Category: alf

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??

Who is Brian Tanner?

I asked a similar question about Willie a few weeks back, and you can probably guess why: that was an episode that, at long last, made a sincere effort to answer it.

This time I’m asking it about Brian. Not because the episode’s going to answer it, but because as of this episode, Brian Tanner is dead.

This stretch of three episodes has had me worried for a while. “Hail to the Chief” was terrible, but not as bad as I had feared. I think the reason is I don’t hate it so much is that it managed to be extremely bland and forgettable. The “Kate dreams of ALF being president” thing was no less stupid than I expected, but the episode as a whole is pretty easy to overlook, which is the nicest thing I can say about it. (In all honesty, though, I’m still glad to say it.)

Then we had “ALF’s Special Christmas.” Which I’d rather not talk about ever again.

Now it’s “The Boy Next Door,” which actually has a lot more going for it than I expected it to have. It’s still, however, problematic, and kind of sad, for the reason I expected: Brian is meeting his replacement.

I’ll come back to that thought, but first we see something kind of nice: a good cold open, with the Tanners having family game night. It’s a great way to get all of these characters together and interacting, which I’m not sure has ever happened before. Even on their road trips, it’s usually one or two Tanners doing something, and everyone else sitting quietly in the background. This, I’m pretty sure, is the first time they’ve resembled anything like a family.

They’re playing charades, and ALF doesn’t understand how it works. While this leads to a funny moment, I was afraid it was also a continuity error. It turns out my memory deceived me, though; while Willie suggested a game of charades in “On the Road Again,” they didn’t actually play it, so this can still qualify as ALF’s first exposure to the game.

The funny moment is that Kate is giving clues and Brian answers, correctly, that the film’s title is The Birds.* ALF, upset, says it’s not fair that Brian got it right, because Kate was giving him signals to help him guess.

It’s a fun moment of naivete, which Willie ruins by saying, “HhhhhALFf, thaat’s hhow…y’ouu plaheyy charaades.”

Whatever. Then it’s ALF’s turn and he indicates that it’s a movie title and then points at himself. Nobody guesses correctly so he reveals that it’s The Man Who Would be King, which is less a punchline than it is a thing ALF says right before the credits.

The episode wastes no time in introducing New Brian.** It’s Jake, Mr. Ochmonek’s nephew, who comes from New York yet still learned his accent from Saturday morning cartoons. The Ochmoneks are letting him stay with them for a while, which once again proves that they’re way nicer than the asshole Tanners.

Okay, granted, the Tanners are letting ALF stay, but I’m pretty sure that’s just because they know if he moves out, they won’t get to be on TV anymore. It’s not a selfless act of hospitality at all.

Jake is going to be staying with the Ochmoneks while his father is away, which will be five years. “Unless he gets time off for good behavior,” clarifies Mr. O, which is both a funny line and a fun way of conveying knowledge to the audience without hitting them over the head with it. That’s a combination so rare on this show that I need to point it out whenever it happens.

Kate and Mrs. Ochmonek go into the kitchen to make some iced tea for everyone, and Mrs. O reveals how happy she is to be a mother. That’s…really cool, actually. I’ve liked Mr. Ochmonek for a while now, but this is the first time Mrs. Ochmonek gets to be a character as well, instead of some vague notion of a busybody. So, yeah, the episode that finally gives up on Brian is actually working to flesh out Mrs. Ochmonek. Take that, Benji Gregory.

In fact, at one point in the kitchen, Mrs. Ochmonek asks Kate what she thinks of Jake. Jake’s said exactly two words by that point, so Kate says he seems quiet. Mrs. Ochmonek replies, “Well, Brian doesn’t say much, but you don’t see me making a stink.”

The equivalency there is important, I think. “The Boy Next Door” knows what it’s doing. It knows that Brian is being rendered redundant, and it’s already come to terms with that. Brian was stillborn in his usefulness to this show, and now the writers are finally admitting it to themselves.

ALF never succeeded in finding anything to do with Brian. In fact, I remember only two attempts: his birthday (which was overshadowed completely by the possibility of ALF’s departure) and the fucking asparagus concert. But, here, with two and a half seasons ahead of it — which is more than the show has behind it — ALF is giving up on him, and serving up his replacement in a special introductory episode.

Jake, admittedly, circumvents a lot of the problems the writers had with Brian. For starters, he lives next door, which means they don’t need to dredge up some pointless thing for him to say every week. If he’s not part of any given story, he simply doesn’t show up.

He also comes equipped with a character trait, which is seven character traits more than Brian ever had. We’ll see this soon enough, but Jake is a troubled youth. Boom. Plotlines aplenty. Cliched plotlines, yes, but it at least means we won’t see Jake dancing and singing in a vegetable costume.

Thirdly, he’s not related to Lynn, which means he can talk about how much he wants to fuck her. That might be why Brian was such a difficult character for the writers; they don’t know what to do with a male unless it’s have him talk a lot about porking the teenage girl.

Mrs. Ochmonek explains to Kate that she’s always wanted children, but, ultimately, they decided not to have kids so that Mr. Ochmonek could get his master’s in art history.

That’s treated as a joke, and rightly so; it’s a good one. It subverts (or is subverted by) everything we’d expect of the uncouth Mr. O. And that’s why it can be funny…we actually do expect things of him. This M.A. in Art History detail can successfully go against his character because he has character to go against.

Also, unlike the mean-spirited bitching the Tanners did about him in “Come Fly With Me,” here it’s a joke for the audience to enjoy. Nobody’s making fun of him…it’s just a detail being revealed that registers as humorous to those of us watching at home. There’s a big difference between the comedy of learning that Mr. O appreciates the fine arts and the comedy of Mr. O being a hideous cripple.

Then there’s a part where Kate finds ALF’s hair in a jug of milk, which I’m not sure why she reached for in the first place since I don’t believe any recipe for iced tea calls for that.

