Category: alf

Ever since “For Your Eyes Only,” also known as the Jodie episode, I’ve had a solid reference point for what ALF can achieve when it gives a shit. It would be one thing if the show was consistently bad, or if it had some sort of lame, go-nowhere premise, but neither of those things is true; the writing periodically achieves cleverness, and the premise — I’ll argue this to my grave — is excellent. The problem is that the show is so frequently content with lazy scripts and storylines that have nothing to do with the main selling point: a space alien living in an unfamiliar world.

“For Your Eyes Only” was an exception. It was more or less front-to-back good, it had a surprising depth of emotion, gave us the show’s first (and so far only) rounded character, and it built upon a key aspect of the show: as an alien, ALF can’t leave the house, and therefore he feels lonely.

Most episodes of this show, as I’ve argued in the past, could swap ALF out for a neighbor, a hobo, an annoying uncle, or anything else, and almost nothing would have to change. Scripts feel like they’ve been reappropriated from other shows, and the closest thing to an identifiable artistic voice here is “incompetence.” In “For Your Eyes Only,” though, ALF’s bond with a blind woman and (unfortunately) short-lived bond with Lynn are both rooted firmly in the show’s central concept. ALF, for once, couldn’t be swapped out for any other sitcom archetype; the whole reason the story could be told at all was because it was specific to this character, in this situation, facing this issue.

So when I speak wistfully about the Jodie episode like an old lover, it’s not to dwell so much as it is to remind myself — and yourself — that ALF is capable of better work. Reviewing this show isn’t taking shots at an easy target…it’s taking shots at a lazy target. The show can do better, has done better, and should do better. “For Your Eyes Only” is the only real evidence that this can work.

Or, was. Because now, as the first season winds slowly to a close, we get another glimpse of greatness from ALF. “Going Out of My Head Over You” taps into the nature of the title character, and like “For Your Eyes Only” expands upon it and explores it in an unexpected way. It represents the most significant sustained competence since that episode, and it may actually hit more impressive highs.

So, you know, if you want a disappointed review, go read “Wild Thing” again.

…or just keeping reading this. Because, to be honest, the first half of it or so is pretty ropey. It starts off with Brian lying about a basement flood, because his friend wants to sleep over and that can’t happen with ALF in the house.*

Willie doesn’t like that Brian told a lie, and gives a little speech about how lying is always wrong…and I really can’t tell if this is deliberately ironic, since lying about things is crucial to the concept of the show. They are harboring extra-terrestrial life, after all. In fact, in a moment there’s another scene about lying, and I started to get the impression that that would function as a kind of theme in the episode, or at least give “Going Out of My Head Over You” its moral.

Neither happens, which makes it feel — as usual — like a first draft. The writers had some ideas while they worked on act one, stumbled upon something else as they wrote act two, and then never went back to change the opening. Even at its best ALF has problems…and the first act of this episode is nowhere near ALF at its best.

Hey, speaking of that, ALF just happens to walk into the living room and ejaculate water out of a flower onto Willie’s face and neck. It’s not quite as overtly sexual as the facial scene in “Keepin’ the Faith,” but Max Wright shielding his eyes and mouth from the unexpected squirt (and ALF gyrating with pleasure) definitely makes this repulsive in its own uncomfortable way.

The moment is redeemed, however, if we look at it as setup for a genuinely great line. Brian asks where ALF got the squirting flower, and he replies that he sent away for a whole box of silly novelties like this. Then he marvels, “That Taiwan must be the most fun place on Earth!”

That’s not just a funny line — and it really is a funny line, especially with Fusco’s wide-eyed, innocent reading — but, again, it’s crucial to who ALF is. He’s an alien, and he’s drawing connections based on his limited experience. We see a box of junk, but he sees a box of fun. We see the “Made in Taiwan” stamp and we think it’s cheap garbage, but he sees it and thinks the entire country must be a wonderland straight out of Willy Wonka. It’s comedy and it’s character work. Don’t blame me for getting excited; usually we get neither.

Mrs. Ochmonek comes over, so ALF scurries off into the kitchen. She’s only here for this scene and doesn’t do anything but sit on ALF’s whoopie-cushion (a moment that is emphatically not redeemed by any clever lines). However her presence does require Willie to actively lie about ALF — in terms of explaining the whoopie-cushion, and the hair all over the couch — which I took as more evidence that this would be an episode about dishonesty. After all, if it’s not, why have this scene at all?

The thing is, a dishonesty episode would be a pretty good idea. Willie frets during act one about instilling a sense of honesty in his son. That’s a fair point of concern for any father, but in this case it’s complicated by their environment; Willie doesn’t want Brian to lie, but he’s raising him in a house in which lies must be told regularly. There’s a perfect narrative cross-section there…it’s a general, relateable human story, and it’s also a story that addresses the unique context in which this show takes place. Played correctly, we could end up with something like what Hank goes through in the Venture Bros. episode “Assassinanny 911.” Relateable conflict; exceptional circumstance.

We don’t get that here, and it’s frustrating. It’s like playing Hot and Cold with a friend, seeing them get so close to what they’re looking for, and yet they can’t find it, however obvious it seems to you. This was a good idea. Granted, I do like what we get instead, but there’s no reason that such a strong topic should be relegated to setting up a different plot altogether. It was worth an episode of its own far moreso than Willie jumping out of a plane or Kate Sr. getting pissed off at a soap opera.

Oh well. The important thing is that Willie goes into the kitchen and ALF jizzes in his eyes again.

It’s strange that they reanimated Mrs. Ochmonek for this episode and “Wild Thing,” but in both cases they just have her hang around for some irrelevant scene and then disappear again. Her entire purpose here seemed to be to pad out the space between the two times ALF wets Willie** and that hardly seems worth bringing her in.

Maybe they had a contract with Liz Sheridan — or Lady Seinfeld, as she likes to be called — for a certain number of episodes, and so they squeezed her into as many as they could late in the season because there was nowhere else to put her.

This show is so crappily made that I find it hard to write about the episodes I like without inadvertently reminding myself of why they’re so few in number.

Okayokayokay that’s enough of that. Back to the episode. I need to remind myself of why I like this episode. Let’s just see what…

…oh, come on.

Willie skulks around the house in the middle of the night and finds ALF standing in his bed wearing a wooden box and making robot noises.

I’m trying to help you here, show, but I really need you to help me too.

Willie then steps on some tacks that ALF put on the floor and then when he leaves he steps on some more tacks that ALF put on the floor.

Guys, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just really sick. Maybe I’m dying.

Willie gets in bed with Kate and immediately initiates…lol nah I’m kidding. He talks about ALF. What a fun, sexy time for her.

