ALF Pays Tribute to Chaplin!, And some other observations

Does anyone remember the TV show ALF? I used to love that show when I was a kid and I got season 3 of it on DVD for Christmas. Today I just started going through a couple of the episodes and to my surprise, there was an episode where ALF watches some old silent films and is inspired to write his own silent movie. Most of the episode is ALF imagining him and the people he knows as characters in a City Lights/Gold Rush type movie. ALF's character is The Little Scamp, the dad on the show is the police officer, the mother is the Grandmother character from City Lights, the daughter is the blind flower girl from City Lights, and the son is the mother's other kid who can't walk. The Little Scamp tries to pay for surgeries for the daughter and the son, and of course, gets into trouble in the process. There are also a few references to the shoe eating scene from The Gold Rush. It was all a really cute tribute to Chaplin's work. Best of all, that's how most of the episode was, it wasn't just like a five-minute fantasy sequence. I don't remember ever seeing that episode before, so it was a nice surprise to find that on the first disc. If anyone gets a chance to check out that episode, be sure to do it!

And on another note, does anyone else find it interesting that there are more language options on the Chaplin Collection DVD's than most DVD's of more modern movies? I was checking out the bonus features on my new DVD's of Modern Times and The Circus when it hit me just how much effort they put into making those DVD's have a global appeal. I also like how the directors they got to talk about Chaplin's influence in the Chaplin Today features aren't American. At least they aren't in the ones I've seen, I haven't seen them all yet. I'm sure they could have easily gotten someone like Spielberg to talk about Chaplin's influence on his work, but I love that the producers were willing to look outside of the American film industry for the series. It really shows just how far and wide his influence reaches.

Oh my gosh, yes I remember that ALF episode! That was before I was a fan but was more a "yeah, Chaplin's okay" phase. Doesn't ALF narrate the episode, a la '42 version of Gold Rush? I can hear his voice saying "And the Little Scamp...".

And about the Chaplin Today films, yes all the directors are non-American...ummm, I think... there might have been one, but it's been awhile since I've seen the segments. But yes, there's the two French directors, the African director...some other European diectors...

Oh and be sure to watch the documentary, "For the First Time" in the Documents section on disc 2 for Modern Times. It's about a small group of guys who show Modern Times to small rural Cuban villages, many who have never seen a movie before. Another great example of Charlie's international appeal.

Calvero

Can someone put this onto YouTube!?

I was thinking the same.

The main reason the commentators on the Chaplin Today featurettes are non-American is because MK2 is a European company. The entire collection is very European in design - which I absolutely love. It's a nice break from the overreaching Hollywood versions of DVDs sometimes. That's my guess as to why they interview those people instead of the American directors. It was probably easier for them location wise as well not to cross the Atlantic.

Chaplin's base is now located in Europe as well. The remnants of Chaplin's Hollywood seems to be left for tourists now that he took everything to Europe when he left the United States. The only working Chaplin contribution still here is United Artists and Warner Bros. which is a distribution partner with MK2.

That's what I figured, and I completely agree! But even for a European company, it'd still be easy to get a prominent American director just because the American film industry is the largest in the world. Overall, it's a great series to be part of a great series of DVD's. I always thought they were great, but I appreciate them more now that I've taken a DVD production class and now I understand just how much work they put into those. Believe me, those couldn't have been easy to produce.

Yes he does! In the episode, he's describing the story to someone else who is typing it up for him.