The most vivid memory I have of television’s classic 1980s sitcom, ALF, involves running away.
Even as a wee lass, I was obsessed with ALF. And, also, ALF. ALF was not a show for children. Gordon Shumway was a dick. He ate cats. He was rude and cynical and he didn’t pay any heed to what would happen if he was discovered and what that would mean for the beleaguered Tanner family who took in his burnt sienna ass. He also, apparently, once had liposuction. But he was also a loyal friend with a big appetite for life (and food). I loved ALF. Even at the tender age of four, I loved ALF (no, my parents didn’t put limits on my television-watching, even then). So why the running? Every time ALF popped up on TV, I had to run from one end of the house (TV room) to the other (my room) to grab my ALF doll for hugging, squeezing, and watching together.
So you might expect that the news from THR that ALF is getting a new feature from Sony Pictures Animation and producer Jordan Kerner (who is also responsible for those Smurfs features) would send me into fits of rage like much of the movie blogger populace. Wrong. Are you convinced that a new CG/live action ALF film, already expected to feature original ALF pupeteer Paul Fusco back in the role, will be bad? Trust me, no matter how bad you think that a new ALF feature could be (or might be or will be, depending on your level of cynicism), there’s no way in hell that it will be as bad a Project ALF, a made-for-TV ALF movie from 1996 that featured the always-filthy ALF escaping military imprisonment, only to end up in a strip club. Don’t believe me? Just take a look after the break.
Big thanks to Bad Movie Realm for posting this little gem on YouTube.
The joke is, of course, that ALF ended up in the strip club because the name of it made him think it was an establishment that served cats. Ahem. Terrible, right?
While details on the new ALF feature are scarce – THR can only report that Sony has picked up the rights to the show and is developing it for a CG/live action feature (a la The Smurfs) and that show creator Tom Patchett and Fusco will be involved in such development (with Fusco expected to reprise the role) – not much else is known. What is for sure, however, is that as hilarious as it is to see ALF in a strip club, much of the humor of the ALF franchise exists in setting ALF in the world of the straight-laced Tanners.
Final vote: no to the strip club, yes to a return to family life.