Rants from the Alright Guys: The TV Sitcom Vault

Once upon a time, I was a television junkie. Growing up I went from cartoons such as Transformers and Thundercats (Thundercats HO!) to the tawdry world of 80's sitcoms. Since graduating high school, my television intake has decreased substantially (except for a brief period when Thursday nights meant the trifecta of Friends, ER and Will & Grace.) In the last 3 years, I've had tv service for about 2 months total.

I'm here today to hop in the wayback machine and look at a random one of my favorite sitcoms growing up:

Alf

Alf (Alien Life Form) was known as Gordon Shumway back on his home planet of Melmac. Of course, that was before it was blown up in a nuclear holocaust. Alf escaped, crash landed in the Tanners' backyard and an eighties sitcom icon was born. Alf was a wiseass who liked to cause trouble while the Tanners did their best to keep him hidden from the authorities. The rest of the cast included the Tanners: Willie, Kate, Lynn and Bryan as well as their cat Lucky, who was in constant danger of being eaten by Alf. It's a Melmackian thing. Apart from the immediate family, other regulars on the show were the neighbors Raquel and Trevor Ochmonek (which Tom always referred to as Mr and Mrs Ouch-my-neck.) and Kate's meddling, bossy mother whose name I can't recall.

One of my favorite sitcom familes: The Tanners

Alf premiered in 1986 and well, it was pretty damn funny when I was 8 years old. The shows were mostly funny, but often had an underlying moral lesson (a common theme with 80's sitcoms.) All I knew is that it was funny shit. Season One was recently released on DVD. Part of me wants to watch some Alf, but will it just be lame now that I'm older and everything has changed? Who knows?

There is a phenomena in the TV world known as Jumping the Shark. This refers to the point where a sitcom loses its driving force, stops being funny, stops being entertaining and is generally in decline. For example, when Married with Children introduced the character Seven was around the time of the show's decline. Of course, Ted McGinley also joined the cast and that man is an albatross. Anyhoo, the point is that Alf is one of the few that never jumped the shark. Alf appeared, made me laugh for four years, then went away before things got bad.