Kate makes a friendly offer to Mrs. Ochmonek that if she has any questions, she knows where to find her. Mrs. O immediately pulls out a piece of paper and asks if Jake’s old enough to date, if he should get an allowance, what a proper bedtime would be, and this is good. Yeah, it’s silly, but it’s silliness that reflects a very human impulse. Mrs. Ochmonek doesn’t just want to be a mother…she wants to be a good mother.

Her eagerness is funny, but it’s also sweet, and it seems like a pretty great inroad for exploring her as a character. I wonder if the rest of the season follows through on this. I doubt it, but what a way to redeem the character.

Jake is a bad boy, which we learn when he puts his feet up on the coffee table. He’s 15, and Lynn talks to him for a while about the fact that they’ll be attending the same school while Brian adjusts to the role he’ll play in every subsequent episode: set dressing.

In last week’s review, ace commenter FelixSH said (among other excellent things), “Brian is not a character but a cipher.” He’s right. Maybe a bit too generous by calling him a cipher, even. He’s just a thing that’s on the stage. I could tell you exactly as much about the character of the sofa as I could tell you about him.

Their inability to find a role for this kid baffles me. Brian’s an eight-year-old boy who lives with a fuckin’ alien. What do you need, a road map?

Brian is growing up, so maybe ALF could help him learn lessons along the way. Or maybe Brian, in a role reversal, could actually help ALF learn lessons. Or they could go on adventures together…even if it’s just the two of them playing in the yard. Or maybe the show could acknowledge that nobody in this family pays attention to anyone else, so ALF and Brian bond over being misfits. Jesus Christ, there’s a thousand things you can do with these two, and that’s before we get into any more general “growing up” plots for Brian alone.

But they’d rather write for a teenager, so they can make more creepy sex jokes. Hooray.

Mr. Ochmonek and Willie go into the bedroom to speak in private, and a couple of funny things happen here. For starters, we see ALF climbing in the window. He looks down and says, “Hold still, Lucky!” Which is funny. But then he follows Willie’s lead in the cold open and steps on the joke by saying, “I’ll be off your back in a minute!” Yes, ALF, we got it.

The other funny thing is that when Willie sees ALF climbing through the window, he quickly slams the door on Mr. Ochmonek, who was following right behind. It’s a very, very simple bit of physical comedy, but it works precisely because it’s not overthought or overplayed.

Willie tells ALF to fuck the fuck off, so ALF hops off of Lucky’s back and drops out of frame. You know, it’s been a while since we’ve seen that cat, but I honestly don’t remember it being five feet tall.

Mr. Ochmonek tells Willie he’s nervous about raising Jake. “He talks back. He disobeys. And I think he stole a bag of peat moss from our living room.” Which is funny…so Willie steps on that joke by asking why he’d have a bag of peat moss in the living room YES WILLIE WE KNOW THAT IS SOMEWHAT OUT OF THE ORDINARY THANK YOU

Willie offers to help with Jake, maybe give him a good talk and straighten him out, and Mr. Ochmonek accepts the offer.

Hey, do you remember how Willie’s a social worker? If so, you have a better memory than ALF, which must have forgotten completely because I can’t imagine a more natural place to mention that detail.

His professional experience doing exactly what he says he’s going to do goes unmentioned. I wonder if they’re ever going to mention it again, or if “Willie abducts a Mexican kid” was really the only plotline they could think to spin out of it.

Then we’re treated to some really odd, almost aggressive anti-flirtation between Jake and Lynn, culminating with him asking her to jump out of a cake for him.

She refuses, but the look on her face makes her seem bizarrely flattered, so thank you, ALF, for making it all too easy to believe that she’d enjoy getting plowed by an obnoxious 15-year-old that she just met.

Speaking of cake, Willie invites Jake over for some after dinner, and when we see it, damn is it some shitty looking cake.

I’m not surprised Jake doesn’t show up for this. I wouldn’t either. It looks like one of those filthy chunks of ice you find stuck to the underside of your car.

ALF wants it though, so he pounds the table and chants, “Cake, cake, cake.” I’m not really annoyed by this, because it’s pretty much the kind of childlike behavior I wish he demonstrated more. Later, during the conversation about Jake, he “sneakily” pulls the tablecloth so that the cake moves closer to him. Which is cute.

…but why, exactly, is he here at all? They’re waiting for Jake. Shouldn’t he be in hiding? I guess he could shuffle off to another room when Jake shows up, but then why invite him to the table at all if he’s not going to be given the cake and isn’t allowed to meet the company?

Whatever. The punchline is that Jake isn’t coming, so Kate gives ALF the cake and ALF drools or something. The episode already gave up on Brian, and from this point on it’s given up on itself.

That night Jake sneaks into Willie’s shed and steals his telescope. I don’t know why that’s what he decides to take, but he makes a bee-line for it, so I assume he already has a buyer. God knows this kid’s not going to turn out to be an astronomy buff.

Jake then has to hide, because ALF comes into the shed. And this — this — is a golden opportunity.

No joke. Usually when night falls, we cut to the next morning. This is done for reasons of keeping the plots — such as they are — scooting along, but it means we never get much of a sense of what ALF does all night. This is a perfect chance to make us laugh, because it’s something we’ve been passively expecting for a year and a half.

What sort of silliness does ALF get up to when the humans are asleep? I can’t believe we’re finally going to find out!

All we find out, though, is that the writers don’t know the answer to that question either.

ALF sings “Billie Jean.” He dances for a while. Then he calls a guy in Scotland and tells Star Trek jokes to him. The Scottish guy responds by playing “Papa Don’t Preach” on the bagpipes.

What the actual fuck is going on here.

Did they actually, finally, naturally get the chance to flesh out some previously-unexplored aspect of their main cocksucking character, and choose to pave over it with nonsense filler?

Jesus God, this show. It’s like it doesn’t even want to exist.

Jake sees ALF and drops the telescope. I’d list all of the characters who’ve seen ALF, but at this point I think it would be quicker to list the people on this show who have not seen ALF. That whole secrecy aspect of the show sure went out the window fast.

