged because it–for once–solved a problem?

Anyway, this story ends with Willie asking to be trained in Kung Food, I guess because just being heartless at work is no longer enough for him.

Issue 32 – “Go Figure”

ALF plays with an action figure called “Melmacho Man”.

Issue 33 – “Home Vide-uh-oh!”

Willie and Brian are regular watchers of “Home Video USA,” and just look at the host. I’ll wait.

Okay, I think we can probably all agree now that fill-in pencil artist “Haller” probably hadn’t been watching TV for years, or at least not programs from the US, if he thinks that’s what television hosts looked like when he drew this in 1990. Or maybe he swore off it after he watched one episode of ALF to get photo reference material. (No idea where Manak was for this story; Haller doesn’t have as good of a sense of composition or scale; like, ALF’s head is the same size as his torso in one panel.)

ALF is hooked by the promise of the $5,000 first prize, so he sends in a video of him chasing Lucky with one of those covered platters that I’m pretty sure have never existed in real life. The video becomes a finalist, meaning that ALF must make an actual appearance on television to claim the prize, if he wins. The solution? Dress Brian in an ALF suit. Let me repeat that:

DRESS BRIAN IN AN ALF SUIT

It’s like one of those riddles that makes you feel like an idiot when you finally hear the answer. Sure, maybe it would have been too good an idea for the show, because it would have solved too many problems. But, come on, the idea should at least have arisen once, f’chrissakes. Kate sews an ALF suit, Brian goes on television, and then some other video wins. I can understand this. After all, you can’t have the Tanners suddenly having $5,000. Their whole lifestyle would change, they’d move to Beverly Hills, Willie could get crack the easy way…

(One last thought on this one: it really bugs me that the flamboyant host of “Home Video USA” doesn’t get a name here, so I hereby dub him Georgie Washington.)

Let’s pause from the stories for a moment to talk about outliving your source material. ALF the TV show ended in March 1990–about the time that issue 31 of the comic would have been published. Now, in any medium, there are going to be numerous steps on the path from idea to execution to distribution, and each takes time. TV shows have deadlines, and so do comics.

For television, the main work is getting everybody in the same place at the same time and turning the camera on (which is the entirety of how ALF was made), but for comics, the writer was constantly handing off full stories to the penciller, who then had to hand them off to the inker, and then the colorist, letterer, and finally whoever put all these elements together, and then the printer, and then through distribution channels. Plus, unlike ALF the TV show, there were quality control checks along the way (though you will see the occasional panel where someone’s hand is white, or where Willie’s upper lip is red because someone thought it was a tongue).

At any rate, it took time, and I have no idea how long! But at some point, word got to Marvel that ALF was cancelled. Given the lead time shows need to have episodes in the can for a season premiere in September, and even though ALF scripts typically were written on Post-It notes that read “Eggs, Milk, ALF insults Kate, Lunch Meat,” July 1990 would have been the absolute latest to start making season 5 of ALF.

But whenever Marvel learned that TV ALF was dead, questions had to be asked and decisions made. How many orders from comic shops? How many active subscriptions? How much fan mail? Even if sales remained high because most kids wouldn’t have known until September 1990 that ALF wasn’t coming back, I still think it highly indicative of the quality of the comic that it not only outlasted the sitcom…it had a longer run overall by seven months.

The cover of issue 40 (Jan. 1991) has ALF preparing to eat a cooked peacock, trademark NBC feathers at all. It’s the only reference to the cancellation as far as the covers go; I’d actually have to read all these stories to see if I could any better pinpoint when Gallagher knew the show was cancelled. But there are two noteworthy things I want to highlight about the final year or so of the comic’s run.

To begin with, the Melmac stories got further and further “out there,” less grounded in the reality it (I assume) shared with the cartoon. More X-Melmen stories; a Melmacian Dr. Who; Melmacian comic strips (including parodies of B.C., Hagar the Horrible, Dennis the Menace, and Mutt & Jeff); Melmacian Star Trek; “Judge Bredd.” There’s even a Melmac story in the middle of one issue that’s drawn in a very simplified R. Crumb style; the story takes place “underground” (lol).

