The series stars Max Wright as father Willie Tanner, Anne Schedeen as mother Kate Tanner, and Andrea Elson and Benji Gregory as their children, Lynn and Brian Tanner. The character of ALF was portrayed by a live-hand puppet operated primarily by Fusco.
Premise
ALF (Paul Fusco) follows an amateur radio signal to Earth and crash-lands into the garage of the Tanners. The Tanners are a suburban middle class family in Los Angeles, California. The family consists of social worker Willie (Max Wright), his wife Kate (Anne Schedeen), their teenage daughter Lynn (Andrea Elson), younger son Brian (Benji Gregory), and their cat Lucky.
Unsure what to do, the Tanners take ALF into their home and hide him from the Alien Task Force (a part of the U.S. military) and their nosy neighbors Trevor and Raquel Ochmonek (John LaMotta and Liz Sheridan), until he can repair his spacecraft. He generally hides in the kitchen. It is eventually revealed that ALF's home planet, Melmac, exploded because of a catastrophe involving nuclear war. In episode four of season one ALF tries to convince the president of the USA to stop the nuclear program as ALF is afraid that Earth might suffer a doom similar to Melmac's. ALF was off the planet because he was part of the Melmac Orbit Guard. ALF (a.k.a. Gordon Shumway) is homeless, but he isn't the last survivor of his species. He becomes a permanent member of the family, although his culture shock, survivor guilt, general boredom, despair, and loneliness frequently cause difficulty for the Tanners.
While most of the science fiction of ALF was played for comedic value, there were a few references to actual topics in space exploration, for example ALF's using a radio signal as a beacon in the pilot episode. In the episode "Weird Science", ALF told Brian, who was building a model of the solar system for his science project, that there were two planets beyond Pluto called "Dave" and "Alvin", which gets Brian in trouble at school. However, after Willie makes a call to an astronomical organization, he explains to Brian and ALF that "Dave" could have been the planetoid Chiron, or "Object Kowal", after its discoverer.
The original series spans over four seasons and 102 episodes (each episode's name is also the name of a song relevant to the episode's plot), in which ALF learns about Earth culture and makes new friends both within and without the Tanner family, including Willie's brother Neal (Jim J. Bullock), Kate's mother Dorothy (Anne Meara) (with whom ALF has a love-hate relationship — he refers to her as the Wicked Witch of the West or the Witch of Endor, and she in turn threatens to either make ALF a rug or chauffeur him to an Army base), her boyfriend (later husband) Whizzer (Paul Dooley), the Ochmoneks' nephew Jake, a psychologist named Larry (Bill Daily), and a blind woman named Jody (Andrea Covell) (who never quite figures out that ALF isn't human, though she is aware through touch that he is short and very hairy). Changes pass within the Tanner household over the course of the series, including the birth of a new child, Eric (the reason for adding a baby in the series being that Anne Schedeen was pregnant at the time); ALF's move from his initial quarters in the laundry room to the attic, which he and Willie converted into an "apartment", and the death of Lucky the cat; in the final instance, ALF finds that, despite his occasional attempts to catch Lucky with the intention of making the cat a meal, he has come to love and respect the family pet too much to do anything untoward with Lucky's remains, although he admits to the Tanners he has become the worst kind of Melmacian, a "cat lover".
In the series finale, ALF is about to be rescued by other survivors of his home planet, but is instead captured by the American military, and the viewer is left to ponder ALF's ultimate fate. This was not supposed to be the finale, as the original airing ended on a "To Be Continued" note. The producers supposedly had a verbal agreement with NBC to get at least one more episode to resolve the cliffhanger. NBC never made good on the deal, and the series was cancelled. However, the story was concluded in the TV-movie Project ALF.
