Month: August 2014

For all my complaining about the recycled plots on this show, I really should be happier that they found an original storyline to explore here. But then I remember that the storyline is “ALF murders a dude,” and I’m suddenly not as interested in singing its praises.

I will say that this episode stumbled onto a few truly interesting themes to explore, which is far beyond what I would have expected, but it doesn’t so much “explore” them as it does “mention” them. It’s an example of a story that could have been told in an infinite number of ways, and nearly all of them would have been better than the one we got.

This one opens with Willie introducing his longbox. He teases that it contains something he hopes ALF and Brian can enjoy together. I’m trying to come up with a dirty joke, but failing to think of anything dirtier than what Willie just said.

It’s a tent, which he bought because ALF is going to have to live in it for a few days while Uncle Albert visits. Which seems…I dunno. Really fucking dumb?

I understand wanting to get ALF out of the house, especially if this guy is going to be there day and night, but what’s wrong with the garage? That’s usually where ALF goes, and it makes a lot more sense than this suspicious pup tent that’s going to be sitting in the yard at all times. What if Uncle Albert asks about it? What if he goes to investigate it?

The garage is a natural solution to the regular problem of where to stash ALF, because it’s always there. It doesn’t earn anybody’s special notice, because it’s a fixture of the home, and unless there’s a secondary reason to investigate it, nobody would ever give it a single thought.

Now, however, Willie is going out of his way to make it more likely that somebody will find out that he’s hiding something. Not to mention the fact that the tent is so tiny, and ALF is not exactly famous for knowing how to sit still. At least in the garage he can dick around to his heart’s content. I fail to see how forcing him to remain stock-still and silent in a conspicuous canvas dome is going to end well. No part of Willie’s thought process here could have sprung from anything like a human mind.

Whatever. The family bitches and complains about how they hate Uncle Albert because all he does is bitch and complain, which was somehow written and performed without an ounce of irony. ALF politely reminds them that they live in a shithole and the credits start.

Willie builds the tent and explains that he thought this would be a nice change of pace for ALF, rather than being stuck in the shed again. While it’s nice to see that some well-intentioned explanation is given, it’s still impossible to rectify logically; the shed is infinitely safer than this plan. Murdering ALF with a shovel and burying him in the yard would be safer still. The pup tent solution is just silly.

Anyway, ALF keeps dicking around with Willie’s hard work so he’s told to fuck off. I have to wonder why he’s building the tent with ALF in the yard in broad daylight anyway, especially while he’s having a loud conversation with him.

Crap like this happens way too much in this show. We know Mr. Ochmonek is prone to coming to the back door without warning, so what if he decided to visit during one of the far-too-many times the Tanners are doing vaudeville routines with ALF in the back yard? Hell, what if literally anybody overhears the conversation, even without coming into the yard? They’re constantly reminding themselves and each other that ALF is an alien. Does sound not travel as well in L.A. as it does everywhere I’ve ever lived?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: ALF only makes sense if it takes place in the house from Dogtooth.

Seriously, stop reading this and go watch Dogtooth.

ALF grabs a paddleball thing and starts whipping it around, which I guess is supposed to be funny because a puppet is moving quickly? I have no idea. It goes on just long enough that there’s no way of mistaking it for anything other than shameless padding, and it becomes off-putting when you realize that this hilarious cutesy interlude is just eating up time before ALF gets to kill Willie’s uncle.

There is a little bit of clever comedy when Uncle Albert is described as being an unwanted houseguest and a mooch, which is overt enough this time that I’m sure the irony is intentional. And I like that. But it makes me wonder if a better version of this story wouldn’t flow naturally from calling the guy Uncle Alfred instead.

See, Uncle Alfred could be the human equivalent of ALF, and his visit makes the Tanners — and ALF — see how unappealing that kind of selfish behavior really is. They excuse things, I guess, because ALF is an alien and doesn’t know better, but seeing Uncle Alfred pulling the same shit and never learning would make them reconsider the wisdom of doing that.

It would be a chance to see ALF through a new lens simply by introducing a doppelganger that does not posses the Get Out of Jail Free card that seemed to come along with ALF’s extra-terrestrial origins. I wouldn’t expect anything world-changing to come of it, but it sure would be nice to see ALF stumbling upon some self-awareness.

But, no, a forced and pointless Paul McCartney reference is easier, so fuck that.

ALF then declares Uncle Albert a pervert and offers to beat the shit out of him, just in case you forgot what an excellent show this is for families.

In the next scene, ALF is packing for his stay in the tent, and I like this. He reads off his list of supplies: chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream, chocolate pudding, and acne pads. It’s a cute joke.

Of course, I said ALF is packing, and that’s not, strictly speaking, true. Brian is doing the packing, because ALF is a puppet, and maybe this is the kid’s function on the show. Maybe he was never meant to be a character at all, but rather a pair of arms for whenever they don’t want to pay the midget. Perhaps Brian is meant to be some logistical necessity that we’re nevertheless supposed to pretend we don’t see, like those “invisible” actors in kabuki theater.