ALF makes Jake repair the telescope. I have no clue how this kid is going to repair shattered glass, but evidently he accomplishes it by sitting on the steps for a while while ALF tells him literally everything about himself. Through the magic of editing, it’s as good as new!

Jake says that his dad taught him to fix things. Including shattered glass, I guess. Ugh. It’s not like he broke a vase or a trophy or something he could glue back together. A telescope is a delicate scientific instrument. You can’t just drop one so hard that it breaks and then “fix” it by hand.

Who knows. Maybe it’s not fixed, and Jake and ALF just both realized at the same time that neither of them give a shit about Willie’s feelings anyway.

Later that night, ALF remembers that he has a whole new child to molest, so he spies on Jake through the window. This is when we are made privy to the horrific extent of the boy’s juvenile delinquency: he crumples up some sheets of blank paper and throws them around.

Mrs. Ochmonek comes in and reveals that the vase contained somebody’s ashes, which makes ALF laugh. And, you know, that is kind of shitty. It also works against the main point of the episode, which is that ALF proves that Jake is actually a really good kid.

No, he’s not. Dumping out somebody’s ashes and showing no remorse is not the work of a good kid. And laughing uproariously at this behavior is not the work of someone in any place to judge a kid’s goodness.

Whatever. ALF signals to Jake that he wants to finger his rectum, so Jake gets rid of Mrs. O by saying her husband wants to fuck her. She trots off, dripping with horn. Man, remember those couple of minutes earlier on when she was actually some kind of character? Those were some heady times.

ALF gives Jake a bunch of shit to fix. Mrs. Ochmonek hears him talking to somebody, and he calls to her that it’s just the TV.

ALF, to keep up the illusion, shouts, “Live from New York! It’s Saturday night!” And, man, I am absolutely positive Paul Fusco masturbated himself raw at the idea that ALF would even be considered for hosting Saturday Night Live.

The next day Willie is ignoring his daughter talk about her upcoming birthday*** because he’d rather read some unidentified textbook. This guy is a truly legendary social worker.

Speaking of which, I guess he gave up on straightening Jake out after the rude punk decided not to join them for smashed up crap cake. Troubled youth or not, you only get one shot with Willie Tanner.

Mr. Ochmonek then brings Jake over, because he found a bunch of Willie’s shit in the kid’s room.

ALF reaches through the plot window and hits Willie in the back of the head with a thrown dinner roll. Nobody questions this, including Mr. Ochmonek who saw it happen.

Willie goes into the kitchen where ALF reveals that he gave that crap to Jake to fix, and then they agree that their new friend Jake is one outrageous dude, and totally in their face. Then Willie returns to the living room and apologizes because the episode is over.

Lynn pats Jake on the head, and Jake says, “You want me, don’t you?” Brian, meanwhile, has silently drowned in the tub.

The short scene before the credits is pointless. ALF smacks a puzzle piece into place where it doesn’t belong. And…that’s a pretty good metaphor for this episode overall. It was so weird and disjointed, with everything being forced to happen rather than allowed to happen.

I’m pretty disappointed in the introduction of Jake for a few reasons. For one, it really does represent the show giving up on Brian, which is utterly baffling. The fucking kid’s in the opening credits…you can’t even try to do anything with him?

And isn’t it a bit early to be adding Cousin Oliver to the mix? That’s usually a late-game shakeup to try to bring some life back into a show that’s gone stale. ALF is only halfway through its second season, and already they can’t think of anything to do but toss new characters in?

The worst part is that I know they just keep doing it from this point on. Kate has another baby, Jim J. Bullock moves in, Dr. Potato Famine comes to life and rents Willie’s basement…they keep trying in the hopes that, eventually, something they add will make this shit funny.

Oh well. We’ll see where it goes. It could still prove to be a good decision.

Maybe Jake bullies Brian and we’ll squeeze another plot out of that dead kid yet. Or maybe Mrs. Ochmonek gets to work the “new mother” aspect of her character a bit and actually turn into someone worth having on the show. Or maybe Jake cums down the front of Lynn’s sweater and she has to pretend it’s toothpaste.

Whatever happens, the scary trilogy of awful horseshit is over, and we should be back to normal shit levels from now on.

The fact that that thought is actually comforting to me is worrying.

MELMAC FACTS: ALF had a cousin from the south side of Melmac, the baddest part of the planet, Pretty Boy Shumway. If he didn’t like your shoes he’d point and you and go “ee-ee-ee-ee.” Which is actually funnier than it sounds. ALF has had liposuction. Which is not as funny as it sounds. On Melmac they only had one guy who knew how to fix things.

—–
* For those keeping score at home, this is the third overt reference to a Hitchcock film. “Strangers in the Night” was (kind of…) about ALF wanting to watch Psycho, and “Lookin’ Through the Windows” was an episode-long pastiche of Rear Window. The interesting thing? All three are Ochmonek episodes. A coincidence, I’m sure, but now I’m really looking forward to the episode in which Mr. Ochmonek and Wizard Beaver agree to murder each other’s wives.

** Yes, I’m deliberately referencing Family Guy. Yes, I hate me too.

*** We learned in “Hail to the Chief” that Lynn was 18, so I guess this means she’s turning 19? And she’s still in high school? Did she stay back, or is there a way to rectify those details that I’m missing?

There is no God.

Even though I’ve seen “ALF’s Special Christmas” listed as two episodes in some places, the DVD version is the full, hour-long edit, which means I have to talk about this shit in one go. And, honestly, I don’t know what to expect. I’ve got 40 screengrabs and a list of notes that’s longer than most of my finished reviews. My impulse is to whittle it down to the observations I really feel compelled to make…but, at the same time, this is the last ALF Christmas special, and for some reason I feel compelled to give it a proper sendoff. I don’t know…I always feel generous around the holidays.

And…around the end of July.

