ALF (TV series)

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ALF

ALF
Format Sitcom
Created by Tom Patchett
Paul Fusco
Starring Max Wright
Anne Schedeen
Andrea Elson
Benji Gregory
Country of origin  United States
No. of seasons 4
No. of episodes 102 (List of episodes)
Production
Producer(s) Tom Patchett
Paul Fusco
Running time 24 Minutes
Broadcast
Original channel NBC
Original run September 22, 1986 – March 24, 1990

ALF was an American television sitcom that originally ran on NBC from 1986 to 1990 and was created by Paul Fusco. The title character was Gordon Shumway, a friendly extraterrestrial nicknamed ALF (for Alien Life Form), who crash lands in the garage of the suburban middle class Tanner family. 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.

Contents

[edit] 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 Riverside, 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 Racquel Ochmonek (John LaMotta and Liz Sheridan), until he can repair his spacecraft. He generally hid in the kitchen. It was eventually revealed that ALF's home planet, Melmac, exploded because of a catastrophe involving nuclear bombs. In episode four of season one ALF tries to convince the president of the USA to stop the nuclear program as he is afraid that Earth might share Melmac's fate. ALF was off the planet because he was part of the Melmac Orbit Guard. Gordon Shumway (AKA ALF) is homeless, but he isn't the last survivor of his species. He became a permanent member of the family, although his culture shock, survivor guilt, general boredom, despair, and loneliness frequently caused 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 school, that there were two planets beyond Pluto called "Alvin" and "Dave". However, after a call was made to an astronomical organization, Willie explained 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), her 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 explanation for adding a baby in the series was that Anne Schedeen was pregnant at the time); ALF's move from his initial quarters in the laundry room to a converted attic "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.

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 is concluded in the TV-movie Project ALF.

[edit] 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, though he mentions that his birthday is in August in Episode 7 ("Help Me Rhonda") on the Lower East Side of the planet Melmac. Melmac was located six parsecs past the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster and had a green sky, pink grass and a purple sun. The commonly-used currency is Wernicks which is equal to ten Earth dollars, and the substance we call foam is as precious on Melmac as gold is on Earth.

ALF's body is covered with 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 eat cats and had a best friend on his home planet named Malhar Naik. 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 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. In one episode, he tried to help Brian to gain confidence during a school show, because he was too afraid to perform. In another occasion, he helped Dorothy to deal with Sparky's death and move on, and accept Whizzer's friendship. And he also helped Raquelle Ochmonek with a depression she suffered, because she became the laughing stock in a TV program. He has at least 30 relatives, cousins "Pretty Boy Shumway" and "Blinky", Two uncles Uncle Tinkle and Uncle Goomer, a Grandma Shumway,a brother Curtis, parents Bob and Flo Shumway, aunts Bubba, Wagner, and Eugene and has had liposuction. During a bout of amnesia, he believed he was an insurance salesman named Wayne Schlegel.

[edit] Cast

Paul Fusco operated the ALF puppet, supplied ALF's voice, and co-produced the series with Tom Patchett. Patchett also co-created, wrote, and directed the series. 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. Despite some claims, Jeremy Falcone was never a part of the ALF character.

Notable Guest Starring Cast

[edit] 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 is notoriously secretive about his character. 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 unnecessary wear-and-tear on the principal ALF puppet, the performers rehearsed with a battered, early version of ALF. They nicknamed him "Ralph." Often during rehearsals, Fusco would simply 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 (who was short in stature) 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.

The series was produced by Alien Productions and was first syndicated by Warner Bros. Television and Lorimar-Telepictures. The syndication rights are currently owned by Debmar-Mercury due to its parent company Lionsgate now owning home video rights.

[edit] Spin-offs

[edit] 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 AlfTales, which took Gordon and the cast of characters from season one and recast them as characters from assorted classic fairy tales.

Select episodes of the first season of the cartoon are included as a special feature on the ALF: Season 2 DVD.

[edit] Marvel Comics

ALF Annual #1 (1988). Cover art by Dave Manak

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". Toward the end of the series, when the cancellation of the series was imminent, the comic took a highly critical position towards Marvel Comics and then Marvel editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco.

[edit] 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. However, Beverly Archer, who played Mrs. Byrd in ALF, made an appearance as Dr. Carnage in the movie.

The series was so popular in Germany that the TV Movie was released there theatrically under the name Alf - Der Film (Alf - The Movie) and was panned by critics and by fans, particularly for the Tanners' absence. However, this was explained as the government relocating them to Iceland. In fact, there was supposed to be a scene showing the Tanners living in an igloo in Iceland, but Tom Patchett and Paul Fusco both honestly felt the story was more about ALF than the Tanners and were apparently unfazed by the negative criticism.

