Alf

This article is about the TV show "A.L.F."; for other uses see ALF.

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A.L.F. is the name of a popular TV sitcom series produced by NBC between 1986 and 1990, inspired by and spoofing the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). It first aired September 22, 1986.

Michu Meszaros was the actor within the Alf costume. Paul Fusco operated the Alf puppet, supplied Alf's voice and co-produced the series.

The title character is Gordon Shumway, a little alien nick-named A.L.F. (Alien Life Form). He was born 229 years ago on October 28, 1756 on the Lower East side of the planet Melmac. The planet Melmac was located six parsecs past the Hydra Centauras Super Cluster and had a green sky and blue grass.

Alf's body is covered with orange fur. He has a rippled snout, eight stomachs and likes to eat cats. He attended high school for 122 years and was captain of a Bouillabaiseball team (which is played on ice using shellfish as a ball).

Following a ham radio signal, he crash-landed into the garage of the Tanners, a suburban middle-class family including the social worker Willie (Max Wright), his wife Kate (Anne Schedeen), their children Lynn (Andrea Elson), Brian (Benji Gregory) and Lucky (a cat).

Unsure what to do, the Tanners take ALF into their home and hide him from NASA, the military, and their nosy neighbors until he could repair his spacecraft. He generally hid in the kitchen. It became known that Melmac had exploded, so ALF was without a home. He became a permanent member of the family even though his smart-aleck attitude and frequent mischief-making cause difficulty for the Tanners.

The original series spans over four seasons and 102 episodes. The name of every episode is also a name of a song that is relevant to the episode's plot.

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

Spinoffs

Two spinoff animated series arose. Gordon, set on ALF's home planet of Melmac, ran on Saturday daytime in 1988. A later second series, AlfTales, ran alongside the older cartoon and eventually outlived it. AlfTales took Gordon and his familiar cohorts on Melmac and placed them as characters in classic (Earthly) fairy tales.

In 1996 a 90 minutes TV-movie named Project: ALF was aired on ABC.

At the time that the original TV series was popular, some ALF-related merchandise was sold, including a 1988 calendar with Melmac's planetary holidays (such as Shout at a Shrub Day) prominently marked.

Recently, ALF has been appearing in one of the numerous long-distance dialing plan commercials on American television. Alf has made many appearances on Hollywood Squares, including the current version.

In July 2004, ALF hosted a half-hour talk show, ALF's Hit Talk Show, co-hosted by Ed McMahon, on the TV Land network.