Uncle Albert arrives, and Lynn comes into the kitchen. She says to Brian, “Let’s put a smile on for the old fogey,” which Brian manages for all of one second. I’m sorry, but what a family of assholes. Growing up I certainly had relatives I wasn’t crazy about, but I can’t imagine ever thinking — let alone saying — “Here’s this crusty old hag again…”

It’s odd how often the Tanners reveal themselves to be shitty people. In Married…With Children the Bundys were openly terrible, but, again, that was the joke. We weren’t supposed to be on their side…at least not overall. We were invited to celebrate the small victories they achieved along the way, but I don’t believe we were ever intended to be pleased with their behavior.

ALF, should it so choose, could position the Tanners as a sort of anti-Brady. (Coincidentally, the working title for Married…With Children was Not the Cosbys, making it clear that the writers of that show knew what they were doing.) But it doesn’t. At no point are we led to believe that the Tanners are meant to be anything other than a neutrally representative sitcom family, which makes these moments of cuntitude really stand out. It means that the writers don’t realize what they’re doing, and that’s kind of frightening to me.

It bothers me here in a way that it doesn’t bother me in more extreme shows. Take Archer. Or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Two shows that resort to cruelty and nastiness for the sake of laughs, but which, at least arguably, earn that kind of laughter, because that cruel nastiness was woven into the very fabric of the universes they built.

Of course, those shows can’t be directly compared to ALF, if only because their levels of nastiness far exceed anything we’d see here. For instance, those shows have each had their main characters engage in behavior that killed innocent people for the sake of a joke, whereas ALF…

…oh.

Oh. Right.

Uncle Albert hands out gifts to the family. Slippers for Willie, a dress for Kate, a hat for Brian, a purse for Lynn. This puts their minds at ease, because earlier when he asked for Kate’s dress size over the phone, I guess they were more willing to believe that he wanted to prance around their house in her clothing than that he’d buy her a gift.

This is part of the problem with this episode. We’re told over and over again about what a piece of shit Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey is, but what we see is very different. Granted, that gets explained so I’ll speak about it more there, but since we don’t get to see Uncle Albert being even slightly rude, that means we only have the word of the Tanners to tell us that he ever was the monster they made him out to be.

See now why it’s important to make your characters consistent in regards to how much the audience should trust them?

Uncle Albert has nothing but nice things to say. He tells Lynn that she’s blossomed into a beautiful young woman, and commends Brian for his unwavering dedication to a show that doesn’t care if he lives or dies.

There are a few nice things about this scene, actually, and I think it’s due to the fact that Uncle Albert is a kind of rarity on this show: a nice guy. I’m more compelled to enjoy the jokes — even if, strictly speaking, they’re no better than usual — if only out of silent support for keeping the guy around.

One funny moment is when Brian thinks his uncle is going to charge the family for their gifts, and Uncle Albert replies, “He’s got that Tanner wit!” Willie then mumbles, “That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” which is funny on several levels. At least two of which, I’m sure, were not intended.

Even better is when he asks Lynn if she can guess where he got her purse, and she says, “You found it on a bus.”

You know what? Andrea Elson might be improving after all. Either that, or her well-meaning airheadedness might just be put to better use lately. I’m too lazy to check, but I feel as though most of the past few episodes have contained a Lynn highlight, and I’m glad to report that. It’s nice to see something on this show getting better.

The joke compounds (another welcome rarity) as Uncle Albert tells her it’s from Gucci, which causes Willie to ask, surprised, “What happened to the Army Navy store?”

It’s a pretty good scene, one of two pretty good scenes in the episode, so it’s a shame that we gloss over the dinner that he takes them to. We cut instead to Willie and Kate getting into bed, shocked that Uncle Albert tipped the waitress instead of, I dunno, assaulting her with a fajita skillet. So instead of spending that time with the family, learning about who Uncle Albert used to be, we hear ALF burp and complain that he needs a woman.

He says, “Species is no longer a priority,” which is both one of the most sickening things I’ve ever heard on a prime time sitcom and a bald-faced lie since he’s been openly trying to fuck their daughter since he moved in. He also talks about how he flipped out in the yard and killed Willie’s new garden hose with a pocket knife.

HAVE I MENTIONED ETC. ETC.

They remind ALF to be careful tomorrow with Uncle Albert, because there’ll be no-one else at home and I believe I’m gonna rain. You’d think they’d take some kind of precaution to prevent this kindly old man who just bought them a bunch of shit from being left alone with a horny, knife-crazed space monster, but, whatever, I’m sure I’m just worrying over nothing.

There’s a little exchange here about ALF being upset that he’s going to miss his soaps, with Willie being shocked that he watches those, as if there weren’t an entire episode dedicated to the fact that he not only watches them, but wrote for them professionally. Then ALF reveals that he doesn’t know what soaps are, because at this point even he is starting to forget all the worthless, time-killing shit that he’s pulled.

The next morning we get an establishing shot of the house with an ADR of Uncle Albert offering to cook Willie breakfast, because they need to make absolutely sure we know how gentle and nice this guy is so that it’ll be extra funny when ALF murders him in cold blood.