Even the main stories had less and less to do with the real world, at a great remove from experiences that a family like the Tanners might have:

– ALF sprays the neighborhood with “fear cans,” making everyone on the block afraid their houses won’t pass a “surprise inspection”
– ALF meets some sentient trees
– ALF creates a clone of himself made of rocks that also has the mind of Francisco Pizarro
– ALF gets electrocuted and becomes a floating television screen
– ALF has a Swedish accent

Michael Gallagher certainly wasn’t writing for 8-year-olds anymore. He probably wasn’t writing for the show’s fans, because that world wasn’t reflected anymore. He may very well not have been writing for anyone but himself and whoever he had to get script approval from.

But the bottom of the barrel had been reached. 50 is such a round number to end on that I have to wonder if Gallagher was such a good (fast? cheap?) writer that they let him say how long he needed to wrap things up. I certainly don’t think Fusco was paying attention to the comic by then, if he ever had. Gallagher was given the chance to end the comic with a storyline spanning four whole issues (five, if you count issue 42, which laid the groundwork for the final sequence).

So, at long last, here is the end of melmonthly ALF and, in a way, the end of ALF as a continuous franchise. If I were feeling generous, I’d refer to all of ALF’s subsequent appearances in the public eye as “sporadic”. But here’s ALF rapping about how he plans to use the medium of rap to cash in on how his whole planet was destroyed:

…so I’m not feeling generous right this minute. Let’s face it, pretty much every iteration of ALF has been abortive. The sitcom about an alien living with an average American family of the 80s ended up being barely about either. Project: ALF (1996) I can’t speak to, other than an even longer time period elapsed between it and ALF’s Hit Talk Show (2004). And then there’s been basically jack shit in the twelve years since.

ALF the comic series was about what I’d expect from–and roughly what I remember about–kids’ comics in the 80s. Kids probably didn’t care about the Tanners; they could exist in broad strokes of character upon which readers could project their own families. They were there for ALF cracking wise and eating cats. Simply by not being a live-action show (and, I’m guessing, costing Marvel less than it spent on The Fantastic Four), the comic had numerous possibilities before it. ALF being more active, ALF outside the house, ALF being a superhero, a mascot, unveiling endless cool gadgets from the depths of his spaceship…did I mention ALF turned into a floating TV that one time?

This feels weird to say, but…squids and all, I think ALF the comic book was the most successful execution of the situation comedy that Fusco had in mind.

The son gets in a fight? Here’s a weird ancient fighting style from the alien’s home planet. The family’s going to take part in a cultural event like buying Christmas presents from the mall? The alien is going to tag along, even if he has to hide in the car. The alien’s technology helps the son win the science fair by too far a margin. The alien loses his memory and now thinks his adoptive family are his captors. The alien should constantly be trying to catch the cat to eat it? Sure, once per issue, no animal trainers needed. They’re normal, he’s zany, worlds collide.

The comic not only achieves what it was trying to do, but it actually manages to add some flair, even if flair is often just a constant barrage of puns. I did honestly laugh a few times at the level of absurdity the comic reached.

I had half-expected the comic to be as bad as the sitcom, but if anything, the comic condemns it further. An alien living with a family is a good sitcom setup, then and now. But the comic gives us some indication of what ALF could have been without an impossible-to-navigate soundstage, without actors who couldn’t act, without a Fusco calling the shots.

Here’s the final sequence of ALF stories, giving you an ending that, if not more satisfying than the sitcom’s, is more complete.

Issue 42 – “Send in the Clones”

The last time we saw Rhonda, she was imaginary. Before that, she had left Earth for New Melmac, her Clone-O-Matic machine extracting DNA from one of ALF’s nose hairs. Now, Rhonda’s ship has crashed in the Tanners’ yard. After a quick explanation that the Ochmoneks are away attending an “Elvis is Alive” seminar (and that’s probably my absolute favorite joke in these comics), ALF approaches the ship–only to find ALF already in it!

Haha, no, actually it’s Skip wearing an ALF mask! Skip relates how Rhonda arrived on New Melmac with hundreds of Gordons in tow, due to the nose hair’s “severe split ends”. The cloned Gordons are said to each have “one specific personality trait or flaw”, and shit, the latter would be a vast improvement. Anyway, the Gordons quickly take over the whole planet, set up a police state, and put Rhonda on public display so all the Gordons can melmasturbate over her.