It’s clear from the start that ALF considers this to be event TV. Aside from its super-sized running time, we see immediately that there’s a different opening sequence. That’s right…this does not even deserve a Captain’s Log introduction, because this is dead serious. The new opening is more like a movie, with the title and credits fading up over the action of the episode, already in progress.

In fact, “ALF’s Special Christmas” plays an awful lot like a dry run at ALF: The Motion Picture, and part of me wonders if it wasn’t, at some point, intended to be exactly that. The budget is far higher, the film quality is well beyond that of a standard sitcom, and there’s actual care taken with the direction of the episode.

Almost every visual concern I’ve had with this show is rectified here. There’s creative (and effective) blocking, there’s impressive camera work, there’s background business that lets the characters seem like they’re actually alive rather than waiting for their turn to react to ALF. It’s good, in that sense.

In that sense.

Because…wow. I’ve been warned about this one so many times, that I figured there was no way it could be as bad as I expected.

People, it was far, far worse. Mainly when folks warned me, it was because of the syrupy crap with the dying girl. And, yeah, that’s pretty bad, but it’s really just the tip of the iceberg.

Well, enough stalling, I guess. We’ve got an awful lot of reindeer shit to shovel.

The episode begins with Willie driving the family to a cabin, and ALF is singing a presumably Melmacian version of “The 12 Days of Christmas,” which is all about cooking cats. He makes it to day 82 before anyone tells him to shut the fuck up, which, as far as I’m concerned, is impossible. Even the regular “12 Days of Christmas” is grating. It takes forever to make it through that awful, repetitive garbage. I always hate when it plays in a store around the holidays, because I know I’m stuck hearing it for the next nine minutes.

How long would it take to reach day 82? Who knows. I’m not doing the math. I just know it would be way too long for ALF to remain unstrangled.

The Tanners make it to the cabin and the camera rotates around them as they spread out and — gasp! — do things. This is still a set on a soundstage, but by employing a little bit of technical artistry and asking the actors to do something other than stand in the background making funny faces, it feels less cheap. Less slapdash. More real.

Again, this episode isn’t good. In fact, it’s pretty terrible. But none of its problems come from its presentation, which is unquestionably top-notch for late 80s primetime television.

It’s very much of a piece with any of the interchangeable Christmas movies you might see on Lifetime or the Hallmark Channel in terms of its style. While those are never (and I do mean never) groundbreaking works by any rights, they are competently made, and, largely, they achieve the modest goals that they set for themselves. So, for ALF, it’s a compliment to be compared to those things; competency is a huge step up.

So, yeah. Think back on literally any Hallmark Christmas movie you’ve ever seen, and imagine that it starred Max Wright, Benji Gregory, and Paul Fusco. Boom, you have “ALF’s Special Christmas.”

Willie walks around the cabin, reveling in the great Christmas he spent there with his family when he was young. We don’t hear much apart from “Here’s where we hung the stockings,” and “We sang Christmas carols,” but it’s nice to see him giving even half a fuck about something for a change.

He tells Kate, Lynn, and Brian that they’re going to have a heartwarming Christmas full of joy and love, which is ALF’s cue to scream for help because he fell in the outdoor shitter.

What a merry act break!

When we return, Willie and ALF are unloading the family’s stuff from the car, and I’m so glad Willie had the good sense to enlist the help of the guy who just slipped into a vat of human feces.

The camerawork is nice here, as it trails around to the back of the car, and then gives us actual closeups for individual lines…which implies that they probably did more than one take of these scenes before throwing up their hands and saying, “Fuck it, nobody will pay attention anyway.”

I looked up who directed this episode, because it definitely feels like they brought in some external talent, but it was a guy named Burt Brinckerhoff, who directed a bunch of ALF episodes. Some of them were indeed quite good (this season he directed “Oh, Pretty Woman” and “Night Train”) but overall I wouldn’t say he’s a stamp of quality or anything (this season he also directed “Wedding Bell Blues” and “Prime Time”).

So, who knows. Maybe Brinckerhoff was a talented guy who just didn’t get the time or support he needed to elevate the show on a weekly basis. “ALF’s Special Christmas” absolutely proves that he has a good grasp on the language of visual storytelling, and it’s a bit of a tease that this guy doesn’t get to strut his stuff more often.

Whatever. The big joke in this scene is that ALF boxed up the TV, the microwave, and a whole bunch of other shit to bring to the cabin, because he didn’t realize there’d be no electricity. Willie is pissed, but really he’s just a fucking idiot. Did he not notice ALF boxing this stuff up? Did he not notice the appliances missing at any point? Did he not question this earlier when he was loading these heavy boxes into the car?

God damn, Willie. You stupid.

Then Willie does something really fucking weird: he talks to his son.

He tells Brian the story of his father losing his job and their house in the middle of December. Little Willie was out on the streets, but then Mr. Foley showed up and offered the Tanners a place to stay: this very cabin. It’s the best Christmas Willie remembers, so fuck you, Willie’s wife and kids.

They didn’t have any presents, but going by Willie’s earlier statements when they arrived I guess they had stockings and a tree. Oh well, it’s vague, and it raises a lot of questions that go bizarrely unanswered,* but it’s something. Willie is so rarely human that even this aimless, non-committal, half-assed attempt at backstory is welcome.

ALF comes into the room with a sprig of holly, which Willie stuffs down the front of his shirt for no reason except so that they can later reveal it to be poison ivy, I’m sure.

Our favorite alien sex offender is wearing a sweater that Kate quickly recognizes as her gift to Willie, and then ALF reveals that he opened everyone’s gifts and tells them all what they got.

Why the hell did he do this? He’s not misunderstanding Christmas. This is at least his second one on Earth, and during the first one the concept of presents was about the only thing he understood. He’s fully aware of how this works; he’s just being a dickbag.

He also changed all of the tags on the gifts so that they look like they came from him, which is another level of holidickery, I guess, but also sort of moot since he already opened everything. Oh well. I guess he doesn’t give any more thought to the logic of his shenanigans than the writers do.

