ALF: Alien Life Form

-


His name was Gordon Shumway, born on October 28, 1756, and stands around 3 feet tall.  He doesn’t look like your typical person because he is not human.  His body is covered with burnt orange hair or fur, and his face has a long snout with moles.  His heart is located in his head and he has eight stomachs with an appetite for cats.  His home planet is Melmac which is many light years away from Earth.  He grew up on the Lower East Side of the planet and hung with his girlfriend, Rhonda, and best friend, Skip.  He managed to graduate high school after 122 years and participated in sports such as Bouillabaisseball where he was the captain of his team.  Then one day, Gordon’s life completely changed forever.

While flying around the galaxies looking for lint, gravel, and foam, which are precious commodities for Melmacian survival, Gordon followed an amateur radio signal which leads him to Earth.  He ends up crash landing in a suburban neighborhood and right into the Tanner family’s garage.  The Tanners consist of parents, Willie and Kate, and their two kids, Lynn and Brian.  They live in the San Fernando Valley and Willie is a social worker.  The entire family was in the garage when ALF (Alien Life Form) as they called him, crash landed in their lives.

They take ALF’s lifeless body into the house and try to figure out what to do with him.  He wakes up and ask the family if they can fix his spaceship so he can go home.  He also told the family he was hungry and wanted a cat to snack on.  They quickly realize their cat, Lucky, was in danger of being eaten by the smart ass alien and that staying with them is a huge mistake.  Willie expressed concern about ALF being seen by his nosy neighbor, Raquel Ochmonek.  She does get a glimpse of the half-pint alien but he husband, Trevor, thinks she is losing it.

ALF quickly gets comfortable living with the Tanners.  The kids love their new live in stranger, but Willie and Kate are not sure if they want him to stay.  Finally, ALF informs the family that his home planet, Melmac, exploded from a nuclear war disaster and he has nowhere to go.  When the Alien Task Force shows up at their door, and they get a glimpse into what they will do to ALF, Willie and Kate have a change of heart.  ALF because part of the family but he is not an easy thing to live with.  The Tanners have to put up with the alien’s antics while he deals with being the only one of his kind left, ruining things around the house while suffering from boredom.  Throughout it all, the family does whatever it takes to protect the little booger from being dissected and probed by the ATF.  Even though he frustrates the family and they are fearful of people finding out about him, they grow to love him.


In 1986, NBC aired a sitcom on Monday nights called “ALF”.  My daughter and I would not miss an episode.  The short little furry alien was funny with his snappy comebacks and constant antics.  The character, ALF, was a live-hand puppet operated by Paul Fusco.  The show only lasted 4 seasons, but we enjoyed each one.  One of our favorites was when ALF had a stole-away on his space ship, a Melmacian cockroach.   It was no ordinary roach; it got larger whenever pesticides were sprayed on it.  While ALF was trapped in the bathroom by the cockroach, which had reached an enormous size, he sprayed it with perfume which finally killed the beast.  I swear, I have seen sewer roaches around here that get that big!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5DWbVDzitw


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

26 Bar Ranch (John Wayne Ranch)

-
Image
Immersed in the Hereford’s history in Eagar, AZ, sits the 26 Bar Ranch.   It was first known as the Milky Way Ranch in the 1940’s with its big white show barn which housed many Hereford cattle.   The barn is now a local landmark.   In 1964 the ranch became the 26 Bar Ranch or John Wayne’s Ranch, who was one of the owners.   Wayne, along with Ken Reafsnyder and Louis Johnson, his business partners, kept the ranch until John Wayne’s death in 1979 from lung and stomach cancer.   Lately, I have heard rumors that Bigfoot has been seen near the ranch.   I don’t know if that is true or not, but it would be worth checking out.  John Wayne and Louis Johnson
Read more

Cowboy Mummy Found in Desert

-
Image
  There are many strange stories in the Arizona files. One that is told is about the mummy found in the desert near Gila Bend nicknamed “Sylvester”. Many believe that he once was a 19th century cowboy, a con that loved to play cards. Stories are told that he finally got caught cheating and was shot in the stomach. He made a hasty exit while bleeding profusely from his wound. He got as far as Arizona’s Gila Bend desert when he fell off his horse and died face down in the sweltering heat. Shortly afterwards, he was covered by the blowing sands, which appeared to have dried his body overnight. This apparently preserved his body resulting in the mummified form he was found in. The more believable story was that he was found shortly after death and preserved in a high level of arsenic. Arsenic was used to stop the physical occurrences of a corpse rotting by killing bacteria and insects that invaded it. This custom of using arsenic was found to be poisonous by the 1900’s and never used
Read more

The Haunted Strip Mall

-
Image
This unassuming strip mall, on 19th Avenue & Northern in Phoenix, has an Albertsons, Starbucks, Einstein’s Bagels and other shops or offices, and would never thought to be haunted, but it is. Many years before the strip mall existed on this site, there used to be several eroded buildings standing there. These structures were murky and eerie and abandoned for many years. There was much speculation that the buildings were haunted and ghosts have been reported wandering around the grounds. Between the deteriorating walls of these dark dwellings, apparitions and other strange occurrences had been seen and heard by eyewitnesses. Young kids and teens would dare each other to investigate the buildings at night using only a flashlight for protection. They would find an open hole in the fence to gain access and slowly, as a group, would enter a building. They never lasted the night claiming to hear crying, and whimpering sounds coming from the long dark passage. Only a few brave souls wou
Read more