At the time the show ALF was on in Germany, the roadside signs for the Moselle River town of "Alf" were frequently stolen by souvenir hunters.

[edit] ALF's Hit Talk Show

In 2004, Alf's Hit Talk Show appeared briefly with Alf playing a Johnny Carson-type TV talk host and co-starring Ed McMahon as his side-kick. It ran for only 7 episodes.

[edit] Other media

[edit] 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 1988 calendar with Melmac's planetary holidays, such as Shout at a Shrub Day, prominently marked.

There is a Sega Master System video game based on ALF. It is an adventure game in which Alf must get pieces to repair his spaceship. There was also a computer game designed for the Commodore 64 as well as other computers.

[edit] 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. The mix had a lot of impact at the TV Studio: "Next step was getting permission to release the mix. For this, all vocal lines, and the spoken texts were traced back to the episodes they came from, and the authors who had written them. New record contracts needed to be created for each and every one of the authors." The first 2 seasons also featured a synthesized version of the theme song, whereas the last 3 featured the opening theme being played by an actual saxophone.[2]

[edit] Other appearances

The ALF character was used in many guest appearances on contemporary television shows, 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 the late 1990s. ALF appeared in a series of commercials for the 10-10-220 telephone service with former Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw.

[edit] References in the media

ALF has been referenced 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, a reference in itself to a family photo which appeared on the Internet of Eminem as a child wearing an ALF T-shirt.

[edit] DVD releases

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.[citation needed] In addition to using the cheaper, syndicated prints, most music was removed from the episodes, making some episodes up to approximatly 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
  • Gag/Outtakes Reel
  • Original Unaired Pilot
Season Two 26 August 23, 2005 Contains all 26 episodes from Season Two
  • Contains the first episode of ALF: The Animated Series and the first episode of ALF Tales
  • The hour-long Christmas special runs at approximately 47 minutes and is unedited
Season Three 28 May 30, 2006 Contains all 28 episodes from Season Three
Season Four 24 September 5, 2006 Contains all 24 episodes from Season Four
  • The episode "Make 'Em Laugh" runs at 23:27 and is unedited

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. On September 13, 2005 Project: Alf was released. Some prints of the DVD came with an Alf keychain as a purchasing incentive.

The episodes "Mind Games" and "Fever" were made while in production for Season 3, yet shown on NBC as episodes for Season 4; because of this, these episodes were in both season sets.

[edit] Syndication

Cable channel WGN America airs ALF currently in the United States, running Sunday nights 6-7 p.m. (eastern) as well as Thursday mornings 1-2 a.m (as of April 2009). Australian cable network Foxtel has put ALF back on the air on their new station 111 Hits, on which ALF is shown at 2:30 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) weekdays. In Latin America, ALF can be seen late weeknights at 3:00 a.m. on Nick at Nite. In Germany, ALF had almost never-ending reruns on different networks since it first aired in 1988. It currently airs weekdays on Tele5 (in German).

[edit] Other transmissions

After the series run in the United States, it went on to have huge success in almost every other country worldwide.

