The Ultimate ALF Wiki: ALF Expanded Universe

ALF Expanded Universe

The ALF Expanded Universe encompasses all of the officially licensed, fictional background of the ALF universe, outside of the TV series and TV mini-series produced by NBC. The expanded universe includes books, comic books, video games, spin-off films like ALF: Dark Supremacy, related television series, toys, promotional websites, the ALF RPG source books and other media.

Film & Television

• Mann's version of ALF was a conflicted wreck dealing with his own addictions while policing the styllized underworld of LA.Undercover ALF (1990) Director Michael Mann was enlisted to helm the first three episodes of this short-lived NBC spinoff featuring ALF as an undercover vice detective in Los Angeles. Notable for the first appearance of droids and biolords. Was hailed by TV Guide as "smart, sexy pulp sci-fi." Premiere Magazine appreciated the cast, writing, "ALF's co-star Maryam d'Abo smoulders." Despite good reviews, the series failed to deliver in the ratings and NBC cancelled it after only six episodes.
  
• Melmac Nights (1994-1995) Showtime prequel series re-casts ALF as a hustler and pimp on his home planet of Melmac. Included the biolords, the first appearance of the drug RUFF and ALF's gun the Soulbreaker. Notable for the first time ALF is seen on screen killing a person (it is referenced in the original series, Episode 302 The Missing Boy).
  
• ALF : Dark Supremacy (1997) A conspiracy allowing the biolords to seize control of the US government is thwarted by ALF and, in their first appearance, Strike Force, the alien counterespionage agency operated by the USA.
  
• ALF: Witness to the Execution (1998) The second Strike Force film delves into the back story for Strike Force, their first battