The Cast of ‘ALF’ Hated Working With the Titular Star

ALF was one of the strangest but most beloved sitcoms of all time. A creation of the 1980s, ALF premiered on September 22, 1986, running on NBC for four seasons. It was the perfect show for its era, as it combined traditional family sitcom tropes and laugh tracks with the zaniness of a cartoon come to life. The series, co-created by Paul Fusco (who also voiced the titular star), centered on a sarcastic, wannabe cat eater, super hairy alien life form named Gordon Shumway who crashes his spaceship on Earth and is then taken in by the Tanner family. Week after week, ALF’s shenanigans get him in trouble, causing chaos in the house, but hilarity for those watching at home.

The 1980s were the era of the sitcom, thanks to hit series like The Cosby Show, Family Ties, The Golden Girls, and Cheers. All of those shows took place in a world that might have been fictional, but was at least realistic. Mork & Mindy, a sitcom that got its start in the late 70s, but ran into the 80s, starred Robin Williams as an alien, but at least he was a humanoid. ALF was wildly different, with the star of the show being a puppet. That shouldn’t have worked at all, but audiences loved it. Although his reign may have been short, ALF was a major hit on NBC. It was one of the most popular series every year, a fact made more impressive with the realization that this was an era where network TV dominated everything and cable hadn’t yet taken a big chunk of viewership away.

Viewers at home may have gotten a kick out of ALF, but the human actors hated every minute of it. The show was so stressful, and the puppet so infuriating, that one actor walked out and another called it the worst acting job they ever had. It seems that ALF was one alien who should’ve stayed far away from where he ended up.

The Puppet Overshadowed the Human Characters on ‘ALF’

If you grew up in the ’80s or ’90s, you know very well who ALF is. He had his own toys and a cartoon. The puppet even showed up on Hollywood Squares! Now, quick, name one of the human characters from ALF. Chances are that you can’t, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. When the star of a sitcom is a walking, talking, hilarious alien puppet, something no other series offered in such a way, then the cookie-cutter sitcom characters were bound to fade into the background. It’s not the only late ’80s series where the cast was overwhelmed by one character. Family Matters went through the same thing. What was meant to be a spin-off from Perfect Strangers that focused on the Winslow family became all about Steve Urkel (Jaleel White). The cast grew to despise both the character and the actor playing him.

With ALF, the actors knew what they were getting into. It was impossible for them to not know they’d be overshadowed. Still, they did their best. The Tanners are a nice sitcom family, but not interesting enough to be their own show without an alien in the house. The patriarch of the Tanners, Willie (Max Wright), is a social worker who likes amateur radio. He’s a bit of a grump, but loves his family. Willie’s wife, Kate (Anne Schedeen), is a good wife and mother, but it’s not the basis for an overly exciting character. The oldest daughter, Lynn (Andrea Elson), is your typical teenager, and the youngest son, Brian (Benji Gregory), sticks out sometimes for being the cute kid who becomes good friends with ALF, but these characters are purposely a bit on the dull side so that ALF could hog the spotlight. In a 2000 interview with People, where the cast was asked about their ALF memories, Andrea Elson said there was “tension on the set” because the other actors “had to play second fiddle to a puppet. It was ALF and then there was the little family.”

The Actors of ‘ALF’ Despised the Puppet Star

The best interactions happen between ALF and Willie Tanner. Their contrast made for some of the funniest moments, with ALF being all fun and carefree, and Willie constantly at his wits’ end, trying to keep ALF out of trouble or clean up his latest mess. Creator Paul Fusco raved about the interactions between ALF and Willie, saying, “Max had a difficult thing to do, playing straight man against ALF. But there was great chemistry between Max’s character and ALF.”

That doesn’t mean that Willie’s actor, Max Wright, enjoyed it. In fact, he hated the puppet. The 4’3″ contraption was built on top of a stage with four puppeteers underneath, operating him. He was so limited in what he could do that almost all of his scenes had him in the Tanner house and never leaving. That can be quite boring and limiting for an actor. “It got tough to do stories where he could only interact with the five or six people he knew,” Fusco said.

Anne Schedeen told People about ALF‘s last episode and how Max Wright walked out the moment the final scene was over. He didn’t stop and talk to anyone or even say goodbye. He simply went to his dressing room, packed his bags, got in his car, and left. “I was hugely eager to have it over with,” Wright admitted. Schedeen said the set was joyless due to the technical nightmares of the puppet, with a 30-minute episode taking up to 25 hours to shoot, and referred to the cast as “a dysfunctional family.”