Country Channel Notes
 Argentina Nick at Nite On Air (reruns)
 Argentina Telefé Was shown on
 Argentina Magic Kids Was shown on
 Argentina Canal 2 Was shown on
 Argentina The Big Channel Was shown on
 Australia Seven Network Was shown on
 Australia Nine Network Was shown on
 Australia Oh! (OptusVision) Was shown on
 Australia 111 Hits On air (reruns)
 Austria ORF1 Was shown on
 Brazil Nick at Nite On air (reruns)
 Brazil SBT Was shown on.
 Brazil TV Globo Was shown on from 1987 to the early '90s
 Belgium Kanaal 2 Was shown on
 Bulgaria Kanal 1 Was shown on
 Bulgaria bTV Was shown on
 Bulgaria GTV On air (reruns)
 Canada Family
 Chile Nick at Nite On air (reruns)
 Chile TVN
 Chile Red TV
 Colombia Nick at Nite Was shown on
 Colombia Caracol TV Was shown on
 Colombia RCN TV Was shown on
 Costa Rica Teletica Channel 7 On air (reruns)
 Croatia HRT
 Czech Republic ČT1 Was shown on
 Denmark TV2 Zulu On air (reruns)
 Dominican Republic Nick at Nite
 Ecuador Teleamazonas
 El Salvador Canal 2 TCS
 El Salvador Nick at Nite On air (reruns)
 Estonia Kanal 2 On air (reruns)
 Finland MTV Was shown on
 Finland Kolmoskanava Was shown on
 Finland MTV3 On air (reruns)
 France France 2 Was shown on
 France France 5 Was shown on
 France Sci-Fi Was shown on
 Germany ZDF Shown 1988 to 1991
 Germany kabel eins
 Germany Tele5 On air (reruns)
 Greece ET1/NET During the '80s
 Guatemala Nick at Nite
 Hungary HBO Was shown on
 Iceland Stöð 2 Was shown on
 India POGO Was shown on
 Indonesia TVRI Was shown on
 Ireland Radio Telifís Éireann Was shown on
 Israel IBA1 Was shown on
 Israel HOT3 Was shown on
 Israel BIP On air (reruns)
 Italy Rai Due; Italia 1 Was shown on
 Japan NHK On air (reruns)
 Mexico TV Azteca, now in Nick at Nite On air (reruns)
 Norway NRK Was shown on
 Portugal RTP Shown from 1988 to 1991
 Russia STS Shown 1996 to 1999
 Russia Domashny Shown 2005 to 2006
 Russia ORT Shown in 2000
 Serbia RTS Shown in 1990
 Singapore Channel 5 ROn air (reruns)
 Slovakia Markíza Was shown on
 Slovenia TV Slovenija During the '80s
 Slovenia Kanal A During the '90s & '00s
 Spain TVE Was shown on
 Spain Canal + Was shown on
 Spain Antena 3 Was shown on
 South Africa TV1 Was shown dubbed in Afrikaans, original soundtrack simulcast on Radio 2000
 Sweden SVT Was shown on
 Sweden TV4 Komedi Was shown on
 Turkey TRT 1 Reruns, Shown July 15, 1990 to June 21, 1992
 Turkey TRT 2 Shown April 18, 1990 to February 26, 1992
 Turkey RetroMax On air (reruns)
 Venezuela Nick at Nite
 Venezuela RCTV Was shown on
 Venezuela Televen Was shown on
 Zimbabwe TV2 Was shown on
  • Latin America, On February 13, 2006 Nickelodeon started transmitting ALF through [Nick at Nite] to all Latin American countries.
  • Malaysia, ALF was run on TV3 on Saturday Mornings from 2004.
  • Malta, ALF was shown on MTV (Maltese Television) but has since been discontinued.
  • Mexico, ALF was shown on the Mexican channel Imevisión (now called Azteca Siete), and is currently aired on Nick at Nite
  • The Netherlands, ALF Originally aired on Dutch public television TROS
  • New Zealand, ALF was shown on TVNZ's TV2.
  • Norway, ALF was shown on NRK. Reruns were later aired on TV3.
  • Pakistan, ALF was shown on PTV during the 80's.
  • Paraguay, ALF is being currently transmitted on channel 4 Telefuturo
  • Peru, ALF was shown by Frecuencia Latina (channel 2). This channel aired ALF in 1987.
  • Philippines, ALF was shown on RPN 9 (now C/S 9) and on GMA Network.
  • Poland, ALF was shown on TVP1, Polsat, RTL7 and TVN Siedem.
  • Portugal, ALF was shown on Canal1 (former RTP1) and later on Sic Comédia.
  • Puerto RIco, Alf was show in Canal 11, now Univision PR.
  • Slovakia, ALF was shown on TV Markiza.
  • Serbia, ALF was shown on RTB. Currently its reruns air daily on Fox televizija at 19:30 CET.
  • Trinidad and Tobago, ALF was aired on Trinidad and Tobago Television channels 2 and 13 during the 1980s and early 1990s.
  • Ukraine, ALF was run on ICTV and had 5 separate reruns since 1997. In 2007 the series returned on ICTV due to numerous requests of the audience.
  • United Kingdom, ALF was aired on ITV and Sky One, This channel aired ALF in 1990.
  • Uruguay, ALF was shown on Channel 4 "Montecarlo Television". This channel aired ALF in 1987, and was shown on Wednesday nights.
  • Yugoslavia, ALF was shown by RTZ (Radio-Television Zagreb)

During 2008 ALF could be seen on WGN America during Totally Awesome Retro Nights, usually in a two hour block (four episodes). It was also previously aired in the USA on The Odyssey Channel.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Where Are They Now? ALF 1986-1990". People Weekly. 2000-06-26. http://www.tvshows.de/alf/e-people.htm. Retrieved on 2008-08-12. 
  2. ^ DMH:Ben Liebrand MINIMIX

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALF_(TV_series)"
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