Willie gives a time-eating lecture about spoiling surprises or the true meaning of Christmas or who cares, there’s still 42 minutes of this shit left. Then Brian comes over and informs his dad that the sprig of holly was actually poison oak.

Damn, ALF. Ya got me! I thought it was poison ivy. I’ll never doubt you again.

So, yeah, fine, Willie has poison oak all over his chest now, but, really, can anyone explain to me why the fuck he stuffed it down his shirt in the first place? Wouldn’t it have been enough for him to have it on his hands? Do we really need to imagine Max Wright’s poisonous, oaky nipples for this gag to land?

Willie then scolds poor ALF, and we know we’re supposed to feel sorry for the guy who just went out of his way to ruin Christmas for an entire family because some sad music plays, borrowing the melody from “Deck the Halls (With Poison Oak).”

He accuses ALF of not understanding Christmas, because he’s a fucking moron who doesn’t remember that they already did this plot last year. Then he asks Kate if it isn’t about time ALF learned how to behave himself, because he’s a fucking moron who doesn’t remember that they already did that plot like 35 times in a row.

He then meanly tells ALF he has to dispose of the poison oak in the woods, that meany, and ALF slinks away sadly, because the mean-headed mean man hurt his feelings, when all he did was deliberately ruin Christmas for the four people he always bankrupts and rapes.

Funnily enough — even though it’s, of course, not a joke — ALF doesn’t go deep into the woods at all. He just walks outside and drops the poison oak. We…didn’t really need the sad walking away music for that, did we?

Seeing ALF behind that boulder reminds me that this might be the only episode so far in which the cast didn’t have to worry about falling into a puppet trench and becoming paralyzed. Since we’ll never see the cabin or the hospital again, I don’t think they would have bothered cutting long passages into them as they did with the main sets. In fact, ALF is pretty limited in his mobility in the cabin scenes. He doesn’t get full roam like he does in the Tanner house, which does kind of support the idea that this new environment wasn’t laced with death traps. No wonder the cast actually seems happy.

And, of course, the rest of these scenes are outside. The ability to walk unafraid across smooth surfaces must have been Paul Fusco’s gift to the cast.

While ALF is outside, Mr. Foley pulls up. ALF calls to Willie, but Willie mishears him and thinks he said, “Mr. Foley is near.”

It’s Cleavon Little, people!!

The star of Blazing Saddles! A firm candidate for not only the funniest film ever made, but one of the most effective social satires Hollywood’s ever produced!

…and now he’s guest starring in “Melmac Christmas A-Go-Go.”

Anyway, since Mr. Foley’s here, Willie tells everyone his backstory. Even though, y’know, Mr. Foley could do it? Maybe? Nah…everything’s better when it comes from Max Wright.

It turns out Mr. Foley repairs old toys every year and delivers them to children in the hospital. But Mr. Foley corrects Willie: he says he delivers them to Santa Claus, who gives them to the kids.

The camera lingers on Mr. Foley’s one-shot for way too long, and there’s no laughter so I know that wasn’t supposed to be a joke. I guess it’s meant to be inspiring…somehow? I don’t know. I’d be a lot more inspired by the story of some old guy passing out toys to sick kids than I would am by an awkwardly long shot of somebody who just finished saying “Santa Claus.”

While Mr. Foley is standing still and the Tanners are quietly watching him blink, we see ALF open up the Foleymobile and get a hard-on over all the toys in it. He climbs in, and I’m glad, because it really is the next step in ALF’s natural progression to start fucking with a hospital full of dying kids.

Mr. Foley gives Willie an envelope which he says is his Christmas present, and then says his wife died a few weeks ago and drives away.

Really, ALF? You cast the lead from Blazing Saddles and turn him into a live action Hans Moleman? Let the guy tell a fucking joke.

Santa Cleavon gets to the hospital, and we see him pushing a big sleigh of toys through the halls. ALF, of course, is sitting in it like a big doll, which I guess might fool the kids, but how did it fool Mr. Foley? He’s supposed to have repaired these toys himself. Wouldn’t it occur to him as he unloaded the van that he’d never seen this enormous, hideous, breathing, heat-generating monstrosity before in his life?

Whatever. They parade through the halls singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” which must be Mr. Foley’s way of really twisting the knife for the kids who are too sick to leave their rooms.

We get a crane shot of the Christmas ward, and see that ALF is the last toy left to be given out. Weird that none of the kids wanted a sociopathic alien rapist of their own.

But if ALF is really the last toy, and if he was sitting on top of all the other toys, did Santa Saddles have to pick him up every time he needed something else for a kid? And then set him back perfectly in place? ALF sure is lucky Mr. Foley is gentle with horrific toys he’s never seen before. What if he’d just dropped the “doll” out of the sleigh and ALF broke his neck and died?

Fortunately, ALF’s mysterious presence means Mr. Foley has exactly enough toys to go around, as the little sick girl at the end of the line gets stuck with him. I guess that was a pretty damned big stroke of luck, because if ALF hadn’t shown up, Santa Claus would have had to look a terminally ill girl in the eyes and say, “Tough shit.”

In fact, before Cleavon hands over the toy, he blabs for a while about how ugly and shitty that thing is. You know. That thing. This dying child’s only Christmas gift. So even though Mr. Foley’s supposed to be some really saintly guy, he sure is trying hard to make this terminally ill kid cry.

She likes ALF, though. She thinks it’s a female doll, due to ALF’s glorious tits, so she takes him back to her room, and the next time anyone saw her she was a semen-soaked corpse.

Merry Christmas, everyone!!

Santa carries ALF to the girl’s room, bitching the whole time about how heavy it is, because he really wants her to feel guilty for wanting this thing. When Jolly Old St. Bitcholas finally leaves, the girl starts brushing ALF and talking to him.

