ALF (TV series)

ALF is an alien from the planet Melmac who follows an amateur radio signal to Earth and crash-lands into the garage of the Tanners, a suburban middle-class family who lives in the San Fernando Valley area of 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 pet cat Lucky (whom ALF wishes to consume).

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 that specializes in aliens) and their nosy neighbors Trevor and Raquel Ochmonek (John La Motta and Liz Sheridan), until ALF can repair his spacecraft. He generally hides in the kitchen. It is eventually revealed that ALF's home planet Melmac exploded, due to nuclear war[6] In the season one episode "Pennsylvania 6-5000", ALF tries to convince the President of the United States to stop the nuclear program, as ALF fears that Earth might suffer a fate similar to Melmac's, though miscalculating his words causes the President and national security to call the FBI to arrest Willie. ALF was off the planet when it was destroyed because he was part of the Melmac Orbit Guard. ALF (a.k.a. Gordon Shumway) is homeless, but he is not 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. Despite the problems and inconveniences his presence brings into their lives, they grow to love him, though some episodes make it clear they are also afraid of how their lives would be turned upside down if word got out that he has been living with them.

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 uses a radio signal as a beacon in the pilot episode. In the episode "Weird Science", ALF tells Brian, who is building a model of the solar system for his science project, that there are two planets beyond Pluto called "Dave" and "Alvin" (as in David Seville and Alvin from the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise), which gets Brian in trouble at school. However, after ALF makes a call to an astronomical organization and states that "Dave" is known by the organization, Willie comes to believe that "Dave" could be the planetoid Chiron or "Object Kowal". ALF then shows Willie exactly where "Dave" is on an intergalactic map of the universe.

Episodes dealt with ALF learning about Earth and making new friends both within and outside of the Tanner family, including Willie's brother Neal (Jim J. Bullock), Kate's widowed mother Dorothy (Anne Meara) with whom ALF has a love-hate relationship, her boyfriend (and later husband) Whizzer (Paul Dooley), the Ochmoneks' nephew Jake (Josh Blake), a psychologist named Larry (Bill Daily) and a blind woman named Jody (Andrea Covell) who never figures out that ALF is not human (although she is aware through touch that he is short and hairy).

Changes occur 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 Mr. Meow in season four's "Live and Let Die"; in this instance, ALF finds that despite his occasional attempts to catch Lucky with the intention of making the cat a meal, as cats are the equivalent of cattle on Melmac, he has come to love and respect the family pet too much to do anything untoward with Lucky's remains. When ALF acquires a new cat with the intent of eating it, he actually grows fond of it and allows it to be adopted by the family, although he admits to the Tanners he has become the worst kind of Melmackian, a "cat lover".

Producer Bernie Brillstein was approached to see Fusco's audition with a puppet character but was initially uninterested, having managed Jim Henson for years and regarding Henson as the best creature-puppeteer in showbiz. However, Fusco's brief performance as ALF won over Brillstein, who thought the character was hilarious and strong enough to be the focus of a series.[8]

Fusco co-produced the series with Tom Patchett. Patchett also co-created, wrote, and directed the series. The series was first syndicated by Warner Bros. Television and Lorimar-Telepictures. The US syndication rights are currently owned by Debmar-Mercury as its parent company, Lionsgate, now owns home video rights.

Due to the inherent nature of producing a show featuring hand-operated puppets (à la Jim Henson's The Muppet Show), ALF was technically difficult and extremely demanding on series creator Fusco as well as its four lead actors. All confirmed during a 2000 People magazine interview that there were constantly high levels of tension on the set.[9] Max Wright stated that he despised supporting a technically demanding inanimate object that received most of the good lines of dialogue. He admitted to being "hugely eager to have ALF over with."[9] Artie Lange, who later worked with Wright on The Norm Show, told of a time when Wright had become "crazed" and physically attacked ALF, causing producers to have to pull Wright off the puppet.[10] Anne Schedeen said that on the last night of taping the final episode, "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."[9] Andrea Elson, who suffered from bulimia during the second season of shooting, stated, "If ALF had gone one more year, everybody would have lost it."[9] Wright later admitted that as the years passed he looked back at ALF with less animosity and conceded that "It doesn't matter what I felt or what the days were like, ALF brought people a lot of joy."[9] In reference to the tension, Fusco commented in 2012 that "It was just the nature of the beast. There was no way we could have made it go any further or any faster," he insisted. "I think it was frustrating that it would take so long, but people got paid for what they did. Despite what people thought, that there was a lot of tension on set, there really wasn't."[11]

Fusco was notoriously 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 reveal any of ALF's production secrets.

