Noiseless Chatter Archive

At long, long last, I get to do something I was hoping to do a month ago: announce the stories that will be included in The Lost Worlds of Power ! By now, everybody who submitted something should have received an email from me letting them know our decision. And what a decision it was. This was very difficult, and my co-editor James and I spent a good deal of time discussing every single submission. We may have had to turn down a good number of stories, but that doesn’t suggest that they were disappointing in any way. What it does suggest is that you guys set the bar surprisingly high. We received almost uniformly excellent submissions, and while that means it made our final selection very difficult, it also means that the final anthology is going to be absolutely stellar . So thank you to everybody who submitted. And now, without further ado…the stories that will be included. …well, allow me a little bit more ado, because I absolutely have to post this glorious co...

  ALF Reviews: “La Cuckaracha” (season 1, episode 24) Here we are; the penultimate episode of  ALF , season one. And here’s a quick little vocabulary lesson for everyone who thinks “penultimate” means “best” or “platonic ideal of” or some shit: it doesn’t. It means “the one with a bigass cockroach monster.” You uneducated bastards. Let me get this out of the way right now: “La Cuckaracha” has a lot of problems. Okay? Keep that in mind, because I’m going to have quite a few nice things to say about this one, and I wouldn’t want you to get confused. “La Cuckaracha” is flawed. At times, deeply so. And yet, God help me, this episode is  fun . In fact, I think I’d stick it alongside “For Your Eyes Only” and “Going Out of My Head Over You,” forming the trilogy of  ALF  season one episodes that are worth watching. Of course, we still have one left, so it’s possible that it will actually be a quadrilogy, but considering the fact that both of those other episodes were fo...

One of the things I really love about Facebook is that a huge portion of Tim & Eric’s stable of actors is not only active there, but are given a platform to reveal themselves as what they are: really, genuinely awesome human beings. Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! isn’t just one of my favorite sketch comedy shows; it’s one of my favorite shows, period. A huge reason for that is supporting cast. As exciting as it is to see Ted Danson, Jeff Goldblum or Fred Willard pop up for some silly skit, the actor star power is overshadowed by the minor stars, who gave the show much of its identity, and a bizarre, passive feeling of continuity. One thing I’ve been wanting to do for a while is compile a set of interviews with the supporting cast, and I finally found a reason to kick it off: Palmer Scott — best known for “Sit on You” — is auctioning off his iconic Tim & Eric shirt on eBay. (You can find the listing here .) With limited time and no preparation, Palme...

  ALF Reviews: “Weird Science” (Season 1, Episode 23) Counting this episode, I have only three reviews left to do in season one. I’m…kind of amazed how quickly this has gone by. I mean, when all is said and done it will still have taken 25 weeks, which is nothing to sneeze at, but it doesn’t really feel that long. In fact, I’m almost sad that  ALF  only has four seasons. Almost. This one starts with ALF calling Willie home from work for an emergency: the TV broke. ha ha. That’s it. That’s the whole scene in one sentence. Since there’s nothing more to talk about before the credits roll, I’ll take this opportunity to mention something that’s been on my mind for a while: the Tanners really have fuck-all to do with this show, don’t they? In theory, the premise of  ALF  should be “a family secretly harbors an alien from outer space.” And you’d be forgiven for remembering the show as actually being about that. I sure as heck did. But now, watching it as an adult, it’s...