Ace of Spades HQ

December 21, 2010

Good Thing ALF Never Ran For President
— Ace

Dave @ Garfield Ridge notes that ALF couldn't have run for president, as he doesn't have a birth certificate noting his American citizenship.

Now who's being naive, Dave.

I guess puppets and racism are the day's themes.

Parody: The guy doing ALF was actually parodizing a then-current episode of LA Law, in which a witness says the N-word repeatedly on the stand. He had Tourette's syndrome, see.

Thanks to a commenter for that. You know who you are, even if I don't. (Okay, it's andycanuck.)

Posted by: Ace at 11:15 AM | Comments (28)
Post contains 104 words, total size 1 kb.

1 He's doing a rather good impression of someone with Tourette's Syndrome.

Posted by: Moi at December 21, 2010 11:19 AM (Ez4Ql)

2 Wasn't ALF created by a black guy? I'm too lazy to google it.

Posted by: joncelli© at December 21, 2010 11:19 AM (RD7QR)

3 Heh. Guess you ain't revisiting what you reviled.

Oh well. Guess I just never found ALF funny to begin with.

Posted by: AoSHQ's DarkLord© at December 21, 2010 11:21 AM (GBXon)

4 It was great show. I really enjoyed Michael Caine as the lead character.

Posted by: John P. Squibob at December 21, 2010 11:23 AM (/U/Mr)

5 Oh, and yes, Haley Barbour's presidential hopes are done, at least if he's running against Obama.

Posted by: joncelli© at December 21, 2010 11:23 AM (RD7QR)

6 @ 2, No, Elmo is a black guy. Kevin Clash.

Posted by: Empire of Jeff, Chairman of the Non-Partisan Anti-Chinese League at December 21, 2010 11:24 AM (TATbF)

7 Guess I just never found ALF funny to begin with.

Me neither, that was about the time that TV started going completely to shit.

Posted by: Vic at December 21, 2010 11:24 AM (e4sSD)

8 Wasn't a subplot of ALF that ALF's home planet was destroyed in a nuclear war?

Posted by: Kratos (Ghost of Sparta) at December 21, 2010 11:24 AM (9hSKh)

9 Boycott Melmac!

Posted by: nickless© at December 21, 2010 11:26 AM (MMC8r)

10
hahaha, Ace with the subtle The Godfather reference!

Posted by: Soothsayer at December 21, 2010 11:27 AM (uFokq)

11
ALF wasn't funny?

Are you kidding me? The scenes between him and Willie were comedy gold.

Posted by: Soothsayer at December 21, 2010 11:28 AM (uFokq)

12 He never did get to eat Mrs. Ochmonek's cat. And neither did I.

Posted by: Joanie (Oven Gloves) at December 21, 2010 11:29 AM (wd0Iq)

Posted by: Soothsayer at December 21, 2010 03:27 PM (uFokq)

Yup. I caught that myself.

Senators don't have people killed.

Posted by: Delta Smelt at December 21, 2010 11:30 AM (aUE7j)

14
hahaha, tourette's is a funny disorder

Posted by: Soothsayer at December 21, 2010 11:30 AM (uFokq)

15 the funniest part is the LA Law scene that this is actually in reference to! man was that (and this) a blast from the past! I remember when that LA Law show ran, we were all doing Tourette's impressions from it . . . I guess now it would be called a "meme" or something, then it was just something to do instead of "dead baby" jokes.

Posted by: BlackOrchid at December 21, 2010 11:32 AM (SB0V2)

16 Here's the L.A. Law scene that a commenter linked at the Gawker story.

Posted by: andycanuck at December 21, 2010 11:40 AM (2rOwc)

17 Wasn't a subplot of ALF that ALF's home planet was destroyed in a nuclear war?

When they do ALF 2012, the culprit will be changed to Global Warming.

Posted by: The Mega Indepedent at December 21, 2010 11:40 AM (BSeGu)

18 What the hell has happened to us as a society that we have to say "the n-word" even in an academic context? The real story here is that this tape shows that people were more able to act like adults in 1987 on a sitcom set than we are anywhere at all in 2010.

Posted by: Rajiv Vindaloo at December 21, 2010 12:14 PM (JZsC+)

19 I've met a fair number of adults with small children that believe "the N word" is "no". The inability to use this word stands a good chance of ruining their families during the teen years.

Posted by: marc in calgary at December 21, 2010 12:48 PM (twux5)

20 meh

Posted by: elspeth at December 21, 2010 12:51 PM (0AkWH)

21 You can usually judge how a cast gets along by the bloopers. Everybody looked bored, annoyed, irritated or disgusted when things went sideways on that show. It could not have been fun to make.

Contrast with the bloopers on Firefly or Babylon 5, which were extensive and mostly of people breaking up laughing or playing pranks, or Star Trek (new) or Andromeda, which were minimal and seemed kind of staged.

Yeah I'm a sci-fi geek, shut up.

Posted by: Merovign, Strong on His Mountain at December 21, 2010 01:15 PM (bxiXv)

22 The mere mention of ALF brings back memories of a crush I had on Andrea Elson...

Posted by: Blacque Jacques Shellacque at December 21, 2010 01:57 PM (nD3Pg)

23 @Merovign, Strong on His Mountain

Have a look at this article. Max Wright and Anne Schedeen HATED the show. Quote from Schedeen (Played Kate Tanner), "Believe me, there was no joy on the set", says Schedeen, now 51. The stress level ran high, partly because "it was a technical nightmare - extremely slow, hot and tedious," she explains. "If you had a scene with ALF, it took centuries. A 30-minute show took 20, 25 hours to shoot."

Posted by: bonhomme at December 21, 2010 02:51 PM (Gr6ja)

24 No one else remembers the episode where ALF did run for President? Either that or someone dreamt he ran for President. He was going to solve unemployment by hiring everyone without jobs to give him piggyback rides. I've been referencing that one pretty heavily for a couple of years now.

Posted by: Dave M at December 21, 2010 05:16 PM (IJvIt)

25 Alf has it bad. I had one bad night.

Posted by: Cosmo Kramer at December 21, 2010 05:40 PM (VMcEw)

26 Alf's backstory was fictionalized in Permanent Midnight:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120788/

Posted by: ST at December 22, 2010 09:20 AM (W5adK)

27 Not backstory... behind-the-scenes.

Posted by: ST at December 22, 2010 09:21 AM (W5adK)

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