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Paul Fusco, the creator of ALF, was recently interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter, our nation’s finest newspaper, because he’s spent the last four years trying to figure out how to make ALF into a movie and has finally done it and will soon be pitching the ALF movie to major studios. Which is whatever. If everything from the past is going to be made into a movie in the future, certainly ALF shouldn’t be excluded from that everything. But aside from the totally normal thing of wanting to turn ALF from a million years ago into a feature film that no one wants, he offered up this totally normal anecdote:
“When I used to write an episode and couldn’t come up with a line for ALF, I needed something really funny, I would actually ask ALF,” Fusco explains during a wide-ranging conversation with The Hollywood Reporter. “I would actually put the character on, and the character would just tell me what the line was.”
DOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. What do you think we thought? That ALF didn’t write his lines himself? Give us a break. We know how TV works — ALL of the characters write their own dialogue. Puppets are no exception. And then his explanation for the “WHY NOW?” question about the ALF movie was also great and really just correct:
“I think the timing is right. That’s a big important thing, timing,” he says, quite confident in his prediction. “There have been movies out there of characters that I didn’t think were on the same parallel as ALF that got movies made, so I think it’s time. I think it could be a home run on a lot of levels.”
No brainer. Before, the world was only ready for characters that weren’t on the same parallel as ALF, but now the world is ready for a character that is on the same parallel as ALF: ALF. I sincerely hope that this movie gets made, and I sincerely hope that ALF gets the writing credit he deserves.
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Honestly, that doesn’t sound too crazy. I could totally see that tapping into some creative subconscious. And I am ALL FOR an ALF movie if it explains why the Tanner family called him ALF even though he told them that his name was Gordon Shumway, and also if the Tanners on ALF are related to the Tanners on Full House.
ALF = Alien Life Form
(Alf told me that)
Yes, but Gordon Shumway = his actual name. It would be like if I went over to Europe and everybody there called be American Life Form.
Technially, aren’t you Tex-Mex Culinary Life Form?
Oh, don’t act like you don’t kn ow what “Technially” means.
But I don’t kn ow!
Didn’t you go to Sphool?
This is just the greatest thread.
Ohhhhhh, right sorry. I got really excited that I knew what ALF stood for.
When I was 17, my dad bought an answering machine and my brother and I left the outgoing message. My brother was Robin Leach and I was ALF. Sometimes our friends would call JUST TO HEAR THE OUTGOING MESSAGE! It was that good.
The Tanners called him Alf because they thought he had the best shot at unseating FDR.
That joke make sense in my head.
That joke made sense in my head.
This is an absolutely true story, I swear to God: I work with a former writer of ALF and she has told me, many times, this exact same story about how people loved her outgoing messages. Not that she pretended to be ALF or Robin Leach, just that back in the day people would call when she wasn’t home and then hang up because she was SO clever, and once her nephew explained into her machine, “I didn’t call with any news, I just wanted to hear your outgoing message. You’re always so funny!”
Hollywood! Amirite?!?
Seriously, she tells the same stories over and over again, so I have heard this nephew one about six times.
I actually still have the theme song for the ALF cartoon memorized and it pops into my head more often than possibly any other song. It’s a tragic tale and I’m sorry to share the burden of my pain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgS8oOm0mlM
How the hell did they get ALF on the air in the first place? His nose looks like a wrinkled penis.
Let alone an ALF cartoon featuring a planet full of ALFs!!!
That planet is called Melmac. It was destroyed by nuclear war. Show some fucking respect.
Yes, one of the many double-urethra penises we’re always seeing.
Do some research on Google Images. It’s more common than you’d think.
I probably won’t do this image search.
BUT I DID! I was going to look it up anyway tho
They should have an ALF/Sabrina The Teenage Witch crossover movie, as we watch ALF plot to feast on Salem. Hilarity ensues.
I would also like a cameo from Rubik, the Amazing Cube.
Well, his answer is better than Jerry Stahl’s: ““When I used to write an episode and couldn’t come up with a line for ALF, I needed something really funny, I would actually
ask ALF. I would actually put the character on, and the character would just tell me what the line was.do a shit ton of heroin.”Sure, if you want to believe Ben Stiller.
Ah, you answered my question before I even asked (is this the guy that Permanent Midnight is based on).
@facetaco You don’t have to put your faith in Stiller. Stahl talked drugs with Marc Maron on WTF. I can’t remember a single specific thing they said tho. I just know it was a lot of drug stories.
I saw Stahl at a book reading in Los Feliz. Dude is funny. Honestly funny. Read his stuff, everyone.
Jerry Stahl = drug addict
Nick Stahl = drug addict
Stahl Curse? Just saying.
I always wondered why all of ALFs lines were just variances on telling the audience to burn things and awaken dread clthulhu from his dead slumber. I just thought that was the 80s being the 80s.
the studio can’t do it. if they say yes to this, the next thing you know, Bob Uecker is going to want a Mr. Belvediere movie and they’ll have to pull the Small Wonder robot out of the closet.
At least Small Wonder has the distinction of being the single worst sitcom in American history.
WRONG.
Small Wonder scared thee sh*t out of me as a kid. I shudder to think of it in 3-D. No. NO. Noooooo
Oh noooooo! It was supposed to go down there a little……argh!
King Curtis, this is a work of beauty. A+.
Oops, touched a nerve. Now we know badidea’s secret identity:
Does she HAVE to sneer like that? Don’t do that! Scary…
This. Means. War.
So, so excellent! King curtis, as soon as I DESTROY badidea, I’m buying you a drink!
Destroy me? Really? I’d like to see you try…
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I do a really good Willie Tanner impersonation if anyone needs it. It might be my only impersonation. My friend does an amazing Jackee. We should take our talents to Hollywood… Or better yet, Branson!!
I do actually want to hear this so so badly. How to make happen?
Do you remember that tv special from the nineties, which was basically “Short Circuit” with ALF? They showed it in cinema here in Germany. I went actually to the cinema to watch the ALF movie (and noone knew it was just a tv special in the US). That’s how big ALF is here. People are celebrating right now on the streets as I watch out the window.
If they make ALF into a movie, I hope they take a very modern, dark, cynical direction. Maybe Christopher Nolan can pick that baby up. Give ALF some more depth… a fur cut perhaps… add some much needed sophistication. Explore his past a bit more. WHY does he love to murder and eat cats so much? He’s not a part of his alien world any longer. There are other things to eat. But ALF doesn’t care…
Because the Tanners were murdered by the CIA to remove the only obstacle between them and him. But now he thirsts for more than cat flesh. He thirsts for vengence.
I know way too many actual plots of actual episodes of ALF. I blame a stint of unemployment in 1999. And the Hallmark Channel.
I was really scared of ALF as a child. Just hearing the beginning of the show’s theme would send me racing from the room (my parents found this hilarious). For one of my birthdays, my grandmother gave me ALF slippers, unknowing. I yelled and threw the box when I opened it. (not as funny, I guess) I got in trouble for being rude, and had to put them on.
So, basically, I have issues with ALF.
How can they make a movie out of Alf? Was it a board game at some point or something?
that. is. terrifying.