He bitches on about ALF’s everlasting dickshit, and Kate suggests that he see a psychologist. In real life this would be the precursor to her next suggestion, which is that they get a divorce, but here she’s just trying to address his concerns. It’s nice of her, but I don’t know how Willie seeing a therapist is going to resolve the issue, which is that ALF’s been jogging in public, throwing tacks everywhere, and having robot dance parties in the middle of the night. I’m not saying a therapist is a bad idea, but I am saying it would be an indirect approach at best. Especially when, you know, they could just kick him out of the house.

Seriously, I know I bring this up a lot, but why does ALF have all of the power in this house? Why don’t they issue him an ultimatum? He’s fucked the moment they toss him out on his ear, so why do Willie and Kate act like he’s the one holding all the cards? Fuck this guy.

It’s even more puzzling if Willie’s concerned that keeping him in the house is cultivating a sense of dishonesty in his children, but nevermind, that part of the plot is over with. We’re doing something different now.

ALF then comes into the bedroom with a banana to watch Willie and Kate sleep. But you probably could have guessed that.

Willie goes to see the psychologist; they’re old friends who haven’t seen each other in a while I think. They greet in that slightly stilted way that two adults do when they’re glad to see each other but still not sure what to say, and that’s fine, but then Dr. Dykstra does a weird thing where he opens Willie’s jacket and says, “What’s that?! What’s that?!”

I think the idea was that he was referring to Willie having put on weight, but it actually looks like he’s making fun of Willie for getting an awkward boner. In fact, I’d believe that long before I’d believe that Max Wright had anything like a gut.

This is the pivot-point for the episode as the plot proper is set in motion, but before I get into that I want to take a moment to point out a little bit of stunt-casting*** that I didn’t notice until I did some research to remind myself of the doctor’s last name. (As they’re on friendly terms, Willie mostly calls him Larry.)

Dr. Dykstra is played by Bill Daily, who played Howard Borden in The Bob Newhart Show. In the waiting room there’s another patient played by Jack Riley, who was also on The Bob Newhart Show as Mr. Carlin. Later in the episode, ALF actually name-drops that show. And what was Bob’s profession? Psychologist. It’s a nice bit of subtle resonance, and the episode doesn’t draw any direct attention to it. That’s…pretty awesome, and evidence that somebody who worked on this show cared about something other than punching out on time.

Anyway, Dr. Dykstra correctly susses out the fact that Willie might have a problem. He amazingly deduces this, I guess, from the fact that WILLIE WENT TO SEE A PSYCHOLOGIST. Willie, however, tries to pretend everything’s okay, and, for once, incredibly, Max Wright’s hollow, dusty line readings fit the context; he does his best to lie to Dr. Dykstra but then blurts, sadly, “I have a creature from outer space living in my house,” and it plays like a sincere admission of defeat from a man genuinely miserable with his life.

It’s…a very effective moment. It manages to serve as an almost retroactive characterization, as it recontextualizes every single line of dialogue the man’s had. It’s a late-game attempt to squeeze some character into Willie, and unquestionably it should have happened much sooner, but the important thing is that it works.

Will it carry over into future episodes? Well, I kind of doubt it. But that isn’t something we should hold against “Going Out of My Head Over You.” It just means it will work better in isolation than as part of a series, just as “For Your Eyes Only” does.

Willie shows Dr. Dykstra a Polaroid of ALF as proof that he’s not crazy, and Willie ends up offering a vague kind of apology for being upset by ALF, saying that he “has some wonderful qualities.” We might even be meant to agree with that, but watching this with the knowledge that ALF’s been a sentient dick in every one of his earlier scenes it just makes Willie’s character seem even more pathetic and defeated…a man attempting to justify his complacency in a life of abject misery.

I know I’m spending a lot of time talking about what’s essentially a pretty short scene, but it’s actually quite good. It’s unquestionably Max Wright’s finest hour, as some writer figured out a way not only to play to the actor’s strengths, but to recontextualize his perceived weaknesses.

The entire character gets reframed completely; the awkward, sputtering nuttiness of his delivery isn’t anything unique to this exchange, but it has a home here. It’s never been normal, but now a change in context lets us know that that’s A Good Thing, because we’re not supposed to register it as normal. It indicates a problem. The episode is telling us that this is why Willie’s been this way all along. It’s an obvious retcon, but it’s a welcome one.

The honesty plot might have been ditched, but at least they managed to replace it with another topic specific to the premise of the show, and one at least as worthy of exploration. Kate’s rationale for sending Willie to Dr. Dykstra was a bit limp (again, Willie wasn’t complaining about feeling upset…he was complaining about ALF dickin’ out every hour of the day), but once the episode does get him there, it makes it worth the bumpiness of the ride.

Dr. Dykstra asks to come to the Tanner house in order to observe ALF. There are obviously two levels of interest at play here: personal, and professional, and that complicates something later on in an interesting way.

First, though, the family tells ALF that they have good news: a guest is coming over, and he won’t have to stay hidden all night. Fairly enough, ALF panics, afraid that they’ve tired of the dickcloud hanging constantly over their heads and turned him in to the Alien Task Force.**** Willie and Kate rush to assure him that’s not the case…but why? Let him think for a while that there’s some consequence for the shit he pulls.

In this episode alone he’s squirted all over Willie’s face, annoyed people with a whoopie-cushion, pierced Willie’s foot with a tack, bothered people in the middle of the night with some kind of robot dance, and then ate a banana while watching Willie and Kate in bed. Oh, and last week he carved a path of destruction throughout Los Angeles that led directly to the Tanners’ front door, in case you forgot. He should believe he needs to watch what he does, but instead Willie and Kate trip over themselves to assure him that he doesn’t. It’s insane.

BUT GUYS I LIKE THIS ONE SO LET’S FOCUS ON SOMETHING FUNNY LIKE THE WAY A VEGETABLE TRAY APPEARS MAGICALLY IN WILLIE’S HAND

It’s a very clever bit of foreshadowing for season four’s “Mind Games,” in which it is revealed that Willie is a telepath.

…no, it’s just shitty editing. I used to point out stuff like this a lot more when I didn’t realize I was watching syndication edits. Now I’m reluctant to do so, because it’s possible that when the show originally aired things didn’t jump around like this. I guess it doesn’t really matter, though. Whether the terrible editing was there from the start or a symptom of syndication, the fact is that somebody who edited ALF did a really awful job. Sometimes it’s like playing a motion version of Spot the Difference.

Dr. Dykstra arrives and greets Willie and Kate, then looks at ALF and says OH MY GOD. It’s actually kind of funny, probably because Bill Daily is a gifted comic actor and even manages to imbue a horrified recoil with some degree of politeness. He’s a good character, and I’d love to see him again.

I never fuckin’ will, but, you know.