Gordons Gordons Gordons. ALF busts Rhonda out of jail, and Rhonda’s spaceship-maneuvering talents save them from Gordon’s Orbit Guard. Then New Melmac just explodes completely on its own? Rhonda and ALF return to Earth, and ALF is left behind because Rhonda needs a break from him for awhile. Rhonda says that she’ll return in issue 50.

Issue 47 – “Th-th-that’s ALF, folks!, Part 1: Meteor ‘Bye Products”

ALF finds out that a recently-landed meteor contains “oldhamite,” a mineral needed to fuel his ship. Seven pages later, he gets it from the meteor. I kept this one short so I could point out that everyone, ever, except for me, gets Porky Pig’s line wrong. Porky Pig is always trying to say one thing, but he trips over one word, and then selects a different way to say what he means. At the end of a cartoon, Porky is trying to say “The End”; he’s not stuttering over the word “that.”

Fight me.

Issue 48

This issue is the one that costs 10 times as much as every other issue on eBay, because some people think it looks like ALF is raping a seal on the cover. Whatever the hell he’s doing with the seal (making sure it doesn’t escape? preparing to eat it?) the kids who were still reading this didn’t see it that way. It’s kind of like the old image you might’ve seen in your child development class, where kids just see dolphins, and adults see what you see:

“Part 2: A Tisket, a Task Force”

ALF is freaking out because he knows Rhonda’s coming in a couple of issues so he takes a “time capsule” pill that helps him forget things that bother him for a while. Meanwhile, Mark Bittner of the Alien Task Force is spying on ALF from the Ochmoneks’ house (he showed up in issue 27, but I skipped that story so I could tell you about that one time ALF and Brian played trumpets), and he’s bugged the Tanner house.

The Tanners pack up all of ALF’s belongings in a moving truck and ship him off to Kate Sr.’s house. She brings ALF back the next morning, ALF and Mark Bittner fight, Kate slips Mark Bittner a “time capsule” and he leaves (why did ALF need to leave for the night, then…?). ALF soliloquizes about whether his continued presence will put the Tanners in jeopardy (FINALLY) and then uses Willie’s ham radio to call Rhonda, planning to make…

Issue 49 – “Part 3: A Melmodest Proposal”

The first part of this issue is Skip and Rhonda trapped on, Idunno, Planet Tangram or some mess. Lessee, there’s some circle beings, and some triangle guys, and they’re at war…okay, good, Rhonda achieved global peace in just a few pages, good deal, let’s get back to the story.

Lynn overhears ALF talking on the radio with Skip and Rhonda about marriage and relays the news to the rest of the family. After the requisite number of panels of them pretending to be sad (four), the Tanners throw a big party for ALF and give him some going-away presents. From Kate: a lock of her hair (now that ALF will be out of it! HA!); from Lynn: a giant sweater she knitted; from Brian: a baseball cap; from Willie: a cassette tape of Louis Armstrong’s greatest hits. They did it! They got in a second personality trait for Willie right before the end.

ALF gives the Tanners a stray dog that he found that has the exact same nose he does; the dog instantly starts eating everything in sight and then crapping on the floor, so Brian names it “ALF.”

Issue 50 (Nov. or Dec. 1991) – “Part 4: ALF Wiedersehn”

Rhonda and Skip arrive back on Earth, they and ALF have a quick little orgy in the Tanners’ living room, right where the baby can see, and then everybody gets ready for the wedding.

Meanwhile, Mark Bittner of the ATF convinces a senator to come with him to capture ALF, so the senator can get reelected; plus he calls up a tabloid TV show. Then we finally find out that Michael Gallagher was messing with our perceptions of the accuracy of language, and it is revealed Rhonda is marrying Skip, not ALF. Makes sense. I mean, she lived on a planet full of Gordons for a while. Can you imagine the smell?

Rhonda and Skip get married; Bittner, “Senator”, and the news crew arrive; ALF, Rhonda, and Skip leave in their two ships; Bittner is humiliated; Willie cries tears of joy that maybe, finally, he can pay more than the minimum on his credit card bill.