Cutting into the kitchen, Uncle Albert tells Kate to stop washing dishes, he’ll take care of them. I don’t know what dishes they are, since they went out to eat last night and we just heard that they didn’t have breakfast yet, but the important thing is that this instance of somebody demonstrating kindness to his wife pushes Willie over the edge.

“HhhuHHNNcle AAAlhbert,” Willie says. “Wwwh-whaat the fucck is your paarahhblum?”

So, at last, Uncle Albert tells us what happened. He sits them down at the table — you know, like a human being might do when he’s about to share something difficult — and explains that he made an effort to change after his heart attack. Kate, feeling sorry, says that she didn’t know he had a heart attack.

“Who did?” replies Uncle Albert. “Nobody missed me, so nobody checked on me.” He says he was in the hospital for a month without any visitors or get-well cards, and realized he needed to seriously reassess his life.

Wow. What a nice little story. Just a few lines, but it easily fleshes him out to a level beyond almost anybody we’ve ever met in this show. From Liz Lemon choking in her apartment to Homer Simpson sleeping through a house fire to Dr. Venture realizing he’s wearing the clothes of a supervillain to Jesse Pinkman watching Drew Sharp get shot dead, moments of realization like this work gangbusters for characterization. In a flash both the characters and the viewers not only see that something needs to change, but what needs to change, and that it needs to change now.

It’s a very effective and efficient way to bring about major change within the constraints of a weekly TV show. In my other examples, those were main characters, so, in theory at least, the realization could come about over as much time as necessary. Poor Uncle Albert doesn’t have much time at all (so to speak…) so this was a wise move. A simple sketch of a tragic moment in an unhappy life, and that’s all we need. It works well.

If anything, though, it might work too well. This actor is very good, but he’s good at being the nice Uncle Albert, and I don’t really believe in him as an evil old beast. This is why it’s especially problematic that the Tanners are such unreliable dicks themselves. Was Uncle Albert ever really that bad? Or did he just not buy them enough shit so they didn’t pay him any mind?

Was Uncle Albert a Scrooge figure who needed redemption, or just some old man who didn’t openly suck Willie’s dick every hour of the day and was therefore not worth anybody’s time? I’m sure the episode wants me to believe the former, but there’s way too much room to believe the latter.

Anyway, he tells Willie and Kate to go have a good day, and they leave. Gee, how on Earth did I figure out that the “I’ll cook you breakfast” ADR was a clumsy afterthought? The writers forgot that the scene does not involve him cooking any fucking breakfast.

The Tanners leave Uncle Albert, assuring him that if anything should happen, they’ll be sure to give a ring.

Later on, Uncle Albert is in the kitchen, having a cup of tea and a butter pie, when he hears ALF loudly masturbating in the tent. He unzips the flap and dies, because he was dumb enough to become an actual character and there was no way in hell the writers were going to keep him around after that.

ALF jokes that he doesn’t need to share his cookies because this wrinkled old shit is dead now, and the audience laughs its way into a wholesome act break the whole family can enjoy.

The contrived nature of this show really shows itself here. Why the tent? It was necessary, I guess, so that Uncle Albert could hear ALF and see him and die, but, again, why wasn’t that an in-universe concern for Willie in the first place?

I don’t know why ALF couldn’t have been in the shed. He could have been minding his own business when some of Willie’s astronomy shit that he doesn’t mention anymore falls off the walls and Uncle Albert comes to investigate. There was no reason to do this the stupid way. Was there? What the fuck am I missing?

I’ve talked before about how I like that the one thing this show gets right is how others react to ALF when they first see him. Kate Sr. was horrified. Mrs. Ochmonek found her worldview shattered. Dr. Dykstra was overcome with several kinds of curiosity. Gravel Gus dove out of a moving train. And now Uncle Albert is so eas’ly called away.

All good stuff, to be sure, but for me to say that, I also need to forget about the dog catcher and the hillbillies and everyone else who sees ALF and just assumes he’s some mundane thing they’ve never seen before and aren’t really keen on learning about. It’s always one of these extremes. It’s either instant, inconsolable horror because he’s clearly an alien, or the nonsensical assumption that he’s not worth acknowledging in any way.

God dammit, ALF.

ALF calls Willie at work, and some fat guy we’ve never seen before answers the phone. Why are we always seeing new coworkers of Willie’s? I think this is only the third time we’ve seen him at work (“Strangers in the Night” and “Border Song” were the other two), but each time we see a coworker or boss or secretary it’s somebody new.

I’m actually really surprised they bothered to build a set for this location. And that they didn’t tear it down to build a different set before season two, once they realized that they’d barely use this shit.

It’s a setting that also now serves as a reminder of ALF‘s unwillingness to develop character, consistency, or a basic universe for these idiots to inhabit. Compare this to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Los Pollos Hermanos, Wernham-Hogg, Strickland Propane, or the Lanford Lunchbox. These were all workplace settings (in some cases major, in others minor) that enriched our understanding of the characters. They’re not locations to shuttle somebody off to so that they can get a phone call and come running home again…they’re places where relationships develop and we learn about the main characters through how they interact with the ancillary ones.