I do have to give the show some credit for having everyone without the last name Tanner react appropriately when they first see ALF. Mrs. Ochmonek shrieked, Kate Sr. thought she was dreaming, the Frito Bandito thought he was about to be murdered, and now Dr. Dykstra momentarily loses his composure, in spite of having steeled himself for the encounter. That’s one thing the show’s been quite good about, and I like that.

They sit down to eat dinner, and because ALF is aware that Dr. Dykstra is there to observe him, he’s on his best behavior. What’s more, he refuses to admit that he’s usually any less reserved. Willie and the rest of the family try to point out that this isn’t the “real” ALF, but ALF won’t budge. He’s polite, complimentary, and calm, and he’s trying to convince Dr. Dykstra that that’s how he always is.

Dr. Dykstra senses that something’s off. He suggests role reversal, with ALF playing Willie and Willie playing ALF, because while he got his Masters in Psychology he minored in Basic Sitcom Convention.

I’ll admit, it’s a hackneyed premise, but what follows is seriously funny. ALF and Willie impersonate each other with one eye toward showing Dr. Dykstra what it’s like to live with the other, and the other eye toward pissing each other off. It manages to be both aggressive and passive-aggressive at once, and it’s easily the best scene ALF has given us yet.

Willie’s impersonations of ALF consist of putting his feet on the table and belching rudely…and in a genuinely clever choice, Max Wright doesn’t actually have Willie burp; instead he just says, “Braaaaaaap.”

ALF then tries out his own impression, mimicing Willie’s boring dweebiness by suggesting that the family spend the evening conjugating verbs.

Willie fires back with his ALF impression, demanding food because he hasn’t eaten in half an hour. ALF responds with his Willie impression, denying him a meal on the grounds that they fed him last month.

I absolutely love the insight we’re getting into each of these characters, as simple concepts end up filtered through very different perspectives, and we see how each would perceive the same thing in a completely different way, leaving both of them unsatisfied as well as unaware of how the other feels.

Andrea Elson laughs during the scene, and from the way she glances off to the side as she tries to hold it in I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t intentional. That means that even the fucked up take that remained in the episode rather than being reshot works in this context…she’s nervously laughing at her father being made fun of as he makes fun of their permanent house guest. The struggle not to laugh is Andrea’s rather than Lynn’s, but it’s a mistake that enhances the reality of the scene. “Going Out of My Head Over You” is really taking the weaknesses of this show and turning them into strengths. I’m…kind of impressed, and now you know why I keep using the word “recontextualizing.”

The scene also plays like Fusco and Wright venting some frustrations at each other. The infamous tension between the two actors is channeled smartly by the writers here, and you can hear it in their performances. There’s a pent-up viciousness there that I know is genuine, because neither of them are nearly good enough actors to fake it.

What’s more, it stays funny. Willie leers at Lucky and threatens to eat him, and ALF says they can’t eat the cat, as written in “Household Rule #856, Subsection D, paragraph 2.” Then Willie says he doesn’t like rules, and there’s a brilliant little flourish as he tosses his napkin in the air, which is obviously Willie’s idea of how to break rules. Then he catches it and sets it down neatly, because he’s still Willie.

THIS IS GOOD.

It’s rare enough that the show gets one joke right…it’s always exciting when it manages to build another good joke upon the first. Here every joke is funny, and we get a good several minutes of back and forth that actually feels like it was pulled from a much better pool of writers.

Things get resolved a little too cleanly, but this is a sitcom, and things do need to be reset before the episode ends. I can’t even complain, because the resolution is natural, and it builds from what we’ve just seen. It even folds in another “flaw” from the show and makes it fit: Dr. Dykstra says that whatever the problem may be, the fact is that ALF and Willie don’t get along, so ALF should move out. In fact, Dr. Dykstra would be happy to take him in…and while we know ALF isn’t going anywhere, it impressively fits the degree of personal curiosity the good doctor has invested in the situation.

Willie expresses concern that ALF might get caught if he’s not there to look after him, a concern that helps him realize that he actually cares about ALF. ALF is happy to hear this, and explains that he cares about Willie too, and appreciates the fact that Willie keeps him safe and sheltered and fed.

Just like that, we have our explanation for why Willie and Kate don’t kick him out or issue that ultimatum: they like the guy. It’s something that’s been suggested before, but never felt. Here, at last, it’s felt. I’m not sure that I buy it, but I don’t even mind that, because the episode worked to make it fit, and in its second half at least it did so with an impressive efficiency.

Ladies and gentlemen: my new favorite episode of ALF.

The final scene before the credits is only a few seconds long, but it’s actually really nice. It’s ALF watching Willie and Kate sleep again, but when Willie rolls over, ALF pulls the blanket back over him so he won’t get cold.

I’m…amazed. The episode took an extremely creepy situation from earlier in the episode, and turned it into something sweet by the end. That’s not an easy task for any show…for ALF to pull it off it’s downright alchemy.

This might be my longest review yet. I hope it is, because this is certainly the episode that deserved it most. And hell, by this point I think I’ve earned it too.

MELMAC FACTS: Chewing with your mouth closed is considered very rude on Melmac, because people think you’re hiding something.

—–
* Actually, now that I think about it the pilot ended with Lynn being concerned about a sleep-over of her own, and everyone was fine with ALF being there as long as he dressed up like a woman. I didn’t think that was a good idea at the time, and now that we see the sleepover rules have changed, we can only imagine what kind of crap ALF must have pulled then…

** You’re welcome.

*** Courtesy of The ALF Wiki, which is a thing that somebody made.

**** Is this the first time the Alien Task Force has been mentioned since the pilot? I honestly thought that would be more of a looming threat to the characters than it seems to be BUT WHO CARES THIS ONE WAS GOOD YOU GUYS DON’T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME

Now this is interesting. The syndication edit of “Wild Thing” is only 18 minutes long. Typically they’ve been about 22 or 23 minutes, which reflect maybe two or three minutes’ worth of trimmed material. As I’ve mentioned before in these reviews, I’m disappointed by that, but not largely concerned. While it’s fair enough to assume that we’re losing some decent lines and maybe a moment or two of plot clarification, I truly doubt it would make the show better. Even if we operate under the assumption that all of the stuff that got cut was good, that still leaves us with the fact that any given episode of ALF only had two or three minutes’ worth of good stuff, and that’s a pretty lousy ratio.

Here, though, it’s a bit trickier, as we’re losing six or seven minutes’ worth of material. That’s basically a full act. In fact, Hulu divides its programs up by “act” so that it can show its own commercials. “Wild Thing” has an act break at both credits sequences, and that’s it; the entire episode proper is unbroken. Something really strange happened here, but I couldn’t tell you what it is.

