ALF
Entry updated 2 June 2026. Tagged: TV.
US tv series (1986-1990). Warner Bros TV for NBC. Created by Paul Fusco and Tom Patchett. Produced by Tom Patchett. Writers include Fusco and Patchett. Directors include Fusco, Patchett and Peter Bonerz. Cast includes Andrea Elson, Fusco, Benji Gregory, John LaMotta, Anne Meara, Charles Nickerson, Anne Schedeen, Liz Sheridan and Max Wright. Four seasons comprising 97 24-minute episodes (100 episodes in syndication, where three double-length specials became two-parters). Colour.
ALF, an "Alien life form" – in the line of Extraterrestrial descent from the title character of My Favorite Martian and Mork in Mork & Mindy, though also influenced heavily by E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Explorers (1985) and the success of the Muppets – moves in with the Tanner family, a sitcom collection of typical Americans, after his Spaceship crashlands in their garage. A furry puppet, somewhere between cute and obnoxious, voiced and operated by series co-creator Paul Fusco, ALF mainly sits in the middle of the living room insulting people, plotting to eat Lucky the family Cat, making television-style smart-ass remarks and dispensing reassuring sentiment. The sf premise aside, ALF (real name supposedly Gordon Shumway) is basically one of those stereotype sitcom characters – like Benson (Robert Guillaume) in Soap or Sophia (Estelle Getty) in The Golden Girls – whose otherness (extraterrestrial, racial, social or mental) provides an excuse for them to comment rudely, satirically and smugly on the foibles of everyone else.
The central Tanner family comprises Willie (Wright) the father, Kate (Schedeen) the mother, daughter Lynn (Elson) and son Brian (Gregory), with baby Eric (Nickerson) added in season 3. Other regulars include Trevor Ochmonek (LaMotta) and Raquel Ochmonek (Sheridan), nosy neighbours straight from I Love Lucy and Bewitched, and Kate's widowed mother Dorothy (Meara), who particularly dislikes and swaps insults with ALF. [KN/DRL]
see also: Satire.
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