Noiseless Chatter Archive

  ALF Reviews: ALF Reviewed I have difficulty finishing projects. Not always, and not even to the point that I consider it a problem, but when I sat down in October, 2013 to review every episode of  ALF , I thought there was a pretty good chance I’d never make it to a farewell post in July, 2016. One of the unfortunate truths of having a creative mind is that you can’t switch the creativity on and off as you might like to. And that’s why so many of my projects never make it to a proper conclusion; either the creativity stops coming, or it starts to head in another direction, and I’m sort of obligated to follow it. (I’d be foolish not to.) But I stuck with  ALF , and I’m glad I did, because I’m pretty sure that I was the exact right person to write about it. That’s something I’ve been reflecting on a bit lately. The inspiration for this project came from Billy Superstar’s  Full House Reviewed . There was a “me too” element to it, and I’ll openly admit that. But it was...

  ALF Reviews: The 10 Best and 10 Worst Episodes The penultimate feature here, folks: the definitive, unquestionable lists of the best and worst episodes of  ALF . You are not welcome to disagree, because no other possible opinion can exist. I talked to scientists and everything. Anyway, we’ll get the best ones out of the way first, because I like to end on a curse word. The 10 Best Episodes of  ALF 10) Lies (4-2) When the best episode of season four is at the very bottom of the list (and even then just barely) you get a great sense of just how awful that final stretch of episodes was. But “Lies” is actually a lot of fun for such a simple premise. ALF sends some of his stories to a tabloid, which then obtains a video of Max Wright sucking off a hobo. It’s up to Willie to distract the reporters while ALF, Brian, and Lynn steal the incriminating evidence. The entire thing takes place in and around the house, but it manages to feel a lot less claustrophobic than most episode...

I had a Game Boy as a kid, and I loved it. Hell, I still love the Game Boy. There were too many great games available to list here, but one that I certainly played endlessly was Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins . I had the first Super Mario Land as well, but it always felt a little…off to me. The sprites were too small. The fireballs bounced. Invincibility stars played the can-can music. It was just…weird. Like falling into another dimension and playing their version of a Mario game. But Mario Land 2 was great. It looked (and looks) gorgeous. The branching paths and secrets felt perfectly designed for the series as I knew it. It contained this song for fuck’s sake. I played it constantly . And I don’t just mean I picked it up and beat a few stages. I mean I completed it. Over and over and over again. As an adult I’ve revisited it, and while it’s not the game I quite remember it being, all of that childhood charm came rushing back to me. …but so did a...

  ALF Reviews: Character Spotlight – Gordon Shumway In many ways, we’ve saved the best for last. At the end of each season we took an in-depth look at a member of the Tanner family, and drew, essentially, the same conclusion each time: these weren’t characters. By no means does that suggest they’re all equal, though. Anne Schedeen easily came the closest, using the natural frustration and negativity she felt on a daily basis to give Kate a believable seethe. It helped, of course, that Schedeen has a natural sense of comic timing, and worked to sell both jokes and emotional moments that were underwritten on the page. She tried hard and, for my money, she did a great job with what she was given. A better job than the material deserved for sure. Max Wright, by contrast, rarely tried at all. When he did you could almost feel the gears shifting, because it was like watching an entirely different person. He’d go from not caring if he hit his marks or pronounced his line properly to sudde...