SATURDAY MORNINGS FOREVER: ALF Tales

ALF TALES
(NBC, September 10, 1988-December 9, 1989)

DiC Entertainment, Alien Productions, Lorimar-Telepictures, Saban Entertainment

MAIN CAST:
Paul Fusco – Gordon Shumway/ALF, Rick Fusterman
Thick Wilson – Bob Shumway, Larson Petty
Peggy Mahon – Flo Shumway
Tabitha St. Germain (as Paulina Gillis) – Augie Shumway, Rhonda
Noam Zylberman (season 1) & Michael Fantini (season 2) – Curtis Shumway
Len Carlson – Cantfayl, Sargent Staff
Rob Cowan – Skip, Roger Cowan
Dan Hennessey – Sloop/Eggbert Petty
Ellen-Ray Hennessey – Stella

Created by Paul Fusco and Tom Patchett, ALF Tales was a spin-off of ALF: The Animated Series, which in turn was a spin-off of the live-action/puppet sitcom ALF. ALF had become a major success for NBC, and it was only natural for the network to want to try and expand upon that success; particularly with their ever-increasing younger audience. And if one ALF animated show was good, two would have to be even better.

Promotional poster for the series depicting some of the tales.

As with its predecessor, the series was set on Melmac and followed ALF, aka Gordon Shumway (Fusco) as he and his friends put on productions of fairy tales and other public domain stories. For whom and why beyond entertaining the real-life audience at home was never revealed. Gordon and his girlfriend, Rhonda (Tabitha St. Germain), were typically the stars of the productions. Other roles would be filled out by Gordon’s family, father Bob (Thick Wilson), mother Flo (Peggy Mahon), sister Augie (Germain), and brother Curtis (Noam Zylberman & Michael Fantini); his friends, Rick Fusterman (Fusco), Skip (Rob Cowan); Melmacian citizens like fortune-smeller Madame Pokipsi (Deborah Theaker) and waitress Stella (Ellen-Ray Hennessy); and even his enemies, Larson Petty (Wilson) and Sloop (Dan Hennessey). Cowan would also play a new character modeled after himself named Roger Cowan, a TV executive who tried to impart notes on the productions. The entire cast was carried over from The Animated Series with the exception of Fantini, who was briefly replaced by Zylberman for the first season.

ALF, Skip and Rick as the Three Little Pigs.

As stated, those productions were parodies of various fairy tales and legends. They were often set in different eras and locations, featured various Melmacian elements native to the franchise, served as spoofs of various genres, films and television shows and featured numerous pop culture references. The episode “Cinderella”, for example, not only did their rendition of Cinderella, but was also presented like an Elvis Presley film as the prince was replaced by a rock star looking for love. “Rumpelstiltskin” played out like a detective noir as private eye Sam Shovel (ALF), a play on Sam Spade, needed to uncover Rumpelstiltskin’s (Sloop) name to get a miller’s daughter (Rhonda) out of a bad deal. “The Three Little Pigs” was bookended by scenes reminiscent of Rod Serling’s intros and outros for The Twilight Zone. The crocodile in the “Peter Pan” episode was portrayed as a caricature of the titular character from “Crocodile” Dundee. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was presented as an episode of Unsolved Mysteries with ALF playing a parody of Robert Stack.

Putting the "rap" in Rapunzel.

ALF Tales debuted on NBC on September 10, 1988; paired with the second season of The Animated Series to form The ALF/ALF Tales Hour. It was produced by DiC Entertainment, Alien Productions, Lorimar-Telepictures and Saban Entertainment. Only Alicia Marie Schudt, Bradley Kesden, and Skip Shepard were carried over from The Animated Series’ writing staff; although Richard Raynis still served as a producer as he did on the other series. Joining them were David Steven Cohen, Roger S.H. Schulman, Eddie Gorodetsky, Michael Rowe, Ellis Weiner, Mitchell Kriegman, Steve Roberts, Richard J. Schellbach, Phil Harnage and Judy Rothman, with Cohen, Schulman and Rothman serving as story editors and Harnage as assistant story editor. Fil Barlow was the character design supervisor over Paul Wee, Marcelo Vignali, Ed Lee, Michael Goguen, Charles Crawford, Adriana M. Galvez, Dean Gordon, Brian Hogan, David S. Karoll, Joey Banaszkiewicz, David Feiss, Mike Kim and Lou Police. Haim Saban and Shuki Levy provided the music, and animation duties were handled by KK C&D Asia and Mook DLE. In the rare event an episode’s story ran short, a brief live-action ALF segment was tacked onto the end where he’d read and answer fictional fan mail.

Rock star ALF searching for the owner of a glass slipper.

The Animated Series was cancelled after its second season and its reruns were split from Tales to allow its brief second season to air independently. Tales’ intro showcased Gordon directing an off-camera symphony as his outfit and background changed to the various settings featured in the respective tales, while the Hour intro just used The Animated Series’ with the new title. Unfortunately, it was also cancelled after two seasons as new leadership was moving into NBC with no investment in the ALF franchise. All versions of ALF left the network by the fall of 1990. The animated ALF made one additional appearance in the drug-prevention special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, which was broadcast across all the major networks on April 21, 1990 and starred a collection of Saturday morning characters.

The DVD.

A VHS was released in 1989 in the United Kingdom by The Video Collection, featuring the episodes “Robin Hood” and “Sleeping Beauty”. In 2006, Lionsgate Home Entertainment released the first seven episodes of the series to DVD in ALF Tales: ALF and the Beanstalk and Other Classic Fairy Tales. In 2023, Shout! Factory released Alf: The Complete Series Deluxe Edition, which contained the complete original series, spin-off film Project: ALF, and both animated series. The following year, both animated series became part of the debut line-up of retro animation network MeTV Toons. The series is also available to stream on Prime Video, Fubo, Peacock, The Roku Channel, Tubi and Crackle and the official ALF YouTube Channel.

EPISODE GUIDE:
Season 1:
“Robin Hood” (9/10/88) – Robin Hood and his jazz band must rescue Maid Marian from Nottingham castle while opposing the Sheriff’s unjust taxes.

“Sleeping Beauty” (9/17/88) – Prince Gordon gets a cursed papercut that causes him to fall asleep, and it’s up to princess Rhonda to defeat the witch that cast it with three wizards.

“Cinderella” (9/24/88) – Cinderella’s fairy godmother helps her attend a rock star’s concert where he plans to find his bride and wows him with a spectacular duet.

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (10/1/88) - While investigating the Headless Horseman for a story, reporter Ichabod Crane discovers that there are in fact several Horsemen.

“Jack and the Beanstalk” (10/8/88) – Jack Bates trades the family cow for magic beans to save their struggling motel and the resulting beanstalk leads to a giant with a hen that lays golden eggs.

“The Aladdin Brothers and Their Lamp” (10/15/88) – Ziggy and Roy Aladdin end up in trouble when their genie sends them to Sheboygan and they encounter the princess.

“Rapunzel” (10/29/88) – The Wicked Witch controls all media in the country and ends up imprisoning Rapunzel and her family when they lose her rigged quiz show.

“Rumpelstiltskin” (11/12/88) – A miller’s daughter comes to P.I. Sam Shovel to find out the name of a dwarf and get her out of a bad deal made with him.

“The Princess and the Pea” (11/19/88) – Aspiring stand-up comic Prince Gordy wants to marry a waitress that’s really a princess, but the Queen says she must pace the mattress test first.

“John Henry” (12/3/88) – Master chef John Henry fights automation when he competes against a mechanical food processor to see who can make the best meals.

“The Three Little Pigs” (12/10/88) – B.B. Wolf is tasked with getting the Three Little Pigs’ land for the oil deposits beneath it.

“Alice in Wonderland” (12/17/88) – When a humanoid rabbit steals his birthday present for Rhonda, Gordon follows her down an elevator shaft into Wonderland.

“Peter Pan” (1/7/89) – Peter Pan brings Wendy and her brothers to Never-Never Land where stand-up pirate Captain Hook views him as a rival and plots against him.

Season 2:
“Hansel & Gretel” (9/16/89) – Hansel and Gretel end up at Camp Eat-a-Kid where Hansel is fattened up by a wicked witch and Gretel is imprisoned with two Chimpunky prisoners.

“The Wizard of Oz” (9/23/89) – A tornado brings 1930s Gordon to the 1960s where landing on a witch gets him stuck with magical ruby high-top sneakers that only the Wizard of Oz can remove.

“The Elves and the Shoemaker” (9/30/89) – Elves are tasked with helping failed shoemaker Donald Tramp, but the success and riches turns him into a miserly dictator of a CEO.

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” (10/14/89) – The finicky Emperor is presented with the most unique of fashion: invisible Schmatex.

“Goldilocks & the Three Bears” (10/28/89) – When Rhonda gets a better house-sitting offer, she tasks Gordon with watching Mayor Bear’s place and he turns it into an amusement park.

“Little Red Riding Hood” (11/11/89) – Red has a package for scientist Granny, but little does he know that the Wolf had gotten there first and used her own shrinking device to shrink and eat her.

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (12/2/89) – Robert Stuck is on the case of missing champion skier Snow White after she was last seen in the company of a thug for hire.

“King Midas” (12/9/89) – Oklahoma Jones is in search of King Midas, but the evil Professor Bouquet steals his map with the intent of finding the king first.

You can read the full story here.

As an actor, he was the original Chief Quimby and several minor characters in Inspector Gadget (1983); Catchum Crocodile in The Get Along Gang; Brave Heart Lion, Loyal Heart Dog, Mr. Miller and an announcer in Care Bears; King Gorneesh and Trom 1 in Star Wars: Ewoks; Jord Dusat, Uncle Gundy, Yorpo and Vinga in Star Wars: Droids; Puzzle in Popples; Beaster and Nasty Nigel in My Pet Monster; Sloop and Eggbert Petty in ALF Tales; RoboCop in RoboCop; Cap’n Kidder, Billy the Crud and additional voices in Beetlejuice; Bully Koopa, Crime Wave Clyde and additional voices in The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, and reprised Bully in Super Mario World; Huff in Piggsburg Pigs!; George Racoon, Train Engineer Sid and Sidekick in The Raccoons; Large Cat, Baron Von Rottweiler and Bouvier DeFlaundra in Dog City; Sunder, Ruckus and Chrome in X-Men: The Animated Series; Junkman in The Incredible Crash Dummies; a general in Ultraforce; Patsy the Gorilla, Lars the Gorilla and a police officer in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective; South Wind, South Wind Giant and Troll Head #2 in The Neverending Story; the Commissioner in The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police; Royal Advisor, Physician, Nessus, Young Hero, Bald Headed Hunter, a Titan and various small roles in Mythic Warriors: Guardians of the Legend; Retirement Home Resident #3 in Rescue Heroes; and provided additional voices in Garbage Pail Kids, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures, Little Shop, Hammerman, and Wild C.A.T.s: Covert Action Teams.

As a voice director, he worked on Care Bears, Beetlejuice, Stickin’ Around, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, X-Men: The Animated Series, The Magic School Bus, Blaster’s Universe, Birdz, and Rescue Heroes.