It’s also mislabeled on Hulu as episode 19, when it’s actually episode 18. This…made me panic. I was afraid I had skipped an episode somewhere and would have to go back and do it. It turns out it’s just a mistake on their end, but the experience taught me that there is nothing more terrifying to me than the prospect of a lost episode of ALF.

Anyway, none of that has anything to do with “Wild Thing,” which starts with ALF and Brian on the floor trying to read each other’s minds. Brian keeps thinking of a fork, ALF keeps guessing wrong, and Kate comes in so ALF puts on some X-Ray Specs and talks about how sexy her underwear is.

18-minutes, 22-minutes, 60-minutes…it doesn’t matter. ALF is still ALF.

ALF assembles the family in the living room. He asks where Kate is and is told she’s in the shower, so he walks into the bathroom and throws the curtain aside to get her. This is the second pervy thing ALF’s done to Kate this episode, and it’s also the second thing he did at all in this episode. Why do the writers think ALF is at his best when he’s behaving like a sexual criminal?

He then walks over and hangs up on Lynn’s phone call. She gets upset but it’s not like she was talking to anyone. She can’t have been, since she just had it pressed against her head while she nodded silently. This means either Lynn, Andrea Elson or the entire writing staff of ALF didn’t know how phones work. I can’t even make an educated guess as to which it is. Any of that is plausible.

There is actually a decent joke here. ALF tells Lynn that she looks different, and she takes that as a compliment until ALF asks if she used to have a mustache. She explains that she looks different because she got her braces taken off, and ALF replies, “Yeah, but didn’t you used to have a mustache, too?”

It was a line obviously written in because Elson had her real-life braces removed, which is something I wouldn’t have noticed if they hadn’t drawn attention to it, but I appreciate the fact that they decided to address the change. I also appreciate the fact that they assigned the job of addressing the change to the One Good Writer.

It’s interesting that ALF gets a bigger laugh with something they had to quickly shoe-horn into the episode in order to address a real-life change in appearance than it does with the rest of the script that was presumably given more time and attention.

ALF explains to the family — in the vaguest way possible, presumably because the writers don’t know where this is going either (if you don’t believe me, just scroll down to the final screengrab) — that he’s going to go bananas.

Why? Because this is March 1, and every 75 years, on March 2, all Melmacians go apeshit. Good to know that Melmac inexplicably went by the Gregorian calendar.

ALF announces that Willie better hurry the eff up and build him a cage, because all this jazz goes down at midnight.

Why did he wait until now to tell the family about it? He only gives them a few hours’ notice that he’s going to embark on some hazily-defined rampage, but he knew this was coming for, oh, the past 74 years and 364 days or so. What’s more, he’s been here since August (as established by “Help Me, Rhonda”) which means he’s known the Tanners for seven months. Couldn’t this have been talked about any sooner?

Willie apparently doesn’t know the difference between a “cage” and a “wooden box,” but that’s okay, because nobody remarks on it which means they don’t know either. Then again, he still doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be helping ALF prevent, so I can’t blame him too much for not being particular about it.

You’d think the episode would explain at some point what happens to ALF during this isolated bout of insanity, but it doesn’t. I thought this sort of artful dodging was building up to a reveal at the end that he becomes really nice for a day. Or lactates everywhere. I don’t know. Point is, I thought we’d find out something.

In this edit, though, we don’t. Maybe the longer edit made more sense of it. As of right now, I’m just assuming that this is ALF’s “Amok Time.” ALFmok Time? Anyway, what I’m trying to say is I’m disappointed that this episode doesn’t climax with his and Willie’s duel to the death.

ALF tells Willie not to release him under any circumstances, but then he says he has to use the restroom and Willie opens the box, which earns him a stern lecture from ALF. Willie apologies, locks him back in, and ALF tries the same trick, which earns the audience an incomparable line reading of “Forgaeeerrrrhhtt ittt” from Max Wright. Man, I’m not even through the first season and I’ve already gotten so used to Wright’s delivery that I barely even notice it anymore. I think that’s the first sign of dementia.

ALF then starts impersonating Lynn, Brian and Willie, but I don’t know how that’s supposed to be a trick since they’re all standing right there and obviously nobody would be fooled by it. It’s also strange that the lip synch is so terrible. They use actual lines from those actors, so all Fusco has to do is open and close the mouth on the puppet, but it barely matches up at all. I mean, I’m sure it’s more difficult to “match the flaps” when somebody else is talking than when you are, but shouldn’t a puppeteer at least be able to do a halfway decent job of it? It doesn’t even seem like he’s trying.

That night Brian is walking around the house unsupervised, and since Willie and Kate both knew full well that ALF would be going berserk in a fragile wooden crate, this illustrates what fantastic parents they are. Seriously, do they even like their kids? They might not. The took the precaution of keeping ALF safe by boxing him up, but no precautions whatsoever to keep their kids safe?

ALF tricks Brian into opening the crate on the grounds that it’s already sunup in Melmac time. (Melmok Time?) So I guess this whole “I go nuts on March 2” thing really meant “I go nuts for six hours on March 2 while everyone’s asleep and wouldn’t notice anyway.”

Brian then gets locked in the cage, because he’s a fucking idiot. ALF doesn’t even try. He just says, “Can you check inside the cage?” So Brian does, and ALF closes the door. Check for what? There was no attempt made to justify this with even a flimsy explanation. There’s a script for Friends floating around the internet that was hand-written by an eight-year-old kid. It’s a thousand times more coherent than this.

Also, ALF the unregistered sex criminal has now graduated to locking children in wooden crates. I just want to leave you with that thought.

Willie, Kate and Lynn all enter the living room at sunup, and Brian screams for help. In the most ridiculous piece of sitcom blocking ever, these three idiots stand around wondering loudly about whether that’s Brian in the cage or ALF doing another impression…which is a valid question, but also one that could be resolved immediately by any of them stepping around to the front of the cage where Brian is clearly visible.

Of course, Brian could also move to one of the windows on the side, where he’d be visible to them, and he doesn’t do that. Speaking of which, I have no idea why he’s calling out through the front window in the first place when that’s not where his family is standing, so fuck it. He’s no better than they are. The whole Tanner clan deserves to be torn to shreds by a horny alien.

Eventually they do manage to step four inches to the side. They see that it does look like Brian, but they’re not convinced that it isn’t just ALF shape-shifting. Think about that for a moment. I’ll meet you when you’re done.

Good stuff, eh?

They ask Brian a bunch of questions to determine that it’s really him, and the one that convinces them is when he’s able to identify Kate’s maiden name as Halligan, which is correct. However, that’s also the one thing they ask that they already know ALF knows as well; he was channeling the ghost of Sparky Halligan only three episodes ago. So in order to determine that this is not the alien, they ask their son something that both he and the alien would know.