ALF character
Gordon Shumway is an alien, nicknamed ALF (for Alien Life Form) by William Tanner in the pilot episode. ALF was born on October 28, 1756 on the Lower East Side of the planet Melmac, though he mentions that his birthday is in August in Episode 7 ("Help Me Rhonda"). Melmac was located six parsecs past the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster and had a green sky, blue grass and a purple sun. The commonly-used currency is a "Wernick" (named after producer Sandy Wernick) which is equal to ten Earth dollars, and the substance we call lint is as precious on Melmac as gold is on Earth (whereas gold and platinum are so common that they're used in place of porcelain to make toilets and sinks, as seen in the episode where ALF sells the gold and platinum plumbing in his ship to buy a Ferrari for Lynn).
ALF's body is covered with a ginger/rust-colored fur (he once described his color as burnt sienna). He has a rippled snout, facial moles, eight stomachs, his heart is apparently located in his head, and he likes to burp, eat cats, can whistle without opening his mouth and had a best friend on his home planet named Malhar (Kier) Naik. He has a friend named Skip and a girlfriend named Rhonda, both of whom also escaped the explosion. He attended high school for 122 years and was captain of a Bouillabaisseball team (which is played on ice using shellfish as a ball).
ALF has an enormous appetite (eating everything he can get his hands on), he is troublesome, sarcastic, slovenly and cynical, and sometimes he puts himself at the risk of being discovered while doing some of his often unintentional pranks. However, if things have gone too far, he does as much as possible to make up for his mistakes, generally with good results. When Lynn was struggling to earn money to buy a car, ALF sold the (worthless on Melmac) gold plumbing from his spaceship, using the proceeds to buy a Ferrari for her. In one episode, he tried to help Brian to gain confidence during a school show, because he was too afraid to perform, by giving him a "lucky tooth" which ALF claimed helped him be a star of the stage on Melmac. In another occasion, he helped Dorothy to deal with Sparky's death and move on, and accept Whizzer's friendship. After neighbor Raquelle Ochmonek claims to see ALF and gets ridiculed on a TV show for it, ALF calls in to the TV show to defend her. ALF also puts Mrs. Ochmonek at ease by hacking into her TV set and claiming he is in outer space and wanting to thank her for her belief in him (but to leave a pie out as he will return every week, again humorously getting something for his benefit while helping others). He has at least 30 relatives, cousins "Pretty Boy Shumway" and "Blinky," two uncles, Tinkle and Goomer, a Grandma Shumway, a brother Curtis, parents Bob and Flo Shumway, aunts Bubba, Wagner, and Eugene. During a bout of amnesia, he believed he was an insurance salesman named Wayne Schlegel. ALF also becomes addicted to seeing reruns of Gilligan's Island. In the TV Movie "Project ALF" the movie teaser tells that ALF has become so adept at poker with his guards that he has enough possessions to fill an aircraft hangar.
Cast
- Max Wright – Willie Tanner
- Anne Schedeen – Kate Tanner
- Andrea Elson – Lynn Tanner
- Benji Gregory – Brian Tanner
- John LaMotta – Trevor Ochmonek
- Liz Sheridan – Raquel Ochmonek
- Josh Blake – Jake Ochmonek (Seasons 2–4)
- Jim J. Bullock – Neal Tanner (Season 4)
- Paul Fusco – ALF principal puppeteer/voice
- Lisa Buckley – ALF assistant/puppeteer
- Bob Fappiano – ALF assistant/puppeteer
Paul Fusco operated the ALF puppet and supplied ALF's voice. Michu Meszaros stood in for the ALF puppet when full bodied shots were needed by wearing an ALF costume, although this idea was ditched in later seasons.
