#16/17: Try to Remember (Parts 1 & 2)

[Admin]

Production #1023A/1023B - 9 Feb 87

After a strong electric shock leaves ALF with amnesia, he thinks he's an insurance agent named Wayne Schlegal, and the family tries to refresh his memory by recalling recent events in his life.

Written By: Howard and Bob Bendetson, Donald Todd, and Laurie Gelman
Directed By: Tom Patchett

Guest Cast: Judy Landers (Brenda)

Title: The title is derived from a Tom Jones song with the same name.

[ALFsince86]

In the old days when the writers went on strike they didn't show a rerun, they made flash-back episodes. This isn't bad, but I think it was too early in the series for something like this. However, for the people that were just coming to the series--having missed the last fifteen episodes--it was a great way for them to play catch up.

[Jessica]

I like the episode. It was still season one so it was a little early, but I still think it's really good.

[Mystiness EX]

I agree that it was early, but even for a flashback episode this one had many new jokes which were effective. I like the creative way they portrayed a flashback episode.

[ALFicionado]

I agree that it's an original way to do this kind of an episode. I also agree that it was a bit early in the season to make this episode. Not early for the series, since a lot of these clip shows were done once per season in the 80's. They should have made this episode as the season finale, or possibly the episode before the finale to give a more satisfactory episode as the last for the season.

It does have some new, funny jokes and has that going for it. Love the way ALF laughs when he thinks he's Wayne Schlegel I give this episode a strong 3-star rating. Probably my least favorite of the season for obvious reasons, but not bad at all.

[NoProblem86]

First of all, there is no #16/#17: Try to Remember (Parts 1 & 2). It aired as #16: Try to Remember, special one-hour episode.

I was almost 14 when I first saw this episode on February 9, 1987. I remember, even then, that it seemed premature to compile a clips episode so early in a freshman season. In retrospect, I realized that NBC knew they had a hit on their hands and used the episode to reintroduce new viewers to the previous episodes they had missed. A brilliant stroke of both marketing and cost-savings. And Wayne Schleigel, Michigan Life & Casualty was very very funny.

I was lucky enough to record the original airing, complete with ALF getting zapped. However, I was not home and set the timer on the VCR to record, so I ended up with commercials. Stupid me decided to re-record the summer rerun over the original February airing to eliminate the commercials. Then, to my horror, I heard ALF fall instead of getting electrocuted, and I knew something was different. Then I saw Anne Scheeden overdub her lines to say ALF fell instead and getting shocked and quickly hit "STOP" on the VCR.

Luckily, I did not lose any more of the original broadcast. All I am missing is the original ZAP in the cold open. Everything else is original, including ALF's public service announcement at the end of the show saying "we had fun tonight" and advising the audience to never mix water and electricity. I copied this onto DVD, but would love to have a copy of the original cold open if anyone has it.

[samstokes80]

Yeah, I have seen it somewhere before. I think I found it on YouTube. I captured an image from it for the Wiki:
http://alf.wikia.com/wiki/Try_to_Remember_(Part_1)

I will check a little bit later tonight and see if I can locate it again.

[samstokes80]

Found it - http://youtu.be/l-BWxlMg7lk

[NoProblem86]

Thanx, it was great to see the original opening again. Watching the episode in its entirely, one could view it as the end of the old deep-voiced ALF, which Fusco said was hard on his throat. It is a great retrospective of the best early stuff.

[ilovealf88]

Has anybody noticed that ALF's lines seem to re-dubbed in some clips shown in this episode? I think it was because Paul changed his voice between the earlier episodes and this episode.

[starryalffan]

I noticed a voice change too.

[ALFer86]

Rewatching ALF recently when I noticed some of the "memories" shown when they are trying to get ALF to remember are actually clips from episodes that air after this one. Scenes from It Isn't Easy...Bein' Green (let me know when this gets irritating) and La Cucaracha (slime ball) are in there.

Anyone know if it was that was in the original airing? Watching the Region 2 DVDs here, grew up on VHS copies.

[Anthon88]

Yes! This was driving me nuts today. I grew up watching Alf on vhs from recordings my grandfather saved. I’ve rewatched the series multiple times since online, on dvd’s, etc and it always irritates me that they cut little things out that only original fans recognize.

I’ve been rewatching it again with my girlfriend because she has never seen it and we watched this episode today. During some of the flashbacks she was like, “I don’t remember this” and I thought to myself, did we skip episodes or something? Turns out, they were showing clips that never happened yet. If this is how it originally ran it’s quite strange they didn’t pick up on it.

I realize this is an old thread, but I had to comment because I thought I was going nuts lol.

[Adeline McQuack]

Finally! A real poster! Welcome to the forum!

I believe the reason that the memories in the episode haven't happened in the series yet is because of production order. However, looking at the production code numbers, it appears that "Try To Remember" was 23rd in production order, while "La Cucaracha" (one of the memories) was 25th. It was likely added in during post production, since I don't believe there's any dialogue in the episode regarding the specific memory.

Interestingly, "It Isn't Easy Bein' Green" was 7th in production order but didn't air until after this episode. It's really weird, since the ALF we see in the episode is the earlier, more gruff version. I'm not sure why this early episode didn't air until the later portion of the season. Just imagine watching this series for the first time, and once you've gotten used to ALF's permanent voice, you all of a sudden have a single episode with his deep, gruff voice. It would be really confusing.

[Anthon88]

Thanks for the welcome and the response! Yeah, that is very strange how that happened. I wasn’t born when it first aired so I don’t know how it went down originally. I always loved that episode but now that I’m older I did wonder why they made a flash back episode halfway through the first season. I read there was a writers strike and instead of airing reruns they did the flash back to try and get new viewers. Not sure if that’s true or not.

[Calmly Taken Flame]

Welcome new poster ! Thanks for making a proper thread !

Aren`t a lot of US comedies contracted to make clips shows ? I`m sure I heard that was the case over there, and they HAD to do one.

There was an episode of Family Guy, and right at the start something happens, and then Stewie says "Oh great, we`re doing a clips show"

And a few days ago, I was binge watching Scrubs, and they had a clip show, and I`m sure they commented before it started something
about it being time for a clips show, and joking about how they had to do one, and apologising.

I cannot recall a single UK show that has ever done a clips show, they might exist, but they would be really, really rare.

But then most UK comedies only run for around 6-12 episodes per season, or series as we call them.

[Calmly Taken Flame]

Mentioned in another thread, how I`ve just finished rewatching Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and that also had a clips show.

Think it was halfway through series 1, but this was from 1980, so it`s been going on in shows a long time !

But back then we had to wait a week for each show, binge watching something wasn`t possible, so it made more sense to have a recap of things.

Edited to add - 2 posters from Sweden in this thread, hope the new posters notices !