Here, it’s just “work.” We have no reason to believe that Willie knows any of these people any better than we do. Hell, he doesn’t even recognize when his boss has been replaced by a lesser actor.

They already have the set. They’re already willing to pay people to sit around on it while Willie makes faces on the phone. It takes a deliberate choice to not let characters develop. It’s…bizarre, to say the least.

ALF impersonates Sammy Davis, Jr. and asks for a bunch of groceries oh and Uncle Albert is dead. It’s a moment that seems just slightly tone deaf, until ALF mentions that he’s also started embalming the corpse.

That’s not tone deaf. That’s psychotic. How is it a punchline that the body of the kindly old man we just watched die is being desecrated by this chucklehead? It’s serial killer territory.

We can’t even excuse this one on the grounds that ALF is unfamiliar with Earth customs. If you know what embalming is, you know that you’re not the one who’s supposed to do it.

Willie and Kate get home and see that ALF has decorated the house. There is actually one funny joke here (“It’s just like a birthday party, only someone else has to blow out the candles.”) but really it’s just kind of…disgusting.

ALF says he’s marinating Uncle Albert in some peaches. I’m not even kidding. Is he going to eat him? I don’t have any clue, but this horny sasquatch stripping, embalming, and marinating a dead old man is every bit as disturbing to me as anything we’ve seen done with the corpses in Breaking Bad. Only in that case, the writers knew it was disturbing.

Stop reading this and go watch Dogtooth and Breaking Bad.

ALF explains that on Melmac, death was not a sad occasion, but Willie tells him that on Earth, it is. And that, right there, could be the crux of a great episode. What a perfect opportunity for serious culture clash. You know the phrase “dead serious”? It’s only a phrase at all because of how seriously death is taken (and how deeply it is felt, and how final it is understood to be). We Earthlings (and Americans particularly) have a lot of emotional and psychological bandwidth consumed by the prospect of death.

Whether it’s our own, somebody else’s, the death of a pet in your childhood that you still can’t — and don’t want to — forget, the regrets you have when you find out somebody you’ve never made peace with has passed on, the sadness you feel when you realize that somebody you love might not be alive anymore this same time next year…what a perfect opportunity for awkward, thought-provoking comedy.

Of course it happens with five minutes left in the episode, right after we’ve just found out that ALF’s stirred an elderly man into the world’s most horrifying vat of fruit salad.

The next day Willie and Kate are getting ready for Uncle Albert’s funeral. Lynn comes in dressed as her favorite Fruit of the Loom mascot, eating her second favorite. Willie goes on about how sad it is that Uncle Albert had to be murdered by the illegally-harbored naked alien that sleeps in their laundry basket just as he started to buy them things. It really is a damn shame.

The surviving Tanner adults get up to leave, and Kate says, “If you need us, we’ll be at the Waxman Funeral Parlor.” Lynn automatically replies, “Okay. Have fun.”

And that was good. Elson is definitely getting better. She doesn’t get much more material to work with now than she used to, but she’s learning to make the best of these short little nothing lines. She might only have something funny to do once every three episodes or so, but that’s way better than the one-in-twenty-five ratio of the first season.

ALF is overcome with grief in an emotional turnaround less convincing than the plastic bead stapled to his face in “ALF’s Special Christmas,” and he hides in a box with a bag over his head. Lynn comes outside to talk to him, and I wish this wasn’t the last scene in the episode, because “Lynn has a heart-to-heart with ALF” is quickly becoming one of my favorite things to see in the show.

Interesting that Lynn actually becomes a welcome presence when the writers stop treating her like a piece of meat. I wonder why that is!

This is the Lynn I like: the sweet older sister. She knows better than him. She’s a little annoyed by what he does. But she’ll never turn her back on him. And it’s really adorable.

The fact that ALF feels bad about Uncle Albert’s death, though, is severely undercut by the fact that he soaked the corpse in peach juice, embalmed it, and violated the integrity of its butthole with one hairy fist. Actually, speaking of this…how in shit’s name did Willie and Kate explain to the authorities that the dead body was covered in syrup and already embalmed? Honor system law enforcement strikes again.

Lynn comforts him by saying that Uncle Albert took the time to make amends, and even if that happened right before he died, it’s still more than a lot of people get the chance to do. He got his chance to make things right, and he did. And that’s a good thing.

I’m actually starting to love you, Lynn. I’m glad you take after your mother.

The short bit before the credits sees Willie coming home and thanking ALF for killing a guy in their yard, I guess, because Uncle Albert finally got his life in order and I suppose, in a perfect world, that that’s when everybody would get killed by aliens.

ALF sees a snail and starts screaming and the episode ends.

Next week we begin the slow march through the final 10 episodes of season two. Unless, y’know, I get my life together in the meantime. Then I’m fucked.