Good stuff, eh?

Willie goes to check for ALF at the Ochmoneks’ house, because that’s where Lucky is staying, apparently. How did the Tanners convince them to take the cat for the night when they weren’t going anywhere? What was their cover story? If you took your cat to the neighbor’s house because you were away for the weekend, that makes sense. If you took your cat to the neighbor’s house just to get rid of it for the night, they’d think you were hosting an orgy.

Anyway, this is the first time we’ve seen Mrs. Ochmonek since the second episode, and she makes her triumphant return solely so that Willie can come over in the middle of the night and say, “I was hoping I could get Lucky,” which is an entendre so obvious even Three’s Company would turn up its nose at it.

Also, who out there is volunteering to do the ALF / Daft Punk mashup that the internet so desperately needs?

Mr. Ochmonek goes upstairs to get the cat, and Willie sees ALF behind Mrs. Ochmonek. I’m pretty sure this screengrab is an accurate representation of Max Wright’s crack hallucinations:

Mr. Ochmonek can’t find the cat, and when he comes back downstairs there’s a noise in the kitchen, so the elders go to investigate. Meanwhile ALF comes out of a totally different room with a toaster oven, asks how long to preheat it before cooking a cat, then he laughs and leaves again.

The Ochmoneks come back, so Willie pretends he was the one laughing so loudly, and suddenly I’m convinced that the entire character of ALF really is one series-long crack hallucination.

Every time Mr. and Mrs. O leave the room ALF appears, and then he disappears before they come back. Again, if this is what was left after cutting all but 18 minutes of this episode, I can’t imagine we’re missing much.

Eventually they find Lucky, and ALF escapes on their riding mower. I know it sounds like I’m making this episode up in the throes of my own crack hallucination, but all this shit is really happening.

GOOD STUFF, EH?

The lawnmower theft happens off camera, and then we cut to the Tanners hanging out in the shed, listening to police broadcasts and mapping ALF’s path of destruction through LA. All of his shenanigans happen off camera, pretty obviously for budget reasons, and that’s understandable. What’s not understandable is why they wrote an episode about a reign of alien terror if they couldn’t afford to shoot any of it.

I know I complained a few times (okay…every time) about the show never having ALF do anything alien, so I should be happy; this is a story about an alien, and probably the only one we’ve seen so far. Yet we still don’t get to see him doing anything alien, because the one alien thing they’ve ever decided to have him do can’t be filmed with anything less than the budget of a Michael Bay movie. Great planning.

Anyway, they draw on a map for a while and then we get this:

This show can’t even stick Willie on a couch without it looking like the most ridiculous thing in the world.

Kate and Lynn return from their drive around the neighborhood, but they didn’t find ALF. That’s okay, though, because the episode’s ending and he turns up on his own. He returned to the Tanner house because he read Brian’s mind, or some shit, which isn’t so much the coming together of two plot threads as it is the writers reminding us that this episode had a beginning.

They have a heartfelt reunion in front of their wide-open front door, even though they know full well the police are actively scouring the city for the alien that left a path of destruction leading right to their house. Again, nobody thinks to step a few inches to the side.

ALF quotes Yogi Bera, Plutarch, Proust and Shakespeare because even after it’s trimmed all to hell ALF is still padded like crazy.

The short scene before the credits is ALF further padding out the episode with yet more quotations, and then he and Willie go out to the shed and see a tiger.

ALF kidnapped it from the zoo and then forgot about it. The fake audience of nobody who ever lived applauds in appreciation of the…uh…whatever this is.

Guys, “Wild Thing” was awful. This might actually be one of the worst. I’d like to say it was even worse than “Strangers in the Night,” but that wouldn’t be totally fair since for all I know a fuller edit would have done this one a lot of good. I doubt that, but…still. Benefit of the doubt and all.

I’m just glad it’s over. This one felt about 10 times as long as the clip show, even though that one ran almost a full hour. Oh well. Next week’s episode is called “Going Out of My Head Over You,” which sounds like a title that would have fit just as well here. Are we in for another double-header with the same plot? We can only hope!

Join us next week for that review, same Amok Time, same Amok Channel.

MELMAC FACTS: Every 75 years, all the inhabitants of Melmac mow the lawn and kidnap a tiger.

Quick note: be sure to check out my awesome new banner on the ALF review archive page. Super fan Dylan Savageau did the art for me. And by that I mean he’s super and also a fan, not that he’s a super fan of mine. In fact I don’t even think he likes me.

I think we should all take a moment to give thanks for a few things. For starters, after this episode I will only have to review seven more in season one. Rumor has it that season two sees an improvement in quality, and that would certainly be welcome. It’s also where I started watching as a kid, I think, so that should be interesting.

Secondly, let’s all give thanks that the Kate Sr. trilogy is over. Technically it was over last week, but since she appeared in some clips I wasn’t quite comfortable enough to assume she was gone. But now that I’ve seen “Border Song,” I can safely say she won’t be bothering us for a while. (20 minutes, anyway…but I’ll take what I can get.)

And finally, let’s express some very deep gratitude for the return of the One Good Writer. Yes, I was starting to wonder if I’d hallucinated him, because it feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to compliment this show on a genuinely good line or gag. “Border Song,” however, hits the ground running as far as that goes.

It opens with ALF and Kate in the kitchen, and ALF tells her to add “manure” to her grocery list. She asks him why, and he says, “So you won’t forget it.”

That’s funny enough, but they actually build upon it for a second good joke: Kate asks him more directly why he needs manure, and he replies that it’s for his carrots. She says, “Use butter, like everyone else.”

God, I’ve missed you, OGW. Of course (does this really even need saying at this point?) the rest of “Border Song” isn’t quite up to the silly standard set by the opening scene. It has a few more moments of decency, and after the Kate Sr. trilogy it feels like a positive masterpiece, but this is still ALF. And it’s an episode about the alien befriending a young immigrant. So…you pretty much know it’s all going to come crashing down sooner rather than later.

After the opening credits we join Willie, clumsily sounding his way through basic Spanish with the help of a book. He’s on the phone trying to reach a man named Fredo Mancilla, and he identifies himself as working for Social Services.

Wow! So now we finally know where Willie works. We still don’t know quite what his job is, but hey, it’s a start.

I have to admit, though, I was pretty surprised that Willie is a social worker. To be honest, I thought I was playing dumb for a while about what he did for a living. Sure, the show never told us, but I thought it would have been safe to conclude that he was some kind of engineer for the state. That seemed to be suggested by his interest in science and space, his twice-alluded-to crazy inventions, and the fact that he has no social skills whatsoever. But, here we are, watching Willie try to figure out what to do with a lost Mexican child. I have to admit, I did not see that coming.

