ALF

Name: ALF
Genre: Comedy, Family, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Rating: 7.7
Cast: Max Wright, Anne Schedeen, Andrea Elson, Benji Gregory, Mihaly 'Michu' Meszaros

Got cat?

ALF (1986-1990)

Seasons: 4, episodes: 101

Episode runtime: 23 min

Average rating: 7.7/10 118 245

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Everything about the series

Video 0

Photo 51

Actors and characters

Photo 51

Premiere

1986-09-22

Last episode

1990-03-24

Status

Ended

Country

United States

Network

NBC

Production

Alien Productions

Genre

Comedy, Family, Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Creators

Paul Fusco, Tom Patchett

Actors

Max Wright, Anne Schedeen, Andrea Elson, Benji Gregory, Mihaly 'Michu' Meszaros, Marcia Wallace, Dorothy Lyman, Joseph Maher, Carl Franklin, Larry Hankin
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Steve Pepoon, Lisa A. Bannick

Producer

Bernie Brillstein, Paul Fusco, Tom Patchett

Camera operator

Composer

Alf Clausen

Editing

Whole Team (59)

Short description

A furry alien wiseguy comes to live with a terran family after crashing into their garage.

Seasons

Season	Episodes	Release date	Rating
Season 1	26	1986-09-22	6.8
Season 2	25	1987-09-21	6.9
Season 3	26	1988-10-03	6.6
Season 4	24	1989-09-18	6.5

What's left behind the scenes

In the first episodes, Alf was played by little person Mihaly "Michu" Mesaros, while in later episodes, an expensive animatronic puppet was used. For this reason, Alf was mostly shown from the waist up. A live actor was brought in only when it was necessary to show the alien in full height and in motion. Alf's voice belongs to Paul Fusco, and the puppet was operated by Lisa Buckley and Bob Fappiano.
The series was filmed on a closed set without an audience to avoid revealing the technical secrets of the production. Laughter was added to the footage later.
ALF, in English, stands for Alien Life Form.
Max Wright later admitted that he didn't enjoy working on the series, but he derived great pleasure from reading letters from the show's enthusiastic fans.
Given all the technical elements required for filming, it was one of the most expensive 30-minute sitcoms to produce for its time. To recoup the production costs, NBC authorized the production of related toys, advertisements on cereal boxes, and the creation of an animated series.
The series was canceled after the fourth season without reaching a logical conclusion. Although a "To Be Continued" screen appeared at the end of the final episode, a subsequent season was never released. In 1996, the television movie "Project: ALF" was released, but it proved unsuccessful due to the excessively long gap since the series ended, a weak script, and the complete absence of the Tanner family from the plot. In reruns of the series and subsequent home media releases, the text was cut.
In the 18th episode of season 3, while describing a girl's incredible beauty, Alf says that on Melmac she would be a real "pepun," which, according to him, means "a number greater than ten." In reality, Steve Pepin is one of the series' writers.
The title of each episode is the name of a song.
After the series ended, actors Max Wright (1943-2019) and Anne Schedeen revealed that tension on set occasionally reached a breaking point. Due to the technical complexities involved, filming was quite slow, and none of the supporting actors enjoyed (figuratively speaking) remaining in the shadow of a puppet that received all the best, most interesting, and funniest lines.
The Alf puppet was operated from hatches scattered across the entire set, making filming quite difficult. The actors had to constantly keep track of where the hatches were located so they wouldn't accidentally step on or into them.