MELMAC FACTS: On Melmac death was something to celebrate. It was predictable, with everyone dying at the same age: 650. This left no surprises, and you could plan for your death. The week before you go, you give away your personal belongings. The year before you go, your credit cards are cancelled. Of course, I’m assuming that there could still be “accidents” that would end your life sooner…but if I’m wrong, and 650 was a hard, static figure no matter what, that might go a long way toward explaining ALF’s innate recklessness. What the fuck am I doing this episode was shit.

“Can I Get a Witness?” comes dangerously close to being a good episode. This, unfortunately, makes it more frustrating than most.

The fact that it comes so close to being a good episode is frustrating on its own, but that’s compounded by the fact that it comes so close with such a stupid premise. Stupid premises leading to greatness bring to mind “La Cuckaracha” and “Oh, Pretty Woman,” and part of the reason I liked them so much was that their central concepts had me rolling my eyes. They were dumb ideas, and on a show that bungles nearly all of its good ideas, I’m legitimately (and pleasantly) surprised when they hit a grand slam off such a wimpy pitch.

Normally, this show is just lousy. Sometimes it’s incredibly bad (“Wild Thing,” “ALF’s Special Christmas”) and other times it’s disarmingly good (“Going Out of My Head Over You,” “Working My Way Back to You”), but, mainly, when the show just chugs along, it’s aimless, meandering junk. No better, and no worse.

The fact that “Can I Get a Witness?” spotlights both the best and the worst aspects of ALF is particularly frustrating, because it should have been better or worse. It’s neither the surprise highlight nor the hilarious misfire. It manages to cancel out both extremes, and end up in a disappointingly forgettable middleground.

Then again, I guess I should be grateful for the opportunity to forget an episode that opens by trying to convince me that Willie enjoys football.

Look at that first screen shot. That’s his excitement? You’d have an easier time convincing me that he sucks off hobos for crack. I know I’ve complained about Willie’s revolving hobbies, but I honestly think this is a new low and worthy of special mention. The one common factor — the only common factor — in all the previous shit we’re supposed to believe he cares deeply about is that they were, in some way, nerdy. And that works, because while we still know almost nothing about the guy, the one thing we’d all be willing to believe is that he’s a fucking nerd.

By suddenly turning him into a sports obsessive the show only muddies his character further, and drives a wedge between us and the one vaguely reliable character trait Willie’s ever had.

Anyway, ALF belches a bunch of times and that’s the intro.

Inspired by the football game, Willie, Brian and ALF all go outside to toss around the ol’ pigskin. Then, inspired by the fact that nobody on the production staff wanted to prepare the back yard set, the game is immediately over and they come back inside.

Well, Willie and Brian do. ALF throws the football through the open kitchen window because he’s a dick, and he smashes all the shit on the table.

The screengrab above is actually a really good illustration of the difference between Max Wright and Anne Schedeen. Schedeen has nothing to do with this moment — it’s a football hitting Willie and smashing some plates — but she’s in frame, so she reacts. She treats it the way she would if this was really happening, bringing her hands to her face in both anger and surprise.

Max Wright reacts, too, but only as much as he has to, flinching because he just got hit in the chest with a football. It’s more reflex than acting, and had the roles been reversed and Willie was the one in the background, I’m positive Max Wright would just stare doe-eyed into the middle distance until it was his turn to talk.

Anne Schedeen gets paid to be Kate. Max Wright gets paid to read the lines written next to the word “Willie.”

At dinner ALF bitches about there not being enough food. It’s a hilarious subversion of expectations, because this is the 80th fucking time they’ve made this joke and by now you’d expect they’d have a new way to tell it.

Personally, I’d bitch about there not being enough people. Where are Willie and Brian?

Throughout the first half of this episode, ALF wears the pink shirt you see there. It’s…weird. I’m not being judgmental, but why pink? He’s nearly always naked, and when he’s not he’s either in an outfit for plot / joke purposes, or in a Hawaiian shirt. That’s his style, so a pink buttondown — worn without comment — stands out.

I just find it odd. Honestly I wonder if one of the ALF puppets really does have some kind of visible damage to its chest or side, because every so often we get a shirt out of nowhere, sometimes just for a short scene, with no purpose.

Funnily enough I wouldn’t even take note of this if they’d slipped the busted puppet into an outfit that made sense. Say, a football jersey. It’s not like pink buttondowns are ALF’s signature or anything. Dress the guy in something to do with the plot!

Whatever. He mentions he worked up an appetite playing football alone for so long, and Kate tells him he better not have trampled her flowerbeds.

He says he didn’t, and that she shouldn’t worry, but she tells him to show her his feet. He refuses, and then she demands, sternly, “Feet.” Cowed, ALF shows her his feet and we see trampled flowers stuck to his soles.

I like this part a lot. ALF is being a kid who knows he did something wrong, and Kate is being a mother who sees through the lie and isn’t in the mood to play games.

It’s a good dynamic, and due to the fact that ALF is a 200 year old alien (or whatever) and Kate’s just a frustrated housewife, playing this kind of relationship straight gives it an air of comedy by default. It doesn’t rely on writing…it’s more down to performance. Once again, that’s why I’m so glad we have Anne Schedeen.

