Permanent Midnight by Jerry Stahl

[ALFIsMyIdol]

Anyone read this ? What are your thoughts on the ALF part ?

I read it some years ago and was a little surprised about Jerry's response to ALF specially because he wrote one of my favorite episodes "La Cuckaracha". Still It was a fascinating read.

[ALFicionado]

Haven't read it, but have seen the movie some time ago.

[samstokes80]

I need to put that on my to-read list. I keep hearing about it, but have never read it.

[Bring Back ALF]

Haven't read it but always been curious to watch the movie.

[samstokes80]

I just checked out the book from the library. I'll give my review here when I'm done.

[samstokes80]

Ok, I'll have to admit to having giving up on this one. I read the first fifty pages, and it seemed to be a stream of anecdotes about drug abuse, sex, and writing pornography. It wasn't a matter of finding it offensive, after all truth is truth, but I didn't really feel like reading another 300 pages of it. So I skipped to the parts where he mentions writing for ALF, which wasn't very much.

As far as his scathing opinions about writing for TV, I think they have to be taken with a grain of salt, as he comes right out saying that he is self-loathing in the introduction of the book, so it seemed that he didn't love much of anything and felt that everything he did was worthless.

Regardless of his opinion, the cockroach episode is definitely among a lot of peoples' favorites. It's interesting, though, to see just what kind of mental state he was in when he was writing it.

[Blinky]

just looking at jerry stahl over at IMDB, and it says he actually wrote three episodes for the ALF series.

– Mind Games (1989) (written by)
– La Cuckaracha (1987) (written by)
– Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue? (1986) (written by)

those were also good episodes. 'Mind Games' is one i have always liked.

so it seemed that he didn't love much of anything and felt that everything he did was worthless.

i agree, after reading some pages of his book i can see what you mean..

"Creativity is the opposite of TV" -Jerry Stahl