She says her name is Tiffany and she’s eight, but not to worry, unlike that other eight-year-old kid in this show she’ll have something to do with the plot. Then she uses the remote control to crunch ALF in the adjustable bed, because the dying kid ward of the local hospital is a very natural place for physical comedy.

The nurse comes in and takes Tiffany’s temperature. She makes a really disappointed face when she reads the thermometer, which I’m sure is done to let the audience know that Tiffany’s really up Shits Creek, but within the reality of the show, what an awful thing to do. Who cares if Tiffany is dying? Your bedside manner is to look disgusted because she can barely stay alive?

This isn’t even a running theme in the episode. At least, not a deliberate one. We’re not supposed to see ALF as a dick, even though he ruined Christmas for the Tanners. We’re not supposed to see Mr. Foley as a dick, even though he made a point of rubbing in the fact that Tiffany’s gift was a real piece of shit. We’re not supposed to see the nurse as a dick, even though she rolls her eyes at this girl for being at death’s door.

This is a weird fucking episode.

Tiffany then returns to ALF and serves him fake tea. She tells him about her previous roommate, who had to leave because Tiffany is totes dying and that was making the other girl sad. But, you know, this is a hospital and all, so there’s probably going to be some sadness no matter what room you’re in.

She then grabs some earrings and is about to force them through ALF’s ears but, sadly, we don’t get to see a little girl mutilate him. He speaks up and reveals himself as a living creature.

The sad music plays while he explains that he’s not a stuffed animal, he’s in danger, and he needs to get home. So it’s like Follow That Bird, from a bizarro universe in which Big Bird was always stealing cars and spying on people using the toilet.

You know, as much as this episode is asking me to weep, Follow That Bird manages it almost without trying.

That scene where he’s painted blue and he sings the sad song?

Fuck. I get the shivers just thinking about it.

It’s a good point of comparison, actually. They’re both long-form stories about puppets who are separated from their families and want to get back home. They’re both emotional, but still intend to make us laugh.

Follow That Bird, however, is a really, really good film. Seriously. Watch it as an adult. It holds up.

“ALF’s Special Christmas” is its moronic, bastardized opposite. Sure, Follow That Bird had a bigger budget, and awesome songs, and better actors, but I’m not comparing them in any of those regards. I’m comparing them simply in terms of what they wanted to make the audience feel, and how they went about doing that.

There’s a reason that when Follow That Bird comes up, people tell me about how sad that scene of poor, blue Big Bird made them feel. And there’s a reason that when “ALF’s Special Christmas” comes up, people say, “Just you wait.”

Anyway, back to whatever the hell this is. Tiffany tracks down Santa Claus and returns ALF. Why is Santa still at the hospital? And how does he suddenly have a teddy bear to give Tiffany instead? I thought the whole point was that ALF was the last toy.

Ugh, who fucking cares. Santa takes ALF back and wheels him over to the gynecology wing.

Did you think I was kidding?

Nope. ALF and Santa chill in the gynecology wing.

Come the fuck on. Seriously. Just look at that image for a while and try to count how many things about it make you wish you were never born.

I guess this episode was ALF‘s gift to the black community. Two whole paychecks! Now shut up about diversity, will ya?

Cleavon Little hangs out with his friend the gynecologist. Man, that just screams Christmas.

Cleavon gives Dr. T an envelope, and then the two of them read aloud from the “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” editorial. Only somehow they got their hands on a leatherbound 700 page collector’s edition. They’re aware of the fact that the original was something like 300 words, right?

When they’re done killing time by reading some much better writing, Cleavon asks about Tiffany. The doctor replies that there’s nothing he can do. Then we cut to a one-shot of the doctor so that he can make puppy dog eyes and crack his voice as he asks, “What are you supposed to say to a little girl who’s not going to see another Christmas?”

This guy’s a doctor, though. And he, evidently, works with sick kids. Has he never seen a child die before? I’m sure it never becomes fun, but if this guy starts crying at the mere prospect of one of his patients dying, maybe, just maybe, he isn’t emotionally equipped to be a doctor.

And…wait. Waaait.

Isn’t this guy a gynecologist? What the fuck was a gynecologist going to do to save an 8-year-old girl? Is she dying of ovarian cancer? What the hell is going on here?

ALF sneaks back into Tiffany’s room and tells her to keep quiet so that nobody knows he’s in there with her, giving your creepy Uncle Lou a little more to work with when he spends the night.

I don’t care that we didn’t see how ALF snuck away, but I do kind of care that Cleavon never notices that he’s gone. It was the ONLY THING IN THE FUCKING SLEIGH CLEAVON.

Tiffany shows ALF a picture she drew of them both. ALF is a glob of brown shit, but the important thing is that Tiffany drew herself with wings, because ALF‘s audience is going to cry if it kills Paul Fusco.

They talk for a while about the true meaning of Christmas, of course, and the little girl says it’s not about giving presents. “It’s about giving yourself.” Creepy Uncle Lou is having a field day.

Santa Cleavon told her that, and ALF says, “After meeting you, I know what he means,” which is almost sweet…but it just makes me think that Tiffany’s lucky she won’t live through many more nights. Remember Jodie? And that Mexican kid? ALF has these touching moments all the time. He makes some pretty nice promises, Tiffany, but believe me, he never visits.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Willie opens his Christmas gift early and sees that Mr. Foley gave the family the cabin. Well, that moves the plot along so I shouldn’t complain, but what fucking time is it? Has nobody noticed that their autistic space pet hasn’t been seen in God knows how long?

Eventually they do realize it, but Jesus Christ, how many hours have to go by before they start to wonder about the unsupervised alien they left dicking around in the woods?

Tiffany confides in ALF that she has to move on to “another world” soon and there’s nothing even the bestest gynecologist in the whole wide world can do about it DO YOU UNDERSTAND SHE’S DYING YET, ALF’S SPECIAL AUDIENCE?

ALF consoles her by telling shitty jokes about eating cats, which works, because if there’s one thing that comforts a dying child it’s the thought of somebody’s pets being eaten alive by beasts.

