Alf Season Views
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 Raquel Ochmonek (John LaMotta and Liz Sheridan), until he can repair his spacecraft. He generally hides in the kitchen. It is eventually revealed that ALF's home planet Melmac exploded because of a catastrophe involving nuclear war. In Episode Three of Season One ALF tries to convince the president of the USA to stop the nuclear program, as ALF fears that Earth might suffer a fate similar to Melmac's. 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 isn't 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.
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 his science project, that there were two planets beyond Pluto called Dave and Alvin , 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 have been the planetoid Chiron, or Object Kowal , after its discoverer. Alf then shows Willie exactly where Dave is on an intergalactic Rand-McNally map of the universe. This occurred in the first season episode Weird Science and was one of the first instances of other worlds beyond Earth, and Melmac being given any focus verbally or physically.
As a result of the show's success, ALF has made guest appearances on a number of television programs, such as a Season 2 episode of NBC's Matlock in 1987, NBC's Blossom, UPN's The Love Boat: The Next Wave, and the 1980s version of Hollywood Squares, where he also memorably hosted part of one episode in March, 1987. 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 1990. In the early 2000s, ALF appeared in a series of commercials for the 10-10-220 telephone service with former Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw and wrestling legend Hulk Hogan. ALF's last appearance to date was in November 2007, when he appeared as TV Icon of the Week on The O'Reilly Factor.
Lionsgate Home Entertainment has released all four seasons of ALF on DVD in Region 1. All releases contain edited episodes (syndicated versions), although Try to Remember from Season One, ALF's Special Christmas from Season Two and, Make 'em Laugh from Season Four were full length, although Try to Remember was the censored version used in reruns, and Make 'em Laugh had 7 seconds of dialogue at the beginning removed. Lions Gate insisted that they were forced to utilize the edited version, as it would be cost prohibitive to remaster the original broadcast versions for release when the edited versions were already available, leading to much criticism and poor sales.[11] In addition, most music was removed from the episodes, shortening some episodes by up to six minutes.
Alf Season Images
