Things Only Adults Notice In ALF

The airwaves were filled with strange films and television shows in the '80s, and ALF stands out as one of the more bizarre sitcoms from that era. It centers around the antics of an "Alien Life Form" living with an American family after crash landing into their garage. A fuzzy creature resembling a cross between an anteater and an aardvark, ALF had a smart mouth and troublemaking nature. The show was a hit, running for four seasons from 1986-1990 and generating spinoff comics and a TV movie. ALF even released musical recordings and made guest appearances on other shows.

Choosing an extraterrestrial as the protagonist isn't what makes ALF unique. Thanks in part to paranoia fueled by the Cold War, America was fixated on aliens, UFOs, and paranormal activity as much as big hair, leg warmers, and David Hasselhoff; as a result, numerous shows and movies featured non-human characters, including Mork and Mindy, Aliens, and The Thing. What makes ALF unique, however, is the sheer depth of depravity and darkness layered into a supposedly family-friendly show about an intergalactic wisenheimer. When rewatching it as an adult, you'll notice all kinds of questionable moments. From ALF's twisted sarcasm and abusive behavior to major conflicts with physics and the speed of light, from sketchy neighbors to flower child parents, here are the things only adults notice in ALF.

Considering the immense distance between Earth and ALF's home planet, one would assume these two planets and their civilizations would have very little in common. Yet the similarities between Melmac and Earth vastly outweigh their differences.

The word "Melmac" itself is of terrestrial origin, and refers to a brand of dinnerware popular from the 1940s to the 1970s. ALF'S home planet is also supposedly made of Melmac, which opens up a whole series of other questions.

Additionally, both Melmac and Earth share a 12-month calendar (albeit with different names for the months), and ALF comes to Earth as an avid musician who has mastered multiple man-made instruments, including the piano (although he claims Melmacian pianos also have "red" keys).

Both planets have near-identical games of baseball, although it's known as Bouillabaseball on Melmac, and played with fish parts instead of balls. Even the flora and fauna are similar, such as when ALF substitutes ragweed for a native Melmacian plant known as Carl Shrub while suffering from hay fever on Earth.

ALF is supposed to be a friendly wisecracker, but his remarks are often sarcastic to the point of cynicism. In addition to his crass behavior, ALF has a tendency to destroy everything in his path with little regard for the consequences.

As a result, he starts causing strife for the Tanner family as soon as he crashes into their garage. During his time with the Tanners, he gets Willie arrested, crashes Lynn's car, and sets more than 240 fires, along with other extensive property damage. He even accrued thousands of dollars of gambling and credit card debt in their name.

ALF cost the Tanners so much money that it prevented Lynn from going to her college of choice. You'd think he'd have more respect for the people providing him with unconditional support, shelter, and food. They ask nothing of ALF, other than to not eat their cat — and he can't even follow through on that.

Also, the Tanners couldn't risk having anyone over out of fear of ALF being discovered, which is very isolating for them. The Tanners should have just let the Alien Task Force take him and be done with it. Had they done so, they would have saved themselves a lot of money, energy, heartache, and pet cats.

Before the demise of the ironically named Lucky the Cat, he had several close calls with his equally furry, but not nearly as cute, alien roommate. One of the more memorable of those times was when Lucky went missing during an incident that took place in season 1, episode 19, "Wild Thing."

Every 75 years, Malmecians undergo a wild transformation lasting 24 hours that greatly amplifies their feeding instincts, to the point they're virtually unstoppable. ALF even has the Tanners build a cage for him and lock him in, but to no avail — he breaks loose and they lose track of him for hours. They're able to eventually lure ALF back home using telepathy and a fork (really), and he eventually returns to normal after the transformation passes.

Thankfully, he has no recollection of eating any cats, but does think he may have left something in the garage... which turns out to be a tiger missing from the local zoo. The episode ends with Willie Tanner saying, he'll do something about it, "just not immediately."

The adult mind is left with so many questions — starting with, how did he get the tiger out of the zoo and into the garage without getting mauled? How did the Tanners not hear anything? And what kind of sedatives is Willie on that make him so relaxed about having a giant killer cat in his garage?

Willie Tanner is a shortwave radio enthusiast, and it's this unusual hobby that lures a lost ALF to his doorstep (or, to be more accurate, through his garage roof). In reality, it's highly unlikely that shortwave radio waves would be strong enough to get that far into deep space.

Research shows that the length such a signal can travel all depends upon the type of shortwave radio being used to both send and receive it. Regardless, ALF probably wouldn't have been able to pick up such signals much beyond our immediate solar system. This isn't nearly far enough to locate while lost as far out as the Andromeda galaxy.

All science aside, the same radio waves that drew ALF to the Tanners would ultimately tear them apart. In the final episode, "Consider Me Gone," ALF receives an urgent incoming message over Willie's shortwave radio. Turns out his girlfriend Rhonda and best friend Skip bought a new planet, and want ALF to come back and help them "make a new Melmac."

ALF lives in perpetual fear of the Alien Task Force — a US military organization on a mission to track down extraterrestrials. He claims they "hunt down innocent aliens and do bad, bad things to them."

As kids, the audience feared these bad guys right alongside poor ALF. However, adulting begs one to ask: If the Alien Task Force (or ATF for short) is so powerful, why did it take them until the end of the final episode to capture ALF?  According to the show, this task force had nearby Edwards Air Force base at its disposal. They knew where ALF was, and could have easily gotten to him before then.

Instead, he stayed in the same low-security house for four years. During that time, he was never discovered, and despite some people besides the Tanners learning about ALF's alien origins, and all the strange phenomena surrounding ALF's existence — in all that time, the US military couldn't figure out where he was? The Alien Task Force could have easily gotten to ALF while the Tanners were out, or even if they were home.

All in all, these guys don't seem like they're very good at their job.

Speaking of strange character traits, during the course of the show it's also unveiled that the parental figures of the Tanner family have a very colorful past. Apparently, Willie was known as "Boxcar Willie" in his teens, due to his habit of train-hopping across the country.

This carefree behavior extended into his young adult life, when Willie became a flower child of the 1960s. Kate was also a hippie of that era, and the young couple spent the summer of 1967 honeymooning in Niagara Falls. That seems very sweet and vaguely romantic, until the adult mind realizes that year was in the era of the Summer of Love. Thousands of people converged on the area surrounding the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco.

Boxcar Willie and Flower Power Kate would have more likely been there, not the other coast. Niagara would make sense if they were out that way for Woodstock, but that wasn't until 1969. It doesn't make any sense. But what does make sense is LSD — watching ALF is like watching a twisted, long, dark, acid trip. One that starts with the crash from space as the "drop," and getting caught by the Alien Task Force as the comedown.