Noiseless Chatter Archive

It is a truth universally accepted that the year 2020 is the worst thing. Race riots, pandemics, voter suppression…it’s been a rough stretch. The fact that the second half of the year is being officially heralded in by ALF is evidence that things are only going to get worse. For those of you reading in the distant future — within the next seven or eight years that humanity has left — I’ll set the context a bit. Each summer for the previous 25 years, the Electronic Entertainment Expo gave teenagers a reason to stop masturbating for a couple of days. New video games, game consoles, and sometimes even chairs that vibrate would make their debuts. Eventually they’d be released in much worse shape than they seemed to be during their reveal, but, still, it was fun. Here in 2020, the event was cancelled due to the fact that everybody died. In its place, various companies and organizations have held their own roughly concurrent digital events. We still get the trailers and ...

Here’s a fact: Max Wright hated being alive. Can I say that with confidence? Yes. Do it mean it unilaterally? No; of course I don’t. But at some point, early in the production of ALF , he stopped enjoying what he did for a living. He had a few roles after the show, but nothing major. He stopped doing interviews. He stopped acting in general. He retreated from public life, living most of his final years alone, behind a door that rarely opened. He stopped talking to his friends and family. I shouldn’t have the right to say “he stopped talking to his friends and family” and mean it, and yet, I do. For the past few years, people claiming to know him, to miss him, to want messages passed on to him, seeking assurance that he was still alive and hadn’t died in his apartment without anyone knowing, reached out to me. I won’t provide any names — or their relationships to him, which would just as easily give them away — but please take a moment to consider something with...

Oh, my aching ass hole. It’s been two years since I finished reviewing ALF , but the fucker still haunts my dreams. People still send me ALF shit in the mail. (Not literal shit excreted by ALF, though I think I’d actually prefer that to the figurines and paper plates and coloring books.) People still tag me in every YOU’RE SO OLD IF YOU REMEMBER THIS meme that features a picture of ALF. Every time the National Enquirer catches Max Wright shambling out of his apartment to plead with God to take him, I’m the first to know. All of which is to say, I have yet to exorcise the demon. My work must not be done. I attempted to do this a year ago with that review of ALF Loves a Mystery that I promised to a reader who doesn’t come here anymore, but the Earth has completed one more orbit around the sun and society has sunk another dozen or so notches toward hell and I still have work to do. ALF , released for the Sega Master System on December 31, 1989, is something I actual...