On the quiet desperation of Willie Tanner.
By Erik Hagen • Sep 30th, 2008 • Category: General Sod, Obscure, TV
Here’s the way the Internets usually work. An amusing video will pop up on YouTube, which will then be linked to on numerous blogs and other websites. At this time, I will remain blissfully unaware, as I am usually thinking about something else at the time, usually television. Then, several months later, I will see said video for the first time, become excited to an incredibly high degree, and then post the video to my blog under the assumption that I have just discovered something exciting and new.
Which brings us to today, and this video of ALF bloopers I just discovered.
Here, in no particular order, is my thoughts on what we have just witnessed.
- Notice, if you will, the growing desperation of Willie Tanner in each of his scenes, particularly at one point where he deludes himself into believing that if he rubs his tear glands off of his eyes, he can finally forever stop crying. No more tears. If only.
- ALF is an unbearable prick to work with. If Hugh Laurie was to ever try to put a castmate’s hands on his genitals or put his head up their skirt to “talk to the baby,” they probably wouldn’t put it on the House blooper reel. But Hugh Laurie isn’t exactly a puppet, so I guess it’s all good.
- I’m writing about ALF bloopers. This might qualify as one of the low points of my life.
- Cats are surprisingly tolerant of all kinds of behavior on the ALF set, up to and including being smushed in between two slices of bread and having their heads shoved into the mouth of a large hand puppet. This is because, just like everyone on the set, the cats on ALF have given up on life.
- Would it surprise you all that much to hear that the head writer of ALF was a huge heroin addict? It shouldn’t.
- The only way this video could possibly be any more surreal is if it was in Spanish. So…
- They don’t show the young kid (I don’t remember his name. Brian? I want to say Brian.) all that often, but from what little you do see of him, I wouldn’t be that surprised to find out he grew up to be a serial killer.
- I remember, as a child, noticing that the Tanners on ALF shared the same last night as the Tanner family on Full House and wondering if the two families were related. Looking back at that now, I realize that I was an exceptionally stupid child.
- Seriously, are these not the most miserable human beings you’ve ever seen in your life? How do none of these clips end with someone desperately trying to shove a handful of aspirin down their mouth?
On that last note, I have actually spent the last ten years of my life or so believing that the actor who played Willie Tanner killed himself, but looking at his Wikipedia page, it would appear that I was mistaken. Perhaps I’m thinking of someone else. Dave Coulier, maybe?
Erik Hagen is comprised of equal parts X and Y chromosomes, snips, snails, puppy dog tails, and a whole lot of water. He was born into this world covered in blood, naked, and slightly hysterical. Very little has changed since.
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I’m guilty of being behind the times, my first Rick Rolling was last year, one of my friends nailed me with it. You think seven months is bad? I only went to 4chan itself for the first time last week.
I didn’t last 5 minutes in /b/ before my eyes burned out their sockets and I woke up in the street a week later with a traffic cone up my ass
Would it be terribly wrong to admit that I used to watch this show for a while when it was first on the air? My wife couldn’t stand the show, so I often ended up watching it by myself. She (my wife) just had more sense than I but eventually I stopped watching the show, too. But as obnoxious as ALF is, he still cracks me up.
Who the heck is Willie Tanner? That’s the first thought that went to my head followed by Hey! It’s Rachel’s boss at Central Perk! Is it him? I’m 90% sure it’s him.
Yeah, Alf was a favorite show for the family back then and I hate to admit that I loved it but I was like 10 then.
FYI I’m pretty sure I saw Dave Coulier on the Bob Saget Roast…
That’s what Dave Coulier wants you to think.
Wouldn’t him wanting something indicate that he’s alive?
And I should clarify that I didn’t watch the entire Roast of Bob Saget…
Let’s just say that Dave Coulier is an omnipotent being who resides somewhere in between our world and the spiritual world and leave it at that. And if you didn’t see the entire roast, did you at least see Norm McDonald? That guy’s pretty weird.
yea, poor Norm… he used to be pretty damn cool… Maybe he needs a blog memorial.
I have not seen anything Alf for many years. When you really think about it was really a very sick show. I think that it was funny and can be amusing but I do not think it will make it rounds back in these times unless something really changes.
I did my level best to avoid ALF and I have to say I was quite successful in doing so. That is until today. You just took a big hairy puppet alien and shoved it down my throat. I have to admit it fit really well and didn’t taste as bad as I thought it would, but could you please not do that again. Thanks.
Oops its usual boredom. I do not even care a shit to see it. It needs some changes man. The usual boredom flop shows again and again taking our lives out.
Interesting that this picture stemmed all of your comments along with thinking about Alf, and then thinking of the family that took them in and remembering the name of the father character. Was there a kid on this show? I do not remember much only the name.
Ha! I always had a soft spot for ALF; it wasn’t the funniest show on TV (that prize goes to either the BBC’s version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or The Simpsons), but it was more amusing than The Golden Girls, that’s for sure (Betty White notwithstanding).
About Max Wright (Willie Tanner), I always thought that (a) his wife was way too hot for him, in a house-wifey sort of way, and that (b) he had co-starred in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation as an alien of some sort. I still think that about the wife, just like the wife in that Jim Belushi show…you know…the blonde babe from Melrose Place…Courtney Thorne Smith or something…was too hot for him. But Max was never in Star Trek: The Next Generation, which kind of sucks…dashed illusions of TV irony.
I have the same feeling also. Many times I have seen the same videos which have been used by different blogs and sites. But you are absolutely right, it is the way the internet usually work. And sometimes I think that there are many races on the spot or races to the same directions. It is the result of the abundance of the information in the Internet.