Mrs. Ochmonek comes over and wants to know who kicked a fucking football through her window. Willie mechanically pulls out a wad of cash, but I’m not sure this is meant to be the kind of joke I’d like it to be. Whether or not it’s intentional, though, it’s nice to see that the show is still committed to having ALF drive this family into the inescapable hell of financial ruin.

Since they can’t say it was ALF, they blame it on Brian, and Mrs. Ochmonek says that this behavior should be nipped in the bud, otherwise he’ll grow up to be a bad kid, and replace some other crappy child actor while speaking in a phony Brooklyn accent.

There’s a noble attempt at a good joke here, when Mrs. Ochmonek talks about Al Capone having been a good buy until he broke her grandfather’s window. But actually he broke it by pushing her grandfather through the window, which seems like a punchline that isn’t as funny as its own setup, so I don’t know. This sucks.

It’s the kind of thing that I’d really like to compliment — Al Capone breaking Grandpa O’s window and then turning to a life of crime is a funny idea — but the writers didn’t care enough to make it land.

She leaves with her shitty punchline lingering in the air behind her like an old lady fart, and the Tanners (the ones who are still in this show, anyway), call ALF into the living room.

I do actually like what happens here: he hands Kate the flowers he ruined, using a soda can as a vase. Then he apologizes.

I like this for three reasons.

For starters, ALF is being a kid again. This is absolutely the kind of thing an eight-year-old boy might do, and it’s a shame this show never had one.

Secondly, this means ALF was doing something off camera. We didn’t see it, but it’s still a kind of background business, suggesting — at last — that ALF exists when he’s not cracking jokes center stage. He wasn’t a puppet in a box, stowed away until the next scene. He did things.

Finally, Kate is at least partially grateful for the effort, but she’s also still mad. This is a little boy atoning for one thing, but she knows she still needs to punish him for another. Schedeen’s “They smell like feet,” is a lovely, forced dismissal of the gesture, and it walks the line wonderfully.

Willie then attempts to play it cool, and asks ALF where their football is. ALF replies, matter-of-factly, “Behind your back.”

And it actually starts to feel like this might be a good episode. A few funny and otherwise enjoyable things in a row, and I’m dumb enough to get my hopes up.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, because there’s some more decent stuff here and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to cheat myself out of enjoying it.

The family confronts ALF and tells him that they know he broke the Ochmoneks’ window, but he says he didn’t. He does have a theory, though: at one point he kicked the football up…and it never came down.

After a pause, Lynn asks what his theory is, and he replies that it’s obviously “gravity failure.”

And this is funny. Willie argues that the football did come back down, land in the Ochmoneks’ yard, and then broke the window…somehow. ALF and I both find this hard to believe, but it leads to another good line when ALF says that there’s no way that happened, because “if there’s one sound I recognize, it’s glass breaking.”

That joke, unsurprisingly, gets stepped on, leading to ALF listing off a bunch of other shit he always breaks, which, again, isn’t as funny as its own setup. It also reminds me of the fact that he did smash up their dinnerware, and they saw that happen with their own eyes, so even if he is innocent of breaking the window, doesn’t he still need to be punished?

Either way, this episode is shockingly not terrible so far…or, at least, this scene is…and it leads to what’s easily one of my favorite ALF gags ever:

Lynn steps in to stop Willie from jumping to conclusions by saying, “Dad, we can’t really be sure that ALF broke the window.”

ALF, grateful, says, “Thank you, Lynn.”

Then he turns to Willie and Kate and says, “Maybe Lynn broke it.”

And FUCK YOU that was funny. This entire scene really does feel like it was plucked from a much better show, and it’s the highlight of the episode. If I only showed you these few minutes, I could probably trick you into thinking this was one of the better ones.

Brian comes in and they ask if he broke the window, but the fact that he was written out of the show last week makes for a pretty air-tight alibi.

This means ALF is still the prime suspect, and I’m reminded of “Looking For Lucky.” Way back in that episode, ALF was also accused of a crime he did not commit. In fact, the evidence there was even more damning, as I don’t think he’s ever fantasized openly about smashing the Ochmoneks’ window, but he sure as shit never shut up about wanting to eat the cat.

The difference is that this episode humorously walks us through the cases for and against ALF, which we’ll come to shortly. “Looking For Lucky” just had ALF in the pound and the Tanners running around LA asking if anyone’s seen their wacky space alien.

It also helps that this episode has jokes, and, frankly, even if it is a bit crap, it was worth watching if only for those unexpected moments of greatness. Such as when ALF demands a trial, and Willie says he’ll be the judge. ALF doesn’t want that, because Willie already thinks he’s guilty, so Lynn asks, “Would you trust mom to be the judge?”

…and that perfect moment of loaded silence hangs there, gorgeously. When the awkwardness peaks, ALF declares, “Without hesitation!”

It’s funny because it’s not over-explained. It simply plays out, as comedy is meant to, and it works precisely because Kate has background business: she’s dusting the table, turns when she hears Lynn rope her into this, and then freezes as she waits for a reply.