The set was built on a platform raised four feet above the ground, with trap doors constructed at many points so that ALF could appear almost anywhere; Fusco operated him from underneath, so the unoccupied holes all over the floor were deep and treacherous. The trap doors had to be reset multiple times, sometimes during a single scene. Principal puppeteer Paul Fusco (who was mainly left-handed when puppeteering) used his left hand to control ALF's mouth, while his right hand controlled ALF's right arm. Another puppeteer, Lisa Buckley, who would go on to perform on Sesame Street, assisted Fusco beneath the stage, operating ALF's left arm. At times when ALF's full body was shown in the sitting position, Lisa controlled ALF's left hand by cable allowing slight finger movements. There was additionally a third puppeteer, Bob Fappiano, who controlled ALF's facial and ear movements via a radio control offscreen. During tapings, Fusco would wear a head-mounted microphone to record ALF's voice. The process resulted in numerous mistakes and retakes, making it impossible to record ALF in front of a live audience. A laugh track was added during post-production.

To avoid wear and tear on the principal ALF puppet, the performers rehearsed with a crude early version of ALF, nicknamed "RALF" For ("Rehearsal Alien Life Form").[12] Fusco did not like to rehearse, and would often substitute his hand or RALF for the real ALF puppet during rehearsals.[12]

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 hidden from everyone else. After ALF's cameo alongside former Family Ties star Michael Gross, ALF disappeared through a hole in the riser, was stuffed into a case, and immediately removed from 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 the 2' 9" (84 cm) 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 Meszaros) walks over to be part of the photo. However, Meszaros' services became too costly as well as time-consuming, and the full ALF costume was abandoned after the first season.

ALF scored its highest ratings during Season 2 (reaching tenth place in the Nielsen ratings). Ratings remained at a steady fifteenth place during Season 3, but plummeted to 39th place during Season 4. NBC moved the show from its traditional Monday night slot to Saturday in March 1990, but ratings continued to fall.

The season-ending cliffhanger "Consider Me Gone" became an unintentional series finale when NBC gave Alien Productions a verbal commitment for a fifth season, but ultimately withdrew its support.[11][13] ABC resolved the cliffhanger on February 17, 1996, with the TV movie Project: ALF. NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff later told Fusco that the network regretted cancelling ALF prematurely, saying "It was a big mistake that we cancelled your show, because you guys had at least one or two more seasons left."[11]

ALF was very popular in Germany after it began airing on ZDF. The actor who dubbed ALF's voice in German, Tommi Piper, recorded two albums and four singles as the four-toothed, eight-stomached cat-eating alien between 1988 and 1991.[15] The show also became very popular in Bulgaria, one of the first American sitcoms shown on Bulgarian National Television. From 2000 to 2010 the series has aired again on different channels in Bulgaria. On Turkey's public broadcaster TRT the series was shown in the late 1980s, with one of the country's most respected actors, Müşfik Kenter, giving his voice to ALF. In the UK, the series was first broadcast on ITV in early 1987, before moving to Sky One. In Latin America, it used to air on Nick at Nite from February 13, 2006, to June 3, 2012, and it is broadcast since middle 2016 on TCM Latin America. The show was shown in New Zealand on TVNZ, Seven Network and Nine Network in Australia, Stöð 2 in Iceland, RTÉ in Ireland (where it was also shown on its children's block Dempsey's Den), both SWABC and the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation in Namibia, Czech Television in Czech Republic, Rai 2 in Italy, NHK in Japan, Bahrain 55 in Bahrain, Channel 2 in Jordan, SCTV and RCTI in Indonesia during 1990–1991, KBC in Kenya, Croatian Radiotelevision in Croatia, GBC in Gibraltar, ABS-CBN Network in the Philippines, Botswana TV in Botswana, Channel 5 in Singapore, KUAM-TV in Guam, TV 1 in South Africa (where it was dubbed in Afrikaans), TV3 in Malaysia, public broadcaster TROS in the Netherlands, NRK and TVNorge in Norway, RTB in Brunei, KTV2 in Kuwait, NTM in Pakistan, ZNBC in Zambia, ATV World in Hong Kong and Saudi 2 in Saudi Arabia. The original English version also aired in Germany on forces television on both Armed Forces Network (which airs mostly US and Canadian television programming) and BFBS (which airs mostly UK television programming but also a mix of US, Australian and Canadian programming as well) as well as its former network known as SSVC Television.

In the U.S., 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 Kids' Choice 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.[20]

• Project: ALF (1996), a TV movie that begins where the final episode of ALF ended
• 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996)
• Mork & Mindy (1978)

Wikiquote has quotations related to: "ALF"

• Media related to ALF (TV series) at Wikimedia Commons
• ALF at IMDb
• ALF at TV.com
• ALF at The Interviews: An Oral History of Television