But!

We then discover out that ALF used his holographic device to disguise himself as the dog (this being the one time I’ve seen the comic break its own continuity, as this device showed up in issue 18’s WOTIF story and by all rights should not exist). Out in space, the newlyweds let ALF’s ship fall back to Earth, and despite however much the Earth would have rotated in the five minutes since they left, guess where it lands.

The rest of the issue is ALF pretending to have a talk show.

I’ll leave you now with my favorite panels from the ALF comics.

The Venture Bros. Reviews: “It Happening One Night” (season 6, episode 6)

To paraphrase a great pirate captain: “Stop your sourpussin’. You got what you wanted.”

Most of my reviews of season six have had to do with the one-long-story nature of the stretch. Which is to be expected; this stretch really is one long story. But my main complaint was that the absence of isolated episodes — as opposed to chunks of a larger whole — left little room for narrative satisfaction on a weekly basis.

Well, “It Happening One Night” absolutely illustrates how to do this kind of experiment right. While it pushes the larger story along, it also tells a complete tale in itself…something we haven’t seen outside of “Maybe No Go.” (Not coincidentally the season’s other highlight.) I always look forward to great shows making me eat my words, and I more than happily do so now.

Season-long storylines aren’t entirely out of this show’s reach. Most notably season two had an ongoing — and important — story about The Monarch winning back Dr. Girlfriend. More passively season three traced Brock’s growing disillusionment with his lifestyle, culminating in his decision to leave the Venture family. And season four provided a great, quiet opportunity for 21 to find himself and grow as a human being after the death of his closest friend.

We can trust Jackson and Doc, in other words, to tell longform stories. Where season six stumbles is that it doesn’t tell shorter stories along the way, which can make it difficult to stay engaged. We’re being asked, after all, to watch a beginning, a middle, and an end stretched over eight episodes, which means that a lot of what we’re seeing feels like padding.

“It Happening One Night” tells a shorter story along the way. And it does so more naturally than “Maybe No Go” did, as that episode had to section off two characters and follow them in a completely different environment from the main action of the show. In short, this one might turn out to be the season’s best, if only because it’s the moment at which the experiment finally clicks.

Of course, there are still two episodes to go, and there’s no telling how those will pan out. There’s been talk this season that the last episode won’t be a proper finale…in the same way that season five ended with the quiet “The Devil’s Grip” and not the bombastic “All This and Gargantua-2” (which we got much later as a one-off special).

And, yes, that’s disappointing to hear, but it’s possible that the final episode we do get will serve as a nice conclusion, whether or not it actually ties up all of the dangling threads. I mention this because it’s been brought up in the comments a couple of times, but I don’t think that the lack of a “proper finale” means we’ll necessarily be robbed of a satisfying conclusion. At least, that’s what I’m hoping, as this season seems to be mainly “about” whatever it’s building toward, which remains to be revealed.

Anyway, Jeez, I finally get an episode that tells its own story and I’m still talking about the season as a whole.

This week we actually had a credible (well…within the universe of this show) one-off threat, which helps it to stand apart. Yes, prior to this we met Harangutan, but he seemed content to just stand on the sidewalk shouting like a jackass. And last week we had Think Tank, but there was almost nothing to him aside from how quickly he was dispatched. (Battleaxe fared much better as a character, if not as a villain.)

Now we have The Doom Factory, which is basically one big homage to Andy Warhol and his hangers-on, but which manages to feel…unique. It will help “It Happening One Night” (…what’s with that title, by the way?) to be remembered as more than just something that happened. (Happeninged?) The villains were introduced, explored, and dispatched, providing a narrative substance to them that the previous villains of season six haven’t had.

And it was fun. No, Warhol isn’t the most hilarious (or timely, or difficult) target for criticism, but The Doom Factory was really just an identifiable framework for much stronger jokes to live inside. We know Warhol and The Factory (and Empire, and the Campbell’s soup pop-art…) so Jackson and Doc can let our familiarity do the heavy lifting. In other words, they don’t have to spend much time setting up what we’re seeing; they assume we understand the basics, and spend their time harvesting whatever blooms within.

