B.A.L.F. Is America’s New Buddy Alien Life-Form

Jaimie Warren is a perennial VICE favorite. We published her first image in 2004, alongside a story called “An Ode to the Fat Friend,” and her work has been featured in almost every VICE photo issue since. In 2008, Aperture published a monograph of her work as part of their series Tiny Vices, curated by former VICE photo editor Tim Barber. Last month, Warren’s second solo exhibition in New York opened at the Hole Gallery to rave reviews. What can we say—we’re proud of her.

So it is with particular enthusiasm that we present B.A.L.F., a twisted variety show starring Jaimie Warren and directed by Marthin Rouche. Created by Warren and Rouche along with Lee Heinemann and Erin Zona, the program was inspired in part by the 1980’s TV show Alf, but it patches together a lot of different, uniquely bizarre vignettes. These include a re-staging of the video for Lionel Richie’s “Hello,” a rendition of a weird scene from the movie Beaches, and a lot of other stuff that’s too freaky and sublime to put into words. “We started thinking about all the terrible things Alf does to the family in that show,” director Rouche told us, “and we realized that without the campy theme music, it would all seem very weird.”

What happens when a wild and woolly lady from a distant world crashes into the lives of a typical suburban family? The results are mixed. Ripped from the headlines, it’s B.A.L.F.