I’m guessing that this job is meant to redeem Willie a bit for the audience. Instead of being this gawky authoritarian, we’re supposed to reconsider him as an empathetic hero by day, toiling at a low paying job because it allows him to make life a little better for those who need it most.

If he’s in social work, though, in Los Angeles of all places, how is it possible that he doesn’t know any Spanish? You’d think that would be a pretty crucial thing to know in that field. And did nobody at Social Services ever bother to learn Spanish? You’d think at least one of them might know at least a few basic words and phrases, but I guess not, because if that were the case I don’t know why they’d turn this kid over to Willie, who can’t speak a lick of it.

There’s a scene where his secretary or something complains about having to work late because of this kid, but in another bid to soften Willie, the writers have him stand up to her and insist that they stay as long as it takes to help him. That sounds great, right?

Well, it is, as long as you don’t pay attention to what he actually says: “He’s alone, he’s frightened, he doesn’t speak any English, and if I’m going to put him alone on a bus back to Mexico I want to make sure there’s going to be someone there to meet him.”

There’s no laughter. The show doesn’t consider this a dark joke. Willie’s noble goal is to stick a kid on a bus alone with no money, no food, and no knowledge of the language, hoping he gets deported safely and becomes somebody else’s problem. So much for empathy.

Brian comes into the kitchen after harvesting ALF’s vegetables, a responsibility which fell to him because ALF is a puppet and can’t leave the seat.

Speaking of which, where’s the midget been? The absence of the One Good Writer was certainly felt, but the midget in the ALF suit has been quietly missing for a while. Come back, midget in the ALF suit!

There’s another good joke here when Kate refers to the brown lumps that ALF grew as looking like really good yams. Lynn corrects her and says they’re eggplants. ALF, annoyed, cries, “They’re corn!”

I like this. As a hobby of the week for ALF, having a vegetable garden is a pretty solid one. It gives him something to do, is something he could believably handle without leaving the property, and it ties into the fact that the Mexican boy’s father was a farmer. It’s not the most graceful way to combine two plots, but at least they are being combined.

It’s also a very Roger kind of thing to get obsessed with, and in fact there was actually an episode of American Dad! that saw Roger operating a plantation in the back yard, with children as his slaves. It’s just a coincidence,* I’m positive, but it’s a pretty fun one.

ALF complains that his veggies won’t grow because Bob Barker keeps digging them up. Bob Barker is the Ochmoneks’ dog, who was given that name simply so that the neighbors could have hilarious misunderstandings about it, such as this one. Eventually they clear it up and establish that it isn’t a world-famous game show host digging up the crops…it’s a Chihuahua.

A Chihuahua. Not that they’re overdoing it on the Mexican stuff, of course. The rest of the episode is very sensitive and careful to avoid stereotyping. That’s especially true of the scene in which the Mexican kid gets everyone drunk on tequila, teaches them how to properly roll burritos, and infects them all with his really lousy work ethic.

As crappy as the writing in this exchange is, the scene does have an uncharacteristic degree of life to it. ALF suggests murdering the Chihuahua with a gardening claw, and then when Kate says no he suggests quicksand, and mimes the dog sinking into the ground.

It’s a nice bit of physical comedy and it allows for some of Fusco’s sillier puppeteering skills to come through. I like it. Of course, what it really does is remind me how infrequently we get physical comedy like this.

It’s bizarre, now that I think about it. ALF is a puppet. That should lead to a lot of creative possibilities that you couldn’t do with a human character. But so far we’ve only ever seen ALF doing things a human actor could do. He sits around, plays the piano, knocks shit over…at that point, why even have a puppet?

The ALF set was a legendary hotbed of frustration and stress, and that was largely due to the fact that the show was so complicated to shoot. In order to allow ALF to move around, the set was built with a series of trenches and trap doors, and the actors had to be careful not to fall into one and break their spine as they walked around delivering their own lines. What’s more, if any line was fumbled or a prop failed to function, everything had to be reset and the whole ordeal repeated. Due to this, episodes of ALF took something like ten times as long to shoot as the average sitcom.

But with that taken as a given, it’s even odder that all we ever see ALF do is sit in a chair and spout shitty jokes. If you’re going to put your actors and floor staff through hell, at least make it worth their while. Have them navigating these ridiculous conditions for a purpose…don’t just do it so that a puppet can sit at a table like any other actor could. What a waste of time.

It’s strange. Imagine The Muppets without physical comedy and puppet-only set-pieces. Sure, maybe they’d still be funny, but what would have been the point? Jim Henson didn’t spend a life designing and refining and working with these things so that they could sit around a dinner table…he explored the possibilities of his medium. Fusco, for some reason, resists doing anything with the puppet, and when we get a lively exception in a moment like this, that becomes positively maddening.

Anyway, the phone rings, and it’s Willie. He tells ALF to put Kate on, and ALF delivers my favorite joke in the episode: “Hey Kate! I’m the King of France.”

You probably think I’m being sarcastic, but I really do like that. I’m disappointed that they cranked up the fake audience laughter so quickly after ALF delivers the line, because it really should hang there for a few seconds before the joke sets in, but that’s more the fault of the editors than the writers. I like this.

ALF then hangs up on Willie, and Max Wright makes the face you see above at the telephone / his career trajectory.

The next scene begins with ALF sitting naked on the couch with Brian, drinking a beer. This was a great show for families, and it helped millions of children worldwide see that there was nothing wrong with the occasional game of Secret Tickles.

Willie comes home and shoos ALF into the kitchen, because he brought the Mexican boy back with him. When the kid walks through the door the fake audience that doesn’t exist is so moved that they vocalize their pity.

What a depressing job it must have been to edit audience reactions into ALF. It was up to you to pretend somebody gave a shit about what was happening on this worthless show.

The boy is introduced as Luis Mancilla, and of course there has to be a joke about how fuckable Lynn is. Yes, the ALF writers’ room must have been such a pleasant, welcoming environment.

I also love that in any given screengrab from this show, every character looks miserable. Just putting that out there.

Then there’s this really weird conversation about Lynn’s school photo. She says it makes her look like “the village idiot,” but Kate says it doesn’t, and the whole thing just goes on and out without building to any sort of punchline, so they’re obviously just padding things out at this point. I’ll never get tired of pointing out how much the writers need to reach for something to tell a story about, and then when they have it they can’t think of anything to do with it.

Luis goes to the bathroom and Willie tells the family that he felt so bad for the kid that he had to take him home. So Willie is not only a social worker in LA that doesn’t know any Spanish, but he also doesn’t see anything wrong with taking lost children home without telling anybody. I’m pretty sure ALF is a show about a family of undiagnosed psychopaths.

Anyway, because it’s this show, ALF pops up in the kitchen window, spills beer everywhere, and then licks it up.