Notable Guest Starring Cast
- Bill Daily – Dr. Larry Dykstra
- Anne Meara – Dorothy Halligan Deaver
- Paul Dooley – Whizzer Deaver
- Dan Castellaneta – Steve Michaels
Production
The production of ALF was technically difficult and demanding. All four lead actors – Max Wright (Willie Tanner), Anne Schedeen (Kate Tanner), Andrea Elson (Lynn Tanner) and Ben Hertzberg, also known as Benji Gregory (Brian Tanner) – have conceded a high level of tension on the set.[1]
Max Wright stated that he despised supporting a technically demanding inanimate object that received most of the good lines of dialog. He admits to being "hugely eager to have ALF over with".[1] Anne Schedeen said that on the last night of taping ALF "there was one take and Max walked off the set, went to his dressing room, got his bags, went to his car and disappeared. [...] There were no goodbyes." Schedeen herself said "there was no joy on the set [...] it was a technical nightmare – extremely slow, hot and tedious. [...] A 30-minute show took 20, 25 hours to shoot." While fond of her on screen children, Schedeen said some adults had "difficult personalities. The whole thing was a big dysfunctional family". Schedeen added, "It's astonishing that ALF really was wonderful and that word never got out what a mess our set really was".[1] Elson, who suffered from bulimia during the second season of shooting, stated, "If ALF had gone one more year, everybody would have lost it".[1] Wright would eventually reflect more kindly on ALF, saying in June 2006, "It doesn't matter what I felt or what the days were like, ALF brought people a lot of joy".[1]
Fusco was secretive about his character up until the series premiere. During the show's production, Fusco refused to acknowledge that the puppet ALF was anything other than an alien. All involved with the production were cautioned not to give away any of ALF's secrets.
Cast interviews since the show ended have revealed a few details about making the series: To make room for the puppeteers, the entire set was built on a raised platform with dozens of trapdoors in the floor. The trapdoors had to be reset multiple times, sometimes during a single scene, forcing them to shoot each episode over the course of several hours and without a studio audience.
Paul Fusco was the principal puppeteer. He used one hand to control ALF's mouth leaving the other free to control one of the puppet's arms. A second puppeteer, Lisa Buckley, accompanied Paul under the stage and operated the other arm. Together with a third person (Bob Fappiano), who controlled ALF's facial and ear movements via an RC controller offstage, they worked in concert to make ALF's movements fluid and believable. During tapings Paul would wear a "halo" which was used to record his voice for the ALF character. All of this made for a painstaking process and there were countless mistakes and retakes.
To avoid wear-and-tear on the principal ALF puppet, the performers rehearsed with a battered, early version of ALF. They nicknamed him "Ralph".[citation needed] Often during rehearsals, Fusco would substitute his hand for the puppet.
In an interview on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Tina Fey said that her biggest frustration as producer of NBC's 75th anniversary special was dealing with ALF's "people". Fey said Fusco would only allow ALF to appear on the show if the puppeteers were completely hidden from everyone else, even the studio audience. After his cameo (as an audience member), ALF disappeared through a hole in the riser, was stuffed into a case and immediately hustled out of the building.
While a puppet was usually used for ALF, there were some shots of the tiny alien running or walking around. This was accomplished by actor Michu Meszaros wearing an ALF costume. This can be seen in one of the series' intros, which concludes with the Tanner family getting their picture taken; ALF, played by Michu, walks over to be part of the photo.
Fusco also co-produced the series with Tom Patchett. Patchett also co-created, wrote, and directed the series. The series was produced by Alien Productions and was first syndicated by Warner Bros. Television and Lorimar-Telepictures. The North American syndication rights are currently owned by Debmar-Mercury due to its parent company Lionsgate now owning home video rights.
Spin-offs
Animated series
To capitalize on the success of the series, a spin-off animated series arose and aired on Saturday mornings on NBC. ALF: The Animated Series, set on ALF's home planet of Melmac, ran from 1987 to 1988 and was produced by DIC Entertainment. The series was a prequel series, set on Melmac before the planet exploded. The show focused on ALF, his family, his friends, and girlfriend Rhonda and their various exploits. Each episode was bookended by a live-action sequence involving ALF talking to the television viewers, setting up the episode.
When the cartoon entered its second season, it was paired in a one-hour block with its own spin-off ALF Tales, which took Gordon and the cast of characters from season one and recast them as characters from assorted classic fairy tales.