Then something really, really bad happens.

Tiffany says, “I love you, ALF.”

But that’s not the worst thing…

ALF replies, “I love you too, Tiffany.”

…but that’s still not the worst thing.

ALF takes her hand and presses it to his face.

AND THAT IS STILL NOT THE WORST THING.

Nope.

The worst thing…is this:

God fucking dammit.

Really?

I think this is supposed to make us cry with him, but that tear is just stuck to the side of his face. It looks like a white mole.

Follow That Bird becomes an even better reference point. Remember when Big Bird, sad and alone, opens his eyes and a tear comes out?

That kills me.

Why? Because it’s unexpected, maybe. And probably because it’s a real tear. Or…real water, anyway. It’s a very, very human emotional response, coming from a puppet.

But…no. It’s not a puppet. It’s Big Bird. Big Bird is a character we understand. Big Bird is in a situation we want him to overcome. Big Bird is our friend. It hurts, because that tear rolling down his beak is something we recognize. We know the feelings that go along with that tear…and we don’t want Big Bird to have to feel them.

Here? It just looks like somebody got careless with the hot glue gun.

Anyway, the image makes the musicians sad, at least, and they respond by playing “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” which is a very artful reminder of all the things ALF came upon over the years.

We then join the Finding Bigfoot Christmas special, already in progress.

The Tanners walk around the woods, shouting for ALF. Narratively, it’s a complete waste of time. Visually, though? It’s kind of lovely.

The camera dollies perpendicular to the Tanners, revealing each of them in turn, then scurries ahead and circles inward to wait for them. When the four arrive, they’re perfectly in frame.

Jesus Christ…see what happens when you bother to storyboard an episode, ALF? You look like you know what you’re doing!

Anyway, we’re back in the hospital and…

OH MY GOD THE MIDGET.

It’s a Christmas miracle! Thank you, ALF. This really was the one thing I wanted this year, and as you know I’ve been very good.

We don’t see the midget much anymore. In fact, I wonder when we’ve seen him last. Part of this must be the crew getting better at what they do, meaning they use the actual puppet more and don’t have to resort to wrapping a little person in ALF’s empty flesh, but…man. I kinda miss it.

Anyway, I have no fucking clue what ALF is doing running around in the halls, but he crawls into the bottom of a conveniently draped gurney, and then a pregnant woman gets plopped on it.

Great.

She’s going into labor, and her husband is the most annoying caricature of a flustered idiot male imaginable. They guy who plays him is terrible, but the woman is actually pretty alright. She doesn’t get any good lines or anything, but she’s a perfectly capable actress.

I looked her up to see if she did anything else I’ve seen. Her name’s Molly Hagan, and she’s been working pretty continuously in small parts here and there, so, that’s good. What really brought some memories back, though, was seeing that she played the angel on (in?) Herman’s Head.

For those who don’t remember, Herman’s Head was a high-concept sitcom about…some guy, I guess. I dunno. The gimmick was that you could see his thoughts playing out, represented by four (I think…) little humans that lived in his head and argued and stuff.

Molly Hagan played the angel, and I remember thinking she was really cute. I was probably nine years old at the time, but believe me, if I ever met her I would so offer her a stick of my Juicy Fruit. And then pee all over myself.

Dr. Gyno and the idiot husband wheel her into an elevator alone, and press a button for another floor, apparently, and then are somehow surprised when the doors close and the elevator takes off without them.

What the fuck did they expect?

Then the elevator comes to a clunking stop and…oh, shit. You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s not enough that ALF has to learn the true meaning of Christmas. It’s not enough that ALF has to bond with a cancer moppet.

No: ALF also needs to deliver a baby.

FUCK. YOU.

The doctards call the guy who dresses as Santa once a year to fix the thing. Why is he still hanging around, anyway?

They can’t call the maintenance crew, because “they’ve all gone home.” Seriously, people, what the living fuck kind of hospital is this? They don’t stagger their employees’ shifts? I know it’s a holiday and all, but shouldn’t somebody have to be on the clock? The patients sure as hell don’t go home for Christmas. What if something happens? Something like…EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS?

And then this happens, and we can all feel relieved that a space monster is trapped in the elevator with this helpless woman, and will soon fiddle blindly around with her genitalia.

Man, this is the second most gynecological Christmas I’ve ever had.

Think about how stupid this is. This woman doesn’t know anything about ALF. Okay, fine, we know she’s not in danger, but shouldn’t she be frightened in something other than a comical way? What if he has good intentions, but also razor-sharp talons? What if he eats human fetuses instead of cats? We know he hasn’t cleaned himself properly, or sterilized his fur or anything. And didn’t this episode open with him swimming in human shit and playing with poison oak?

WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING I HATE CHRISTMAS

Incredibly, the department store Santa fails to single-handedly repair the entire hospital’s elevator system. So ALF is forced to spring into action.

Whew! Good thing all elevators keep a copy of this book behind an emergency window.

We cut back to the husband and Dr. Cliff Litterous running around the stairwells, then with the sound of a baby crying we’re back in the elevator, where everything went juuuuust fine.

See? You friggin’ women, complaining about childbirth. Look how easy that was! A space alien with no knowledge of human biology delivered and cleaned the baby in the time it took us to watch some idiots run up the stairs. Quit complaining.

The woman says she needs a pretty name for her pretty girl, which you’d think maybe she and her husband could have talked about at any point during the past nine months, but ALF suggests “Tiffany,” and she immediately agrees with the rodent monster that crawled out from beneath her gurney and yanked a screaming child from her cootie-coot.

Seriously, I’m sorry, but come on. Really.

If you were alone in a tiny room with no way out, going into labor, and a fucking creature you’ve never seen before appeared, would you let it deliver your baby?

Hell no. You’d scream yourself hoarse and focus every ounce of energy you have left into kicking its God damned teeth out.