Oh well. It was nice to hear from the One Good Writer again, however briefly.

That night Luis gets up to flee the Tanner house, instantly making him the most intelligent character this show has ever given us. It’s a little odd, though, that for all his overwhelming compassion toward the boy, Willie not only made him sleep on the couch, but didn’t give him any bed clothes. Poor Luis had to sleep in a buttoned workshirt, jeans, and even his sneakers. Awesome social work, Willie.

Instead of leaving through the door that he’s sleeping literally four feet away from, Luis winds through the house to the back door that he somehow knew was there, and exits through ALF’s vegetable garden.

Of course, since it’s a garden Luis immediately starts toiling in it, because he’s Mexican. Then when he needs some tools he knocks a whole bunch of shit over, because he’s clumsy and Mexican.

ALF hears the disturbance and assumes it’s Bob Barker, so he comes out with the intention of beating the small animal to death. Have I mentioned what a fantastic show this was for families?

Luis sees him and is understandably terrified, but ALF calms him down by speaking to him in Spanish. He introduces himself, says that he’s friendly, and explains that he came from space. I assume he’s not worried about disclosing this fact to a stranger because despite it being established in the first episode as top secret information that nobody could be told under any circumstance, Luis is Mexican and nobody will ever care what he says.

ALF then puts Luis to work in his garden, which is how they bond. Obviously.

The next day at work Willie is bitching out his secretary again, and then his boss comes in. I spent a lot of time trying to remember where I’ve seen this guy before, and I finally realized he played the doctor on Get a Life. Looking him up on IMDB I see that his name is Earl Boen, and not only has he had an awesome career (and played a shit-ton of doctors), but he voiced LeChuck in the Secret of Monkey Island video games. This guy is officially awesome.

Boen is actually really good here. He doesn’t get to do much, but he hates Willie and delivers his lines without making funny faces for the camera, so by the standards of this show that should qualify him for an Emmy. This might be the first ALF character that I’ve ever wanted to see again.

Anyway, Willie gets in trouble for taking a kid home with him last night without telling anyone. You’d think that would be a major strike against Willie keeping his job since it’s, you know, a pretty heinous crime and everything. But instead he’s just told not to do it again. In the world of ALF, every arm of the government operates on the honor system.

Willie comes home that night with news that he’s located Luis’s father. However he’s also uncovered some additional facts: his father lives in Riverside, not Mexico, and he works at a carpet factory. Fredo Mancilla has been worried sick about Luis, who, it is revealed, can speak English perfectly well.

It turns out he just wanted to go back to Mexico so he could have a better life, and it sure is interesting to see that Sean Hannity got his start writing for ALF.

Fortunately the alien is here to solve everything. He tells Luis to go live with his dad and shut the fuck up about wanting to be happier. These sage words inspire the boy, and he agrees to stay in America. He also promises to visit ALF sometime.

I won’t be holding my breath.

That was a pretty awful episode, but the final little scene before the credits does end things on a high note. Willie walks in on ALF playing video games, and asks what game it is. When he’s told it’s Space Invaders, he asks, “What do they do? Crash into your garage? Eat all your food? Dig up your yard?” And ALF replies, “You’re in a mood!”

It’s…actually really funny. This episode had a good four or five genuine laughs, which I’m pretty sure doubles the total number of genuine laughs I’ve had all season. Yeah, there’s some other crap in this scene about ALF ruining the gardening tools and the fact that he cultivates earthworms now, but this video game joke — filtering our “idea” of aliens through the eyes of an actual alien — is funny, and there’s even an additional joke about their mindless attack patterns being “exactly why the Martians are extinct.”

There’s potential in this show. There really is. There’s a talented puppeteer, a ripe central premise, good jokes sprinkled here in there, and limitless possibilities.

Instead of leaning on any of those things, though, the show is content to introduce and dispose of new characters weekly, inventing pointless conflicts that fizzle out because that’s easier than writing a real resolution. I’m still not convinced that anyone in the family is a character, and the laziness of the writing staff carries loud and clear through the bored performances of the actors.

ALF is the kind of show that nobody remembers for what it was, but everyone remembers for what they would have liked it to be. From what I’ve heard, season two narrows that gap somewhat. But we’re not out of the woods yet.

—-
* ALF does at one point suggest planting cotton, but I’m sure that wasn’t a deliberate slavery joke.

I…yeah. Episode sixteen is a clip show.

Take a moment to let that sink in. We’re barely halfway through the first season, and already there’s a clip show.

I do understand the value of clips shows. I don’t particularly like them, but I understand why they exist. It’s a relatively fast and inexpensive way to add another episode to the running order, and in the days before complete season DVDs, they were often the only way to re-live favorite moments from years ago.

Personally, I was always disappointed when I made a point of watching a show I enjoyed only to find out that the “all-new episode” was a clip show. Stitching together moments leads to a disjointed viewing experience that dulls the effect of even the best gags, as all of the context is removed. Clip shows try to follow the lead of “Greatest Hits” albums by including all of the things you remember in one convenient package, but in practice they turn out more like bizarre re-edits that grab one verse from this song, the guitar solo from that song over here, the chorus from this other one, and slap them together without any regard for how it actually flows.

The only time that I think clip shows have actually reached their potential is in the case of sketch comedy. There they can manage to pull off the Greatest Hits approach, because each of the skits has its own context that’s largely free from the original episode. Granted, shows like Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Mr. Show took great pains to keep one skit flowing into the next, and that level of artistry and flow undoubtedly suffers when chopped up and resequenced, but it can at least work. Sitcom clip shows don’t, and probably can’t, because things don’t happen in isolation. You’re not watching a stream of jokes…you’re watching a humorous story unfold. Try to separate one from the other and you’re left with nothing at all.

All of that is academic, though, because even though most sitcoms would wait until they have enough material for a clip show before actually making one, ALF dives into that particular well when there are only fifteen episodes from which to draw. Why they didn’t at least wait for the end of the season — especially since the plot of the episode is absolutely appropriate for a season finale — is beyond me.

Or, actually, maybe it’s not. So far ALF has been nothing but laziness incarnate. Lazy plotting, lazy characterization, and now the textbook example of a lazy episode; a shambling Frankenstein’s monster of other things stitched together. We’re approaching the lazy singularity.

Oh, and it’s an hour long. ALF is really spoiling us.

The central conceit is that ALF loses his memory, and the Tanners have to remind him of who he is. That in itself isn’t a very unique concept for a clip show, but the execution is surprisingly competent. In fact, the original material in “Try to Remember” is probably the best stuff in the entire show since the Jodie episode.

I’ll get to that in a moment, but first I want to go over a few confusing things about “Try to Remember.”

