Have You Seen ALF TALES?

DUDE!!!

The 1960s through the 1980s is know to animators as a blight on the nobel tradition of their artform, particularly because the bulk of the animation created in those 3 decades fell into what is popularly known as the Saturday Morning Ghetto. Most animation was "limited animation" created for Saturday morning cartoons.

And most of it was bad.

Very bad.

Incompetent doesn't come close to describing it. (Particularly in the '60s & '70s.)

However, every once in a while you got a production company that really, honestly wanted to produce a quality product. And since they couldn't animate Disney style (the only game in town at that time, in the States anyway) they tried to compensate with their writing.

And sometimes, THEY SUCCEEDED.

And thus, I give you ALF TALES!!!

I have fond memories of ALF TALES and ALF: THE ANIMATED SERIES from when I was 16 and 17. I WANTED to like the ALF live-action series, but I really just couldn't. It didn't make me laugh. It was a bad sitcom, and there was just no way around it. But in 1987 ALF: THE ANIMATED SERIES premiered on Saturday mornings, and I was shocked how genuinely funny it was!

So when I read something last year that said that some of the episodes from ALF: THE ANIMATED SERIES and ALF TALES were going to be released on dvd, I had to buy them...

Eventually...

After all, my memory was probably making the show better than I remembered, right? I mean, when I was a kid I liked the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY. I didn't even have to reach adulthood to be embarrassed by these 2 choices... Watching them as a teen showed me the err of my ways, lol.

But today in the mail, I received the ALF TALES dvd and sat down and watched a few episodes, and I have to say it's STILL funny!!!

Not always laugh-out-loud funny, but ALWAYS amusing and fun. And I can now appreciate how smart the writers and animators were.

Even though the animation is limited animation, the layout artists tried to make sure that even if you're looking at an almost-static frame you're at least looking at an interesting angle or composition.

And the writers!

It's as though they watched the live-action show, figured out why it wasn't funny, then fixed it so it would be! The writers are really smart. For instance, their version of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" takes place in a big city named Sleepy Hollow and is done like a 1940s newspaper movie, lol! (Ichibod Crane is going to the Big City to be a newspaper photographer for the Daily Hemisphere.)

I well can't wait for the ALF: THE ANIMATED SERIES dvd to arrive because even though ALF TALES got some critical attention back then and the original series didn't, I recall enjoying the original series more!

So that should be fun!

If you get a chance to check out either dvd DO SO! If you're into retro toons or just wacky stuff, you'll get a kick out of it. The humor feels pretty restrained compared to what's on Adult Swim nowadays, because this was a Network program and (ostensibly) intended for children -- but I suspect the producers were really just aiming for ANYONE who was into animation.

PEACE!!! :D