Noiseless Chatter Archive

A guest submission today from Justin B. Justin commented a few weeks back about having some insight from Bernie Brillstein, and I’ve asked him to expand his thoughts into a full post. I hope you enjoy. This also buys me another week to figure out how to make “Baby Love” interesting, so I’m not complaining… —- ALF has always fascinated me, though the reasons for that fascination have varied quite a bit. As a child, I was naturally amused by ALF’s catchphrases and tendency to eat the family pets. Later, upon reevaluating the show in college and as an adult, what I found interesting was just how truly terrible the show was and always wondered why it was so bad. There are so many shows from that era which hold up and continue to be just as funny today. There’s a reason why The Golden Girls, Fresh Prince and Seinfeld are consistently some of the most valuable syndication properties – the humor holds up. ALF on the other hand is truly a lazy show. Other than the fact he ate ...

Well, it’s the middle of June, which means everyone’s thoughts are turned to the holiday season. Or maybe I’m just insane. Either way, I’ve been working on some ideas for this coming year’s Xmas Bash!!, which is bound to be a good thing, as it means I won’t go nuts trying to slap something together in the hours before the stream is supposed to go live. With this much time to plan, I figured I’d open it up to viewer feedback. For those of you who haven’t attended either of the past events, the Noiseless Chatter Xmas Bash!! is a live-streamed charity event. The main feature is a surprise assortment of horrible (horrible…) Xmas specials that I’ve unearthed for the sole purpose of making you hate television. There are host segments, music, and other goodies throughout. Last year I added some vintage toy commercials to the mix, and opened up donations to The Trevor Project as well. Oh, and, through it all, there’s a chatroom, which I think it’s safe to say ends up being more ent...

  ALF Reviews: “Suspicious Minds” (season 3, episode 15) It’s the only way in which  ALF  has ever been reliable: a good episode is always, every time, followed by a lousy one. It goes all the way back to the show’s first great installment, “For Your Eyes Only.” This was followed by “Help Me, Rhonda.” At that moment, the precedent was set. “For Your Eyes Only” > “Help Me, Rhonda” “Going Out of My Head Over You” > “Lookin’ Through the Windows” “La Cuckaracha” > “Come Fly With Me” “Working My Way Back to You” > “Somewhere Over the Rerun” “Oh, Pretty Woman” > “Something’s Wrong With Me” “Night Train” > “Isn’t it Romantic?” “I’m Your Puppet” > “Tequila” “Alone Again, Naturally” > “Do You Believe in Magic?” I’d have loved it — genuinely loved it — if “Suspicious Minds” had bucked this trend. But when the premise of the episode is that ALF fucks around for a while in Elvis’s living room, I knew better than to get my hopes up. Sure enough, the pleasant su...

Many of you no doubt know commenter Sarah Portland , a longstanding, intelligent, periodically evil presence on this blog. Well, she runs her own episodic review site, focusing on Star Trek , the original series. Just recently, however, she finished that classic show, and moved on to its…marginally less-classic Animated Series spinoff. So, yes, utterly shameless plug, because her Star Trek reviews were great and I expect these will be too. Check them out . Today saw her first post about the cartoon adventures of the Enterprise crew, which according to the picture above consists of Uhura, a butter sculpture of Mr. Spock, Chevy Chase circa 1982, Jar Jar Binks, Zapp Brannigan, the painting lion from Zoobilee Zoo , Bruce Lee, Tommy Wiseau, and Anne Heche. So, go read that while I try to muster up the energy to write about Fallout 3 .

  ALF Reviews: “Fight Back” (season 3, episode 14) Apologies up front for not being as prolific here lately. I know I keep saying this…but that’ll change! It was some bad timing. I have a few projects I’m involved in that I can’t quite comment on yet, Comic Con came to Denver, and I had to wrap up a pitch for a non-fiction book. It was busy, and I appreciate the poor schmuck who had to watch  ALF’s Hit Talk Show  in my absence. In addition, loyal reader  Phil  (a different one) sent me some goodies that I’m sure I’ll be showing off soon…in whatever capacity. So, anyway, we’re back to business as usual, with an episode called “Fight Back” that I’ve never seen before and which I knew nothing about. My hopes for this one weren’t high, but from the very first scene we get some good stuff. It opens with ALF “ordering” a waffle from Kate. He reminds her of his preferences: “I like my waffles crisp, yet  al dente . Cooked to a golden amber and served piping hot, o...