What we ended up with was a humorously elaborate, non-threatening excuse for petty theft, a great spotlight for Dr. Venture as art film subject, and, best of all, The Monarch’s butterfingers bringing the whole organization down.

That, by the way, was the hardest I’ve laughed at season six. It was telegraphed a mile away, but the perfect timing and giddy thrill of it made it work. Believe me, I’m not a comedy snob. (I’m just a general snob.) Easy laughs can still be great laughs. It’s all in the — ahem… — execution.

It even provided the backdrop for a second great moment, as we cut to Hank and Sirena — held apart by their respective bodyguards — and see the explosion hanging in the sky like a firework. A sharp, funny moment gave immediate way to a second bit of sweet, subtle comedy, and I liked that. It was layered in a way that so little of season six seems to be so far, and it provided some nice, sweet resonance to what was, superficially, a cold and callous way of thinning out the show’s cast.

So, yeah, Sirena. I have to admit, I was getting nervous. I’d talked up the potential of Hank’s romantic dabblings in my review of “Faking Miracles”…and then the show did nothing with them. Now that it finally circled back around, I braced myself for disappointment, just in case. That was deeply unnecessary, because I loved everything about this.

Hank is very Hank, which is the best kind of Hank. Without his father or his bodyguard to hold him back — and his most idiotic impulses supported by Dean, Pete, and Billy — he takes Sirena for a night on the town…and wins her over. Not because he knows what he’s doing…but because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Hank is gormless. He’s a bit of a nitwit, mindlessly enthusiastic, and arrested in every possible kind of development…but he’s sweet. We as viewers know he’s a knucklehead, but to Sirena — who’s more used to guys who get her drunk and take advantage of her, which she reveals in an unexpectedly stinging moment of real-world darkness — he’s safe. He’s someone who means well, even if he doesn’t have the brains to pull it off effectively. She even invites him to have some fun after dinner, knowing, for once, that she doesn’t need to keep her guard up with this one.

He’s not a great guy. He’s not even selfless guy. But his attempts at misdirection are so obvious and transparent that they actually help her to see who he really is…and that’s what wins her over.

It was sweet, and it built to a beautiful moment of Sirena taking him underwater to escape their chaperones, and sharing her breath with him on the way down.

Yes, it ended with Brock and Rocco holding them apart like children, because that’s okay…they are children. They’re children testing their boundaries…exploring something together…figuring out what it means to feel the way they feel. Hank’s had sex, but he also had his memories erased. Sirena has some level of experience as well, but we are explicitly told that Hank is something new to her.

They both skipped ahead a bit, and now get to step back and experience innocent romance for the first time. They aren’t the children of super villains and super scientists…they’re just children. There’s a kiss, there’s a firework, there’s embarrassment even at the moment of triumph…

…and that’s wonderful.

That’s beautiful.

And that’s exciting to me as a viewer. The Venture Bros. has always had a core of real humanity beneath the outsized insanity, and it’s nice to see it peek through again here, with two fantastic characters getting to feel, in their own warped, impossible ways, like normal people. (The image of the two being literally held back from what they want was apt, and passively, impressively, intelligently brutal…their entire existences summed up in a single, perfect visual metaphor.)

Oh, and, as you know, I love all of the Blue Morpho stuff. Like, at this point I shouldn’t even need to say that. But I will: I love all of the Blue Morpho stuff. If you don’t like the Blue Morpho stuff, I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION FOR WHY YOU ARE WRONG.

It was also nice to see Brown Widow getting something to do, as I was a bit puzzled as to why “Hostile Makeover” reintroduced him before sidelining him again. Not that he had great material or anything, but he at least got to play a decent part in the season’s best story. And don’t ask me why I’m wondering this now, but are we going to see Night Dick again? Surely I can’t be the only one who thinks that character was good for something other than a single throwaway joke.

Anyway, two more episodes to go. If season six sticks the landing, that will go a long way toward helping me re-evaluate it later on.

But if it doesn’t? Well, we’re having a lot of fun along the way, and we’ll always have “It Happening One Night” to remind us of what could have been.