The titular character, ALF, an acronym for "Alien Life Form", but whose real name is Gordon Shumway, crash-lands in the garage of the suburban California middle-class Tanner family.

[6] Gordon Shumway is an alien from the planet Melmac who follows an amateur radio signal to Earth and crash-lands into the garage of the Tanners, a suburban middle-class family who live in the San Fernando Valley area of California.

The family consists of social worker Willie (Max Wright), his wife Kate (Anne Schedeen), their teenage daughter Lynn (Andrea Elson), younger son Brian (Benji Gregory), and pet cat Lucky- whom ALF wishes to consume.

Though his culture shock, survivor's guilt, and loneliness often cause problems for the Tanners, as well as their fear of what could happen if others were to discover his existence, they grow to care for and love him as a part of the family.

Episodes dealt with ALF learning about Earth and making new friends both in and out of the Tanner family including Willie's brother Neal (Jim J. Bullock), Kate's widowed mother Dorothy (Anne Meara), with whom ALF has a love-hate relationship, her boyfriend and later husband Whizzer (Paul Dooley), the Ochmoneks' nephew Jake (Josh Blake), the psychologist Larry (Bill Daily) and the blind woman Jody (Andrea Covell), who never learns of ALF's true nature, but does know through touch that he is short and hairy.

Changes occur in the Tanner household over the course of the series, including the birth of a new child, Eric, who was added to the series because Anne Schedeen was pregnant at the time; ALF moving from the laundry room to the attic, which he and Willie convert into an "apartment", and the death of Lucky in the season four episode "Live and Let Die", which ALF accepts despite having previously attempted to catch and eat him due to having come to love and respect him.

However, Fusco's brief performance as ALF won over Brillstein, who thought the character was hilarious and strong enough to be the focus of a series.

Max Wright said that he despised supporting a technically demanding puppet that received most of the good lines of dialogue.

[12] Anne Schedeen said that on the last night of taping the final episode, "there was one take and Max walked off the set, went to his dressing room, got his bags, went to his car and disappeared...

Schedeen herself said "there was no joy on the set... it was a technical nightmare – extremely slow, hot and tedious... A 30-minute show took 20, 25 hours to shoot."

The set was built on a platform raised four feet above the ground, with trap doors constructed at many points so that ALF could appear almost anywhere; Fusco operated him from underneath, so the unoccupied holes all over the floor were deep and treacherous.

Another puppeteer, Lisa Buckley, who would go on to perform on Sesame Street, assisted Fusco beneath the stage, operating ALF's left arm.

The process resulted in numerous mistakes and retakes, making it impossible to record ALF in front of a live audience.

[14] In an interview on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Tina Fey said that her biggest frustration as producer of NBC's 75th-anniversary special was dealing with ALF's "people".

This can be seen in one of the series' intros, which concludes with the Tanner family getting their picture taken; ALF (played by Meszaros) walks over to be part of the photo.

The season-ending cliffhanger "Consider Me Gone" became an unintentional series finale when NBC gave Alien Productions a verbal commitment for a fifth season, but ultimately withdrew its support.

"[13] Fusco commented in 2007 that his most enjoyable experience on ALF was sitting in the Writers' Room and pitching jokes while pushing the limit as to what NBC censors would allow.

However, as ALF became more popular with children, NBC told Fusco "you can't have him drinking; the kids are watching, it's a bad role model."

Fusco ended the original episode with a public service announcement from ALF himself, warning of the dangers of mixing water and electricity.

Asked to comment, producer Steve Lamar stated that the footage was from an era when things were not so "ridiculously PC".

Between 2004 and 2006, Lionsgate Home Entertainment (under license from Paul Fusco and Brillstein/Grey Communications) released all four seasons of ALF on DVD in Region 1.

However, the 60-minute episodes "Try to Remember" and "ALF's Special Christmas" (from season one and season two, respectively), were presented in their original hour-long formats (though "Try to Remember" was presented in its censored version and "ALF's Special Christmas" has a minor scene using the song "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" excised).

Both DVDs featured optional commentary by creator Paul Fusco, with co-creator Tom Patchett joining him on the first release.

[5] Shout set up an "ALFtv" YouTube channel, posting several full episodes in their syndicated versions, and clips from others.

On June 24,[20] Shout presented the original uncut versions of fan-favorite episodes, with new commentary from Pratchett and Fusco (the latter in-character as ALF).

Both episodes underwent restoration to their authentic durations and were not subjected to syndication-related truncation necessitated by time constraints.

The episodes span four discs and are uncut, unlike their American-edited counterparts, with a few exceptions: In Region 4, Warner Home Video released the first two seasons of ALF on DVD in Australia and New Zealand on April 7, 2010.

Repeats of the show debuted on cable in 1999 on the Odyssey Network,[32] remaining on the schedule after Hallmark took full control and airing until 2002.

Project: ALF starts right after the series final episode but, especially because of the absence of the Tanners, it failed at obtaining success.

[13] In August 2012, it was reported that Sony Pictures Animation had acquired the rights to ALF and would develop the property into a CGI-live action hybrid feature.