It has the visual cadence of a joke, meaning it’s the sort of thing you’d find funny even if the rest of the dialogue was in a language you didn’t understand. All-too-rare moments like this demonstrate that someone on the writing staff knows how comedy works, and, again, knows that if they’re going to rely on anybody to pull off their best material, it’s got to be Schedeen.

ALF gets until the next morning to prepare his case, and after the commercial break we’re there. And look at the puppet here. Wasn’t the one in the earlier screengrabs of a more orange-y hue? I think that’s the damaged one. I remember another episode this season (though I forget which, thank Christ) in which ALF was suddenly more orange and clothed, which is what made me wonder in the first place if there was a damaged puppet. Now I’m positive of it.

Why they didn’t keep using it (since ALF is wearing a different outfit here, which would have also concealed the damage) is beyond me. Why they don’t repair it is probably due to budget issues, so I won’t criticize them for that much. It’s probably smart to keep the busted puppet around for stunts anyway.

Whatever. Brian’s the bailiff, and he announces Kate, who comes in from the kitchen and bangs a gavel. Well, actually she bangs a lobster mallet, which I like.

It’s a good detail; most sitcom viewers wouldn’t have batted an eye at a character apparently owning a gavel, but the fact that they gave her a lobster mallet instead shows at least some appreciation for subtle jokes borne of thinking through the logistics.

Then ALF comes in and apologizes for being late because he was taking a huge shit.

I’m done complimenting this show.

…alright, maybe not quite yet. There’s some good dialogue here where Willie calls Kate “Honey,” but ALF says that isn’t fair, since Willie’s supposed to be the prosecutor, and as judge she should be addressed as “Your Honor.” He offers “Your Honey” as a compromise.

Then, during his opening statement, ALF talks about how innocents have been unjustly accused from the down of time, using Adam and Eve as his example. Brian points out that Adam and Eve were, in fact, guilty.

ALF replies, “Says who?”

Brian responds, “Says God.”

ALF’s face here is hilarious, and it’s one of the better silent punchlines I’ve seen on this show, really selling ALF’s internal panic. He then says, defeated, “Moving on…” and it’s a fantastic moment.

Man, that’s what’s frustrating about ALF. I can be so good when it gives half a shit.

Willie then speaks about ALF’s history of destructive behavior, which consists almost exclusively of references to events we’ve actually witnessed. While whipping up antics that we haven’t seen before could be a nice avenue for better writers to explore (like Marge referencing Homer’s previous “lifelong dreams”), this litany of dickholishness past is a decent amount of fun on its own.

These include:

• Crashing his UFO into their garage. (“A.L.F.”)
• Setting fire to their camper (“On the Road Again”)
• Chopping up their Christmas tree (“Oh, Tannerbaum”)
• Wrecking their toaster (…which I can’t remember.*)
• Ripping their painting (“Working My Way Back to You”)
• Digging up the back yard (“Somewhere Over the Rerun”)
• Stealing a car (“Baby, You Can Drive My Car”)
• Burying Willie’s piano (no episode, but damn that’s funny)
• Getting Willie arrested (“Pennsylvania 6-5000”)
• Using their credit cards excessively and illegally (passim, but the foundation** of the plot in “Keepin’ the Faith”)
• Short circuiting the television (“Weird Science”)
• Terrorizing the cat (passim, but the biggest turd in the litterbox of “Looking For Lucky”)
• Blowing up the kitchen (“Working My Way Back to You”)

Wow. For a show that’s pretty barren of continuity, that’s actually a fun list, and I like the idea that Willie keeps a sort of running tally of ALF’s shenanigans in mind for occasions such as this.

I also find it more than a little bit funny that none of the shit he pulled in “Wild Thing,” when we were led to believe he was at his uncontrollable worst, made the list. His worst offenses in that episode don’t even outrank toastercide.

ALF calls Lynn to the stand. It’s interesting, actually, that something like a broken window, so clearly minor in comparison to almost everything Willie listed a moment ago, turns into this big production, while those larger deeds went entirely unpunished.

Anyway, ALF asks her how long he’s known her, and she replies, “About a year.” So, there. Just something to keep in mind, I guess, as it lets us know that ALF is more or less progressing along with our concept of real time. There’d be no problem if it leapt ahead or staggered behind, but now we know.

Then he asks her if she’d say he has any “saintly qualities.” Lynn replies that he resembles a St. Bernard, which makes Willie do this:

…and my penis falls off forever.

ALF calls Brian to the stand, but the writers realize almost as quickly as I do that that’s not going to go anywhere, so they turn it into a quick joke about ALF trying to bribe him and we’re free of the kid in record time.

Finally, ALF calls himself to the stand, which is a much better use of Mr. Fusco’s time than interacting with other actors. Now he gets to provide both halves of a conversation, which must have warranted a pretty big checkmark on the ALF bucket list.

