All I Really Need to Know I Learned From ALF

There is a place in my heart that you cannot touch. No -- shhhh; no! No one can touch that place in my heart. No one...but Gordon Shumway.

For, Gordon Shumway - that lovable, fuzzy, sardonic, cat-eating, Gilligan's Island obsessed, pro-green-movement-even-before-your-mom-wrote-Facebook-posts-about-how-hot-her-carbon-footprint-is-right-now, gambling addict, Alien Life Form covered in little brown curlies - taught me so much about life and truth and all that is, you know, real in this cold, cold world, that since he abandoned me, leaving me frigid and alone, my life has never been the same. (feel free to let your spawn borrow that Little Runon That Could for his thirty second dramatic monologue for his middle school's big Spring production of Jesus Christ, Superstar tryout. It'll kill, I tell you. Kill!)

Well, before he left me frigid and alone, ALF left me with a lot of lessons about life, and now, on National Lollipop Day 2010, I will share some of those lessons with you. Other lessons - not now. Not yet. But some lessons, from me to you, are as follows.

1) First and foremost: You can walk around with a distractingly wanglike phallus snout and never even get called out on it if you come equipped with biting sarcasm and a winning smile. Before ALF came along, proboscis-donged Gonzo, the Snorks (well, more phallus-headed, but phallied, nonetheless), and old Schlongy McSchnozerson Q-Bert just walked along, morning wood, afternoon wood, and evening wood on their countenances like it was nobody's (or everybody's) business. And, boy howdy, if that isn't all you could see looking into those animated faces: johnsons akimbo. Well, besides being glaringly rod-faced, what else do we really know about Gonzo, the Snorks, and Q to the Bert? Nada. Maybe if they coulda brought it Shumway style, we woulda looked past their little chubby -um - cheeks. But, no. They couldn't, and we didn't. But ALF? Barely noticed the oldsniffer, phallically speaking.


2) Speaking of all things phallic, apparently the patriarch of the Tanner family (appropriately named) Willie was a total peen in real life. Supposedly Max Wright was completely jealous (duh) of ALF being the hilarious stud of the sitcom (obviously). My BFF Wikipedia tells me that after the final take of the beloved classic sitcom: "there was one take and Max walked off the set, went to his dressing room, got his bags, went to his car and disappeared. [...] There were no goodbyes." Sweet. But what lesson did I learn from this, you ask? Well, I thought this was abundantly clear, but, if I need to spell it out for you: sometimes, a wonderful, loving and patently uninteresting in appearance sitcom dad who always has either an appropriately stern glance or a fittingly warm hug on the ready is actually a real life a-hole. Apparently sometimes books with really boring covers do actually suck in real life. Lesson learned.

3) Lesson Numero Tres: Throw in some Jim J. Bullock to the equation, hilarity ensues. Which brings me to my next point: Where in the hell is Jim J. Bullock? I only throw it out there because I realize it's the elephant in the room that you've been wondering about all these years, too. As Monroe Ficus in Too Close For Comfort, he was the glue that held the show together. When Jim J. joined the ALF cast in Season 4 as Big Willie's lonely brother Neal, the comic chemistry between Bullock and Shumway was instant classic television. So where in God's name is Jim J. Bullock? Just curious.

4) Today's fourth and final lesson still stings. I practically know why the caged bird sings. For, through ALF, I came to realize that there are no happy endings. Case in point? The series finale. Yeah. When last we saw ALF in 1990's Season 4, Episode 24, Consider Me Gone, ALF was on his way to a glorious, long-awaited reunion with his fellow Melmacians ready to pick him up and take him to Alien Life Form Utopia on a new planet. Well, not so fast, my friends, for, in an allegorical life lesson that still spreads chillbumps over every inch of my epidermis, ALF is captured by the United States military's Alien Task Force. Will they expose him to the world? We are left to believe that they will. Will ALF ever join his friends and loved ones who also managed to escape the nuclear explosion that destroyed his home planet, Melmac? We are left to believe that he will not. This was supposed to be a season cliffhanger. Instead, ALF was cancelled. Millions of hearts wept, dreams shattered. Sure, ALF made a few appearances on Hollywood Squares years later, and yes, he had a seven episode hosting gig opposite Ed McMahon on the channel formerly known as Nick at Nite. And, okay, in 1996 NBC tried to kiss my ass with some Whatever Happened to ALF very special special. (Didn't watch it. Too little, too late, Warren Littlefield!) But, I'll never forget that when I was eleven, I was left to think that poor ALF's body was being alien-autopsied by our government, just so he could end up in one of those creepy Time Life Mysteries of the Unknown commercials that kept me up all night. (Oh my Good God - do you remember these?) I shed many a tear for our Gordon Shumway. Many a tear, indeed.




These lessons have at times helped me through some serious rough patches in life and at other times shat all over my bitter soul. That is both here and there. I hope that you can take these lessons and use them as you may. From me and (I like to presume) from Gordon Shumway: Namaste.