‘ALF’s Legacy Lives on, Despite Controversy

It wasn’t just the Tanner family who hated the experience of shooting ALF. In 2010, actor John LaMotta, who played Trevor Ochmonek, the nosy next-door neighbor of the Tanners, told TMZ, “I thought the show ALF was a piece of sh*t … worst work I ever did.” It wasn’t just because ALF took up all the spotlight, or because his intricate puppetry took so long to film, but because of Paul Fusco’s behavior. In 2010, a behind-the-scenes video was revealed that showed ALF outtakes. In the video, Fusco is playing ALF and making sexual comments, even shockingly saying a racial slur three times! Now there’s a horrible way to have your childhood ruined.

Despite the mistakes of Fusco, the slow puppetry, and a grumpy cast, ALF‘s legacy has lived on long past the series’ cancellation in 1990. In 1996, there was the made-for-TV movie Project ALF, in which ALF has finally been captured by the U.S. government and has to escape. In 2023, he was brought back by Ryan Reynolds for his Maximum Effort Channel, with Paul Fusco returning to voice the alien despite past controversy. 1980s nostalgia is alive and well, and ALF still makes people who grew up with him happy. In 2010, even Max Wright (who passed away in 2019), had let go of the anger he felt from the series, telling People, “It doesn’t matter what I felt or what the days were like. ALF brought people a lot of joy. They adored it.”

‘ALF’ Worked, Despite Its Flaws and Limitations

ALF had its issues, but it was a success anyway, succeeding not because of its wild premise, but despite it. The idea of a family taking in a wise-cracking, talking alien fit in with the openness of the 80s, and while that could have made for an interesting pilot, where do you go after the setup? ALF worked because it was more than the setup. Strip that away, and it’s a very average sitcom in the best way possible, centered around family, relationships, and home. The puppet may have been so complicated and hard to operate that taking it out of the house was nearly impossible, but that flaw was actually a positive. If ALF could have gone outside and gone anywhere every week, the series would have quickly lost its way, taking our talking alien hero on constant adventures and losing the familiarity and family themes in the process. Instead, ALF stayed at home, not just because the puppet had limitations, or because the plot required him to be hidden, but because in sitcoms, that’s where the magic is.

Watch any sitcom; nearly every single one is centered in the living room. It doesn’t even have to be about a biological family, but people coming together to form their own little family, as seen with shows like Friends and The Big Bang Theory. That might not apply to a series like The Office, but for those people, especially Michael Scott (Steve Carell), work is their home, so Dunder Mifflin might as well be their living room couch. With ALF, we see a family who’s a little bit dysfunctional, with a cranky dad, but it’s a family who’s together. Mom, Dad, Son, and Daughter are always there supporting each other, and even though ALF causes them nothing but trouble, they support him too and would risk their lives for him. Never would they turn him into the government. He’s their family.

It was sad when Max Wright passed away in 2019, but at 75, at least he had lived a long life. The ALF family saw another death this year, one so much more tragic and heartbreaking. On June 13, Benji Greogry, who played young son Brian Tanner, died at just the age of 46. He had suffered from bipolar disorder for years before being found dead in his own car in a bank parking lot in Arizona, having taken not only his own life but the life of his service dog. It was a story so hard to comprehend, no matter if the victim was a known name or not. Benji Gregory was a child actor who also appeared in shows like Murphy Brown, The A-Team, and Punky Brewster, among others, before disappearing from Hollywood and the spotlight. On ALF, he was the heart of the series. Everyone else had their adult issues, but Brian was the only little kid in the group, always with a big smile on his face. He looked at ALF and didn’t see an alien or a problem to deal with, but he saw his best friend. ALF, the series, may have had its issues behind the scenes, but it’s remembered fondly for the joy it brought people who watched it. It’s no wonder that someone like Ryan Reynolds loved it too. You can see the same snarky humor in Reynolds’ movies as you saw with ALF. It’s a show that will live on forever, and in a way, so too will its cast.

ALF is available to stream on Peacock in the U.S.

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ALF

A furry alien from the planet Melmac lands in the garage of an unsuspecting suburban family, leading to comedic chaos. While trying to repair his spacecraft to return home, he becomes an unlikely family member, offering new perspectives on Earthly customs and forging bonds with his human hosts.

Release Date

September 22, 1986

Cast

Andrea Elson , Anne Schedeen , Paul Fusco , Benji Gregory , Max Wright

Main Genre

Comedy

Seasons

4