ALF’s cross-examination of himself isn’t particularly funny, but it also manages to not be terrible, so…that’s good, I guess. It does lead to a decent payoff, though, when an irritated Kate puts a stop to this garbage and demands summaries. Willie’s summary is “ALF did it,” and ALF’s is “No, I didn’t.”

It’s a fun, simple capper, and worth a lot of the trash we had to wade through to get to it.

Kate finds ALF guilty, which is another very welcome showcase for Schedeen’s talents, and that’s what makes this work.

She leans forward. Into ALF’s space. She looks down at him. She’s being a mother first, and a judge second. Up until now she’s humored this kid and played along with his little dressup game, but now she’s in charge again, and ALF’s in trouble. No more TV.

I don’t know if Max Wright had kids by this point, but if I had to guess, I’d say Anne Schedeen did. She knows how to be a mother — at least in the face of misbehavior — and it’s a joy to watch. The body language is spot on. I believe she’s ALF’s mother…though she’s obviously not, even within the reality of the show.

When Schedeen read her scripts, she must have asked, “Okay, what’s happening here? What am I trying to accomplish? How do these characters relate to each other?” Everyone else in the cast only seems to have asked, “What are my lines?”

I’m not trying to pick on Gregory, Elson and Wright. I’m sure they are all lovely people in real life, and I know at least one of them went on to find a fruitful career as a crack fiend. But I do think it’s worth drawing attention to Schedeen’s abilities, because, more often than not, she’s the one who elevates this show to levels of actual competence.

As last week, the writers have a great opportunity here. In “The Boy Next Door” it was the chance to explore with us what ALF does at night, when all the world’s asleep. This time it’s a chance to show us how ALF fills his leisure time without television.

As in the previous episode, though, they botch it, and we just get a few jabs at The Golden Girls, which ALF makes fun of because they use the same jokes every week.

…not really the glass house ALF should be throwing stones in, is it?

In fact, while it’s true that The Golden Girls established a comfortable routine for itself, it’s actually a pretty good example of how to make the same template funny every week. It wasn’t quite Cheers in that regard, but it was easily a thousand times the show ALF ever was.

Then he makes some dolls on a clothes line dance for a while and wasn’t this episode good at one point? Ahh, probably not.

Lynn comes in and tells him that she believes he didn’t do it…but, at the same time, he’s the one who requested a trial, so he can’t really complain if this is how it turned out. It’s…kind of sweet.

I actually really like this kind of relationship between them. She feels bad for ALF…but at the same time understands the restrictions of his situation. We saw the same thing in “For Your Eyes Only,” and, man, this is so much better than having ALF sing songs about what he wants to stick in her butt.

She has this sort of gently naive willingness to engage ALF on his own terms, and it’s cute.

ALF then asks if she’d let him represent her in court, in spite of how his own trial went, and she teasingly reprises the “without hesitation” gag. It’s funny.

Elson’s not much better than most of the actors on this show, but when she gets to be human it comes off really nice. She may not have Schedeen’s acting chops, but when she’s given the right material, she has a lot of warmth.

Mr. Ochmonek comes over the next day, and this time I swear that I actually do own that shirt. I’m tempted to start posting comparison pics.

He apologizes to Willie, because he’s the one who broke the window. Huh. I honestly thought the culprit would be Jake.

It turns out he found the football in his yard and played around with it, ultimately breaking the window. He didn’t want to tell his wife that that he was the one who smashed it, because he still wants her to see him as a football hero. After all, he played for seven years in high school.

Like the “good behavior” joke from last week, this is well-delivered and stands — mercifully — unexplained. Jack LaMotta knows how to sell material like this, and ALF is pretty damned fortunate to have him.

We also learn that he and his wife, who was a cheerleader, were high school sweethearts. And that is a lovely, human detail. I am infinitely more convinced that the Ochmoneks are in love than I am that the Tanners have spent anything more than screen time together.

He then tells Willie that he wanted to make things right with the Tanners, since Mrs. O was hitting them up for the repair money. He says, “The least I could do is go halfsies.”

He’s making a joke, but joking like that is what humans do. It’s a funny line, and a nice reinforcement of the idea that actual people still exist in this show, despite the best efforts of the writing staff to prevent that from happening.

God dammit. Can’t Mr. Ochmonek and Kate just elope and have their own show?

Anyway, the episode ends and the Tanners apologize to ALF, even though he did break their dinnerware and is still guilty of all the other shit Willie mentioned a few minutes ago. Then he immediately smashes up a bunch of crap and boy is this show a hoot.

The short scene before the credits finds Willie walking in on ALF watching three television sets and making three TV dinners. Willie walks over to the kitchen door and touches it near the top for some reason, then stands there until the episode ends.

Don’t ask. I have no fucking clue.

MELMAC FACTS: Melmacians applaud by belching.

—–
* I know he poured gunk or something into it at some point, and then Willie had to fix it, but it was so minor I don’t even think it made it into my review of whatever episode it was. Anyone out there remember? I can always pretend it’s “Come Fly With Me,” which not only involved toaster destruction but also the fiery demolition of a swanky hotel…which you’d think might be a more grievous offense.

** GET IT??