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''ALF'' is the name of a popular television Sitcom series produced by NBC between 1986 and 1990, inspired by and Spoof ing the movie '' E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial '' ( 1982 ). It first aired September 22 , 1986 . PREMISE The title character is Gordon Shumway (aka Alf Tanner), a little alien Nickname d A.L.F. (Alien Life Form). He was born on October 28, 1756 on the Lower East side of the planet Melmac . The planet Melmac was located six Parsec s past the Hydra Centaurus Supercluster and had a green sky and blue grass. Shumway's body is covered with orange fur. He has a rippled snout, facial moles, eight stomachs and likes to eat cats. He attended high school for 122 years and was captain of a Bouillabaisse ball team (which is played on ice using shellfish as a ball). In the Pilot Episode , Shumway follows a Ham Radio signal and crash-lands into the garage of the Tanners. The Tanners are a suburban middle class family consisting of the social worker Willie ( Max Wright ), his wife Kate ( Anne Schedeen ), their children Lynn ( Andrea Elson ) and Brian ( Benji Gregory Hertzberg ), and the cat Lucky. Unsure what to do, the Tanners take Shumway into their home and hide him from the Alien Task Force, the military, and their nosy neighbors (the Ochmoneks), until he can repair his spacecraft. He generally hid in the kitchen. It was eventually revealed that Melmac was destroyed in a Nuclear War , and that Shumway was not only homeless, but also, to the best of his knowledge, the last survivor of both his civilization and his species. He became a permanent member of the family, although his Culture Shock , Survivor's Guilt , general boredom, despair, and loneliness frequently caused difficulty for the Tanners. 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 the Tanner family and without, including Willie's brother Neal, Kate's mother Dorothy (with whom Alf has a love-hate relationship), the Ochmoneks' nephew Jake, and a blind woman named Jody (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, 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 hanging as to Alf's ultimate fate. After the series run in the United States, it went on to even greater success in re-runs in many European countries such as Poland and Germany. The series was so popular in Germany in fact that the made-for-TV Film "Project ALF" was released there theatrically under the name "Alf Der Film" ("Alf the Movie"). The first ''ALF'' DVD (''The ALF Files'') was released, exclusively in Canada, in 2002. In the summer of 2004 the first season of the show was released on DVD in the United States, but loyal fans were very disappointed that the DVD release featured the syndicated version of the episodes which have several minutes cut from each of them. This prompted an increase in the sale of Bootleg tapes of the entire show from various websites. Currently, syndicated version DVDs of both season 1 and 2 are now available in the United States. Season 3 is slated to come out on DVD on May 30, 2006. CAST
Michu Meszaros was the actor within the Alf costume. 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. SPINOFFS Animated Series To capitalize on the success of the series, a ,'' (AKA ''Alf on Melmac'') set on ALF's home planet of Melmac, ran from 1987 to 1988 . 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 rebooted as '' AlfTales '', which took Gordon and the cast of characters from season one and recast them as characters from assorted classic (Earthly) Fairy Tale s. Select episodes of the first season of the cartoon are included as a special feature on the ALF: Season 2 DVD. Marvel Comics ' ''ALF Annual'' #1.]] An ''ALF'' Comic Book was published by Marvel Comics beginning in 1987 and ran for four years, 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 Comic characters and other pop culture parodies in the form of "Melmac Flashbacks". Towards the end of the series, when the cancellation of the series was imminent, the series took a highly critical position towards Marvel Comics and then Marvel Editor-In-Chief Tom DeFalco . TV Movie In '', 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 policy officer who break ALF out of government custody to get him to a millionaire who is building a working spaceship, so ALF can leave Earth. Other
SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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