But, nah, fuck all that, it’s over. We never find out how they got out of the elevator, how she explained the childbirth, how (and why) she covered up ALF’s existence, and how ALF made it back to the fucking sleigh.

Anyway, Mr. Foley’s eighteen-month-long residence as Santa Claus has come to an end, so he’s pushing the sleigh out. But why is he out of costume? Why now? What if one of the kids sees him?

He stayed in costume while repairing elevators and playing grabass with his gynecologist buddies, but now that he’s pushing Santa’s sleigh he’s just dressed as Mr. Foley?

Dr. Victor Ulva shows up, so I guess he didn’t think it was worth hanging around with the woman and her newborn, even though she’d just given birth under unexplained circumstances in a filthy elevator without any of the proper equipment or monitoring.

He opened his Christmas present early, and saw that it was a big check. He surmises something’s wrong, because Cleavon…Cleavon likes his money. Doc tries to return it, but Cleavon won’t take it back, all but shouting, “I’m killing myself tonight, you bimbo. Why is this so hard for you to figure out?”

Back at der Tannerhaus we see Willie trying to assemble Brian’s new bike. Again, visually, this is lovely. There’s good camera work, nice blocking, and perceivable warmth from the fireplace.

Brian is sad, though. He wants to know if ALF is coming home, because if he doesn’t, that’s the end of the show, and this is kinda the only acting gig he’s ever going to get.

ALF is in the back of Mr. Foley’s van, dressed like Santa for no logistically reconcilable reason whatsoever. And why is he still surrounded by toys? I thought, again, that the whole idea was that ALF was the last toy for that little sick girl. Maybe Mr. Foley just gives away the toys he doesn’t like.

Mr. Foley drives along through the night, silently reflecting upon the fact that he was once the star of a great movie. This in turn reminds him of It’s a Wonderful Life, so he pulls over on the bridge to kill himself in what ALF hopes we will consider an homage. Foley’s first name is even George, for fuck’s sake.

ALF appears and tells him not to jump. After all, Mel Brooks might one day turn Blazing Saddles into a musical and let him make a cameo.

Cleavon Little concludes that this chubby monkey in a Santa suit is the actual Santa because fuuu-uuuuuuu-uuck you!

Sure enough, ALF convinces Mr. Foley not to kill himself in front of all the kids watching at home, as they much prefer rape scenes.

I’m sorry, but this is way too much for one episode. ALF has to learn the true meaning of Christmas, comfort a dying child, deliver a baby in an elevator, and stop Cleavon Little from killing himself. Oh, and he also has to get back to his family. This is a busy fucking hour.

It’s like the end of Groundhog Day, when Bill Murray runs around solving everybody’s problems, but when it happened there, it represented the culmination of the film’s message and the protagonist’s growth as a human being. Here, it’s some space alien dicking around one week, becoming a heavenly Christmas angel the next, and then dicking around again the week after that. There’s no growth at all, because this isn’t actually ALF. This is Touched by a Fusco.

Mr. Foley drives the naked mole rat he believes is Santa Claus to the cabin the Tanners are staying in. ALF acts nervous about having to go down the chimney, but why exactly does he have to go down the chimney?

I get that he wouldn’t want Mr. Foley to suspect that he’s not Santa Claus, but Mr. Foley drove away. We saw that happen. Nobody’s watching ALF now. Why can’t he just climb down from the roof and knock on the door?

And how the shit did he get on the roof to begin with?

Arrrrhghghghghhghhh.

None of this makes any sense. He’s clearly afraid of going down the chimney and returning to his family as a charred and stinking corpse, but he does it anyway, for no reason whatsoever.

He gets stuck in the chimney and the fake audience goes nuts.

The puppet is upside down? Hilarious! But, wait…wasn’t some little girl really sick, and an old man lost the will to live, and some newborn is now dying of alien space flu?

Who cares! Fuck those assholes. The puppet’s back with these people we still…don’t really know! That’s all that matters and Christ died so you could watch this so shut the fuck up.

In the short scene before the credits, the Tanners go to the hospital, where Mr. Foley has been hired on as a maintenance man, thanks to the talent he displayed the previous night when he failed to fix anything. Willie gives Mr. Foley his cabin back, the Tanners give Tiffany a fuckload of gifts, and ALF waves at her through the car window.

Then Mr. Foley recites “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” a second time, and we’re treated to a touching version of the ALF theme song that has sleighbells in it.

Jesus. That…

…god.

That…fuck.

Fuck.

FUCK. THAT.

What a cloying, melodramatic, unfunny piece of sappy horse shit. I don’t even know what was going on. Any of these plots (lost ALF, sick chick, suicidal old man, ALF pulling things out of a prostrate woman’s vagina) would have served an episode on their own, but we get them all at once. I found it a little puzzling at first that seasons three and four don’t have Christmas episodes, but now I see why. They used up every storyline imaginable on this one.

In the spirit of the season (a season, anyway) I’ll say a few nice things about this episode. It looked great, for starters. Visually this was a competent experience, front to back. And even though there’s a dying little girl in a lot of it, she wasn’t a terrible actress. Not great, but when it comes to kids, “not great” is actually great. And this episode reminded me that I used to really want to sleep with the girl in Herman’s Head.

But that’s it. This was the cheapest piece of self-indulgent mush I’ve seen in a long time, and I find it more than a little hilarious that this episode about ALF making the world a better place for everyone he meets is followed in a few weeks by one where he murders Willie’s uncle.

So, yeah. My God. I actually, no joke, need some time to recover from this one.

I die, dear readers, so that you might live.

At least we’re halfway through the Shit Trifecta. And the season, come to think of it. Surely it can’t get any worse than this.

Right?

…surely?

Melmac Facts: On Melmac there was no pavement and no silverware. MEEEEERRY CHRISTMAS!!

—–
* What was Willie’s dad’s name? What job did have have that he lost? Why did he lose it? How did they know Mr. Foley? How long was the family homeless? Any of this would be interesting to know…but it would also reveal character, and God fuckin’ forbid.