Herman by Jim Unger for December 10, 2018

" If I could talk to the animals…".

Cue the dog asking “Sprechen sie Deutsch?”

You need a universal translator, like Star Trek.

Earth will be conquered.

All dogs say the same thing: Feed me.

The U.T. must be malfunctioning … all he says is “rub my belly.”

Well at least they appear to be friendly.

This exposes the national-egocentric plotting at the heart of so many science fiction films, when the aliens land, and announce “We have studied your language” we like to assume that they were as focused on the US as the US is. Surely they only studied English!! And not always completely. In TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE, the human looking aliens are almost completely fluent, but they still say stuff like “man of science” for scientist, and “man of medicine” for doctor. Just to remind the audience that they still think like ‘aliens.’

“Ruh-roh.”

I can only assume that in Unger’s world the aliens are products of an idiocracy.