Four days in and this is the first day of HelleVision that I switched up episodes after starting one. I’d already had my heart set on watching the American treasure that is “Perfect Strangers” and I had two to choose from.
I made it about 90 seconds into “Fright Night” from Season 7, but Larry and Balki already got the girls and they all moved into that house together. The show just wasn’t the same then, so I went back to 1988, for a Halloween themed episode titled, Aliens.
I loved this show when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure Balki Bartokomous was a comic genius. I’m pretty sure I watched every episode as a kid, and probably watched this one considering I didn’t do much else on a Friday night back when I was 12.
Come to think of it, I still don’t.
It’s Halloween in Chicago and Cousin Larry is excited for he and Balki’s Halloween Party and the Horror Movie Marathon they’re all going to watch! The thing is, nobody (not even Urkel’s next door neighbor Mrs. Winslow) wants to come watch scary movies, so Balki and Larry are just going to have to watch them alone with their girlfriends.
Their “way too hot to be with these guys” girlfriends.
As you’d probably guess, the ladies AND Balki are not having the same fun as Larry, and after a while he ends up watching these movies by himself.
Balki said, these movies show bad people doing bad things and they put bad thoughts in your head. Maybe Larry should have listened.
The next day Larry saw Balki shoot lazers from his hand, magically pour milk from across the kitchen, use the force to slide his coffee cup over to him – oh and walk through a door.
Typical TGIF in the 80s.
Everybody at work says it’s probably from the weird movies Larry watched – but then they walked through doors too. Larry thinks he must be going crazy from those darn movies so he decides to read the paper to relax. That didnt’ work.
Wait, Balki’s home country of Mypos is actually his home PLANET? Larry confronts Balki on this, and he doesn’t deny it. No, instead he uses his magical alien power to try to brainwash Larry into wanting to return to Mypos with him.
It didn’t quite stick, so Larry had to ask him – why was Mypos doing this? Why were they talking over Earth?
The answer of course was because, horror movies turned the people of Mypos mad, and now they were taking over Earth “just for kicks” (that is literally what he said while he started flying around the office).
Larry raced home to warn Jennifer – but noticed she was wearing a vest. It was too late.
She was wearing a vest. Balki has already converted her into a Mypiote. It was at this point that I realize his co-workers were wearing vests too. They made a joke about them looking different, but I made zero connection that it was due to the vest. This was 1988, I thought they were just in style.
Nope, it turns out Balki has turned EVERYBODY around Larry into a pod person by putting on a Balki vest. Luckily as he was trying to get away – we discover – oh thank God it was all a dream.
Balki wakes up Larry, Larry realizes that all those horror movies caused his nightmares. It’s at this time, the slow “this is a learning moment” music was playing. He realizes he was just trying to prove something to himself ever since his parents took him out of Fantasia crying (I am not making that up) and next year – they’ll just pass out candy to the kids and NO movies.
DID I LAUGH?
Yes, I actually did laugh when Balki told Larry to just “put on the vest” so he could also become a pod person. I liked that all the other pod people called him “Cousin” and said “Don’t be ridiculous.
WERE YOU SCARED?
No, not for a moment.