Select episodes of both shows are included as special features on the ALF: Season 2 DVD as well as the cartoon specific releases ALF Animated Adventures – 20,000 Years in Driving School and Other Stories and ALF and The Beanstalk and Other Classic Fairy Tales.
Marvel Comics
An ALF comic book was published by Marvel Comics' Star Comics imprint beginning in 1987 and ran for four years, totaling 50 issues and nearly a dozen specials.
The comic loosely followed the continuity of the television show (though it featured alternate takes on certain episodes, like the birth of Eric Tanner) and featured numerous parodies of Marvel Comics characters and other pop-culture parodies in the form of "Melmac Flashbacks". It was the first instance to feature ALF's natural family in a reverse scenario where Willie Tanner is an astronaut who crashes his spaceship into ALF's garage on Melmac, and the Shumway family works to protect Willie from hostile Melmacians.
TV movie
In 1996, a 90-minute television movie, named Project ALF, was aired on ABC. This movie picked up six years after the events of the TV series with ALF in government custody and focuses on a scientist and military police officer who break ALF out of government custody. It did not feature any of the Tanner family, but they were briefly referenced in the movie.
ALF's Hit Talk Show
In 2004, ALF's Hit Talk Show debuted on U.S cable channel TV Land with ALF playing a Johnny Carson-type TV talk host and co-starring Ed McMahon as his side-kick. Guests included Drew Carey, Tom Green, and Merv Griffin. It ran for 7 episodes.
Other media
Guest appearances and references
As a result of the show's success ALF has made guest appearances on a number of television programs, such as Matlock, Blossom, The Love Boat: The Next Wave, and Hollywood Squares. The animated version of ALF also made an appearance in the "all-star" animated drug prevention television special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue in 1990. ALF appeared in a series of commercials for the 10-10-220 telephone service with former Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw and wrestling legend Hulk Hogan. ALF's last appearance, to date, was in November 2007 when he appeared as "TV Icon of the Week" on The O'Reilly Factor.
The character has also been referenced in the media numerous times over the years, being a pop culture icon. Most notably this has been in The Simpsons and the 2009 Eminem music video "We Made You", which features Eminem wearing an ALF T-shirt. This was done as a spoof of a real family photo which appeared on the Internet at the height of his career picturing himself as a child wearing a pink ALF T-shirt.
Merchandise
Like many shows of its day, ALF also had a trading card series by Topps. Most featured stills from various episodes, but a few cards parodied baseball cards by depicting players of the Melmacian sport "Bouillabaisseball", complete with stats such as "Splats." The yellow bordered first series was released in 1987 with a red bordered second series released in 1988.
At the time that the original TV series was popular, some ALF-related merchandise was sold, including a 1987 22 inches plush produced by Coleco a 1988 calendar with Melmac's planetary holidays, such as Shout at a Shrub Day, prominently marked.
Music
In 1987, Dutch remixer and producer Ben Liebrand made a mix with samples from one of the ALF shows. The song was called Stuck on Earth.[2] During 1988 Burger King ran a promotion called "The Many Faces of ALF" giving away themed ALF puppets and a cardboard record with each kids meal. These records featured original recordings sung by ALF – titled Melmac Girls, Cookin' with ALF, Melmac Rock and Take Me to the Ballgame.
Tommi Piper, the actor who dubbed ALF's voice for German audiences spent twelve weeks in the German pop charts in 1989. The single featured Amélie Sandmann (as the voice of Rhonda) and was called Hallo ALF Hier Ist Rhonda (translated Hello ALF this is Rhonda). He also featured as ALF on various themed mix albums introducing songs by pop artists of the time and other original compositions.
An Alf alarm clock is mentioned about 52 seconds into "Weird Al" Yankovic's " eBay" song. As the song was a radio-only single (from his 2003 album, Poodle Hat), there are no official videos. However, fans have assembled video montages, which show a photograph of the actual alarm clock.
Video Games
There are four video games based on ALF: 1987's ALF for various computer systems, such as the Commodore 64 and the Apple II, 1989's ALF for the Sega Master System and two educational games for IBM compatible computers were released in 1993 called ALF's U.S. Geography and ALF's Thinking Skills.