For starters, this clip show actually contains footage otherwise unavailable from previous episodes, since in a handful of cases they chose to include something that was cut from the syndication edits. It’s nothing major — another line here or there, or a scene of Willie and Kate referencing prison movies during his incarceration in “Pennsylvania 6-5000” — but it’s still interesting.

Another strange thing is that this is one of the few episodes (perhaps the only episode) that is available in full-length form. I don’t know if this is because it was never edited for syndication to begin with or what, but there you go. This is the first as-broadcast episode that I’m reviewing.

Right? Well, not quite. While it sounds nice that “Try to Remember” isn’t a syndication edit, it’s also not the original edit. In a version that only aired once, ALF lost his memory because he brought an electric mixer into the bathtub in order to soak in a “whirlpool.” There was a big flash from off camera, the sound of electrocution, and then smoke pouring out of the bathroom.

Subsequent airings, however, have ALF taking a hand-mixer into the tub instead, slipping and hitting his head instead of getting shocked. The most obvious re-shoot is the beginning, obviously, when this all goes down, but there are also a few other lines cut that refer to the incident later on, including the punchline of the entire episode.

While it does make more sense that ALF would lose his memory due to a head injury than electrocution, the re-edit is pretty silly. It was done so that kids wouldn’t be encouraged to take their own electronics into the bath, despite the fact that the episode actually did a pretty good job of outlining exactly why to not do that.

After all, ALF suffered serious injury as a result of doing this, and a few lines that ended up being cut included Willie, Kate and Lynn scolding ALF for being so stupid, as well as questioning why he’d do it to begin with. And if that wasn’t clear enough, ALF himself appears at the end of the episode to speak to the children at home and tell them not to do what he just did. (Needless to say, this was cut from the re-edit as well.)

In the previous episodes we’ve seen ALF wreck the house, diddle the kids, torment the cat, set the kitchen on fire, issue cryptic threats to the president, buy things without permission on somebody else’s credit card, crash a car into the house, grab the wheel while somebody else was driving, and God knows what else that I’ve mercifully forgotten.

In none (literally none) of the above situations was ALF chastised in any serious way for his behavior. He does these nasty, dangerous things without consequence.

“Try to Remember” was the first time ALF actually had to deal with the fallout from his dumbdickassery, as well as the first time the show made a point of telling kids at home not to emulate his bullshit, and that’s what gets cut. I’m…dumbfounded.

Another very strange thing about this episode is that the opening sequence is different. The theme tune sounds sped up (artificially…not due to a re-record with a faster tempo) and there’s a new shot of ALF reaching into the refrigerator and Kate slapping his hand. There’s also an extended bit at the end with the family getting ready to have their picture taken. You’d think that a faster tempo would suggest that things were removed from the opening sequence rather than added, but I didn’t notice any trims. Maybe a second here and a second there were snipped in order to make room for the new stuff. Either way…it’s odd. I wonder if this will be the intro going forward. I kind of hope not, because the sped up theme tune sounds awful.

What story there is, as I said, is actually handled quite well. ALF losing his memory is nothing to write home about, but what happens after that is not half bad…mainly because he behaves believably. When he hits his head (or zaps himself) in the tub, he’s reading a letter from an insurance company, which causes him to believe that he’s an insurance agent. (Good thing he wasn’t reading The Shining, I guess.)

After that, ALF behaves more or less the way somebody would if they did believe they were somebody totally different from who they’re being told they are. He complains, he fights back, he worries that he’s being kidnapped, and he eventually calls the police to save him from this crazy family that won’t let him leave.

It’s not bad, and honestly it deserved an episode of its own more than just about any story we’ve seen so far, so it’s a bit of a shame that it’s relegated to a clip show.

Anyway, since the rest of the episode is just clips of stuff I’ve already reviewed, I’m going to forgo re-reviewing them and I’ll present instead my own personal highlights of the series so far.

ALF embarks on a quest to bed each of the remaining Tanners while Willie is away on business. (From the episode “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.”)

Willie moves ALF (and the audience) to tears with an episode-length version of “Candle in the Wind” that he wrote about the destruction of Melmac. (From the episode “Your Song.”)

ALF writes a novel. In real time. (From the special four-hundred-hour-long episode “Paperback Writer.”)

Mr. Ochmonek swaggers triumphantly into the bedroom after blocking up the Tanners’ toilet with an enormous shit. (From the episode “Black Water.”)

Willie reaches repeatedly into exposed wiring for 22 minutes, which was Paul Fusco’s ironic punishment to Max Wright for requesting more screen time. (From the episode “E-lec-tricity.”)

ALF witnesses a rape. (From the episode “Doctor My Eyes.”)

The prostitutes arrive and inform Willie that they all had lots of sex but their clients refused to pay them so now he needs to go beat them up. (From the episode “Willie the Pimp.”)

Brian sits around doing nothing because they were paying this kid for a full day and might as well stick him somewhere. (From the episode “Radio Free Europe.”)

It’s the day before Easter. ALF has hidden all the Christmas trees. (From the episode “Tannermelon in Easter Hay.”)

Max Wright is arrested for possession of crack cocaine. (From the episode “The Making of ALF.”)

After accidentally killing Bruce Springsteen with a pitchfork, ALF must go on tour with the E-Street Band disguised as The Boss to keep the authorities from getting suspicious. (From the episode “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out.”)

ALF sets himself on fire. Coming to their senses at last, nobody helps him. (From the episode “Burning Down the House.”)

Willie accidentally joins Al-Qaeda. (From the episode “Sky Pilot.”)

Mr. Ochmonek swaggers triumphantly into the living room after blocking up the Tanners’ septic tank with an enormous shit. (From the episode “Black Water, Part 2.”)

ALF and Willie about to consummate their relationship during a drive-in screening of 9 1/2 Weeks. (From the episode “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”)

While attempting to channel the spirit of Bob Crane, ALF accidentally summons the ghost of a serial killer, and then goes apeshit and kills everyone. (From the episode “Careful With That Axe, Eugene.”)

So, that’s it. ALF gets his memory back at the end (whoops, spoiler) and the back half of the first season can continue to bring us so much joy.

I’ll leave you with this image from a scene cut from the syndicated edit of some episode I can’t place:

The caption contest for that one is officially open. Make me proud, children.

—
ADDITIONAL: There’s a video which has been making the rounds recently, and for good reason. It’s very well done for what it is. (Thanks to Sarah Holmes and James Bull for sending it my way.)

But I would like to dispel one unflattering rumor. I do not appear in this video with ALF!

I understand the confusion. This woman has served as my stunt double many times. We go way back. But I was not involved in this video. If it were me, I would have tweaked ALF’s nipple or something. If you see ALF with somebody who isn’t tweaking his nipple, you can conclude safely that it isn’t me. Thank you for understanding.