Out of all of the seventy four million episode mid-eighties American sitcoms in which anything and anyone all the way from a franchised sasquatch, a robot daughter, a politically invigorated chimpanzee and a misapprehension prone distant Eastern European cousin to for some never adequately explained reason actual literal Billy Connolly found themselves installed as a permanent house guest with a hapless average middle-class family – a phenomenon that was as as terrifyingly recursive as it was terrifyingly unfunny – few could even aspire towards the sort of all-pervasive cultural footprint enjoyed by ALF. The saga of stranded Melmacian Gordon Shumway and the well-intentioned chaos he continually visits upon the unassuming Tanner family wasn’t just a huge ratings smash – running to seven seasons and over a hundred episodes – but a genuine worldwide pop culture phenomenon, inspiring an animated spinoff, a movie, a series of fairytale retellings, an in-universe Marvel comic, countless appearances on panel shows as ‘himself’, a guest role on Matlock, a Thanksgiving Day parade, an anti-drugs special, a government-sponsored plea for ecological awareness, a video game, a visit to the White House Christmas Party and, at least in Germany, chart stardom with a string of surprisingly ‘straight’ songs with rap bits in them, generally while sporting a Hawaiian shirt and brandishing one of those big cocktails with a curly straw and a statistically challengingly gigantic slice of lime in them.

What makes all of this all the more bizarre still is that the second that ALF‘s popularity began to wane, the entirety of this cultural prevalence disappeared with it and you will scarcely find him referenced now outside of ironic allusions to his erstwhile popularity in The Simpsons and by Stewart Lee, and – obliquely – in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there’s more about that here. Which in themselves can technically be seen as direct affirmation of his erstwhile pan-global prominence. Confused? Well, you want to try being poor old Willie Tanner for twenty three minutes.

Fortunately, Ben Baker and John Matthews are on hand to chart the rise and, well, rise of ALFmania in ALFSplaining, an episode by episode look at the sitcom and its innumerable now-impenetrable pop culture references, and this time I’m joining them for a look at Prime Time, a second season episode in which ALF discovers that his favourite television show Polka Jamboree is at risk of cancellation and decides to take matters into his own clumsy and lawbreaking hands. It’s actually quite a thought-provoking episode – no, really – with equal measures of satirical digs at broadcast industry waffle and poignant ruminations on the travails of being the only person who likes something that everyone else has decided to performatively hate for no reason, though there’s also room for debate over whether Willie was snapped by Thanos, the correct broadcast chronology of The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, why you should never attempt to pass yourself off as ALF at a holiday camp and whether any Americans have ever actually heard anything by Haircut One Hundred. Not to mention the small matter of why Ryan Reynolds should be tuning in to listen to us…

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The old ALFer isn’t actually featured in it but there’s lots on tons of other relentless imported sitcoms crowbarred into the BBC and ITV’s children’s schedules with big whopping edits for ‘content’ in The Golden Age Of Children’s TV, available in all good bookshops and from Waterstones here, Amazon here, from the Kindle Store here and directly from Black And White Publishing here.

Alternately, if you’re just feeling generous, you can buy me a coffee here. Just don’t mention how many coffees ALF has in the episode Hail To The Chief…

Further Listening

John and Ben both joined me on It’s Good, Except It Sucks for a look at ALF’s cameo appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in I Am Groot here. You can also find Ben on It’s Good, Except It Sucks talking about Ant-Man here, Cloak And Dagger here and Avengers: Endgame here.

You can find Ben on Looks Unfamiliar talking about TV Mayhem, The Onion Bag, Fiendish Feet, the early internet craze for misidentifying every comedy song as ‘by’ Weird Al Yankovic, Bingo Brown and the International Youth Service penpal scheme here, ITV’s daytime nostalgia show Looks Familiar here, Toksvig, The Whizzkid’s Guide, Mysteries Of Old Peking, Mo-Ho-Bish-O-Pi, Go (the 1999 film) and Making Your Own TV Listings Magazines here, Mr T’s Christmas Dream, There’s Something Wrong In Paradise, God In The House, To Hell With The Devil, Highway, The Flint Street Nativity, the 1990 Bullseye Christmas Special, Adam And Joe’s Fourmative Years and TFI 1998 here, The Goodies: Snow White 2, Roland’s Yuletide Binge and Grange Hill For Christmas here, the original version of Now – The Christmas Album here and Bernard And The Genie here. You can also find John – in his guise as nineties pop star Ricardo Autobahn – talking about Pull The Other One, the Pink Panther Bar, the Panther 6, Hot Wheels Crack-Ups, Explorer, Inside The Magic Rectangle by Victor Lewis-Smith, I Live In A Giant Mushroom by Eric The Gardener, The Car, The Sooty Show episode Fun Being Small and ‘Thunderclap Pop’ here and Ed Starink, The Big Bus, The Wizard Of Speed And Time, Roadmaker, Chimera, Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation, Blackgang Chine and the final season of The Dukes Of Hazzard here. You can also find Ben on The Golden Age Of Children’s TV talking about Round The Bend here and Ricardo on Rainbow here.

Further Reading

There’s more about a slightly more conventional sitcom – well, it had moderately fewer puppets in it – with a look at That 70’s Show in All The Fun Of The Flares here.

© Tim Worthington.
Please don’t copy this only with more italics and exclamation marks.