DVD releases
North America
Lionsgate Home Entertainment has released all four seasons of ALF on DVD in Region 1. All releases contain edited episodes (syndicated versions), although "ALF's Special Christmas" from season two, and "Make 'em Laugh" from season four were unedited. Lions Gate insisted that they had no choice but to use the syndicated episodes as it would be cost prohibitive to clean up the original broadcast versions for release when the edited versions were already available.[3] In addition to using the cheaper, syndicated prints, most music was removed from the episodes, making some episodes up to approximately six minutes shorter than originally aired.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date | Additional Information |
|---|---|---|---|
| Season One | 26 | August 10, 2004 | Contains all 26 episodes from Season
One
|
| Season Two | 26 | August 23, 2005 | Contains all 26 episodes from Season
Two
|
| Season Three | 25 | May 30, 2006 | Contains all 25 episodes from Season Three |
| Season Four | 24 | September 5, 2006 | Contains all 24 episodes from Season
Four
|
Video Service Corp. previously released two other DVDs of ALF. The ALF Files was released exclusively in Canada on November 1, 2002. It contained three episodes, "Tonight, Tonight", "Try to Remember", and "ALF's Special Christmas", but unlike the season sets, these episodes were presented in their full length, unedited versions, although "Try to Remember" was the censored version where ALF's amnesia is caused by him hitting his head rather than getting electrocuted. On September 13, 2005 Project: Alf was released. Both of these DVDs featured optional commentary by creator Paul Fusco with co-creator Tom Patchett joining him on the first release.
Europe
Warner Bros. Home Video released the first season of ALF in Germany on September 4, 2009, and in the Netherlands and France on September 9. The DVDs are in in PAL format, with English language menus. The audio selections available are English (default), French, German and Spanish, with subtitles available in French, Dutch, Spanish, English and German. The episodes span over 4 discs and are all in the 23:30–24:45 minute range, which means these are the complete episodes – not the syndicated versions. One scene where ALF is singing along to a song by Alvin and the Chipmunks had to be removed because of music copyrights, meaning roughly 40 seconds are missing. About 5 seconds of dialogue are removed from the pilot episode in the scene where ALF and Willie are in the bathroom. In "Try to Remember", the cause of ALF's amnesia is changed from an electric shock to slipping and hitting his head, and ALF's "water and electricity don't mix" safety lecture is removed. The second season featured unedited episodes except "Somewhere over the Rerun", where a syndicated print was used.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date | Additional Information |
|---|---|---|---|
| Season One | 26 | September 4, 2009 | Contains all 26 episodes from Season
One
|
| Season Two | 26 | December 11, 2009 | Contains all 26 episodes from Season
Two
|
| Season Three | 25 | April, 2010 | TBA |
| Season Four | 24 | TBA | TBA |
TV stations currently showing ALF
In the United States, ALF airs on WGN America with two back-to-back episodes each Sunday at 6:00 p.m. eastern standard time. In Latin America, the show can be seen on Nick at Nite. It's also shown weekdays in Australia, on both 111 Hits and 7TWO. In Germany, ALF is shown on Tele 5, in Serbia on THIRDROMETV, in Denmark on TV 2 Zulu, and in Bulgaria, on bTV Comedy and Diema. ALF is even dubbed into Japanese and airs as "アルフ" (Arufu) every Monday night at 7:00 p.m. on NHK. The entire series is available on Hulu, where North American viewers can watch it streamed via the Internet.
Awards
In the USA alone, ALF has won numerous awards. In 1987 the show won a People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Comedy Program, in 1988 it won Favorite Show at the Kids' Choice Awards, and at the 1989 awards ALF himself won Favorite TV Actor. Benji Gregory and Andrea Elson were also nominated in various Young Actor categories for their work on ALF at the Young Artist Awards during 1987–1989 with the show also receiving a nomination for Best Family Television Series.[4]