Alf

I loved Alf as a kid.  I got the puppet with the flexi-disc at Burger King & everything.  I even used to tape it so I could re-watch the episodes with my older brother when he came over on Tuesdays when he came over for dinner.  My buddy Nick Marino (Super Haters) has been talking about Alf lately & even did a parody of him in his comic.  So when I saw it was going to be on TV I said, “What the hell? I’ll watch an episode.”

What’s the theme song kicked on I knew I was in trouble.  I remembered it being a little bit rocking & it was actually a pretty lame muzak thing.  The episode I actually remembered bits of.  It was the one where they think Alf ate the cat & he writes a not making references to the TV show the fugitive when he goes off looking for the cat.  The laugh track was pretty horrible & really negated my ability to enjoy the show in any way.  The only joke I liked was when Alf says something like, “I know the rules, you don’t eat members of your own family.”  I’m kinda confused not by why I liked it when I was eleven as much as why the show was popular with people older than that.  I know the way sitcoms of the era were designed was “normal family with a twist” & the twist being an alien is pretty ingenious (even if it had already been done twenty years earlier).  As much as I think it sucked, I still kinda want to check out the cartoon version of Alf & that movie about the guy who wrote it (is it called Permanent Midnight?)…