Alf: Season One

Review By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

In 1986, there had been already three movies centering around the assimilation of “otherworldly beings” into life on earth (two released in that past year alone): E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Short Circuit, and Howard The Duck. It wasn’t long before such a fish-out-of-water concept would make its ay to television. It did in the fall of 1986, with the sitcom ALF, with first season now available on DVD.

In California lives a fairly ordinary family known as the Tanners, made up of parents Willie (Max Wright) and Kate (Anne Schedeen) and their children, 15 year-old Lynn (Andrea Elson) and 6 year-old Brian (Benji Gregory). Their idyllic home life is instantly turned upside down when a brown, furry, almost anteater-like alien life form named Gordon Shumway crash lands in the family’s garage.

While he waits for the chance to be picked up by the last-known survivors of his now obliterated planet Melmac, the newly-christened ALF (voice of Paul Fusco), short for Alien Life Form, attempts to adjust to life on Earth as part of the family. While avoiding any direct human contact over the likelihood of being discovered by the government, he quickly adapts to the simply Earthly pleasures of eating and watching TV, while getting himself often into mishaps that the Tanners find themselves helping him out of, like attempting to eat the family cat Lucky.

ALF is undoubtedly one of the more bizarre family sitcoms to emerge out of the 1980’s and became an instant hit, particularly with children. While the elements bear much of the typical trappings of the family sitcom, it’s the character of ALF himself that makes the series enjoyable, to this day.

While the use of a little man in a suit for the walking scenes come off too obvious, the puppeteer work on ALF by puppeteer/voice actor Paul Fusco is phenomenal as it manages to project not only his wisecracking humor, but great warmth.

While Fusco’s alien manages to steal the show most of the time from the human cast, they do each provide great support, with Wright and Schedeen’s uptight and often exasperated performances making a great contrast against the more charming and laid-back ALF.

The DVD is presented in the 1:33:1 full-screen aspect ratio of the syndicated TV broadcasts. You can tell some scenes are often missing from each episode by watching the montage during the credits.

While this may disappoint some more purist fans, it’s mostly an inconsequential omission. The DVD also comes packed with plenty of special features.

It must be said that the interface for this DVD set are some of the best ever put together, as it features funny newly-filmed footage of ALF presenting the material and briefly introducing each episode. The first special feature is the original pilot of the series, which is much like the one broadcast, except for scenes either re-shot or cut out, but it still makes a great curiosity for fans.

The second feature is a gag/outtake reel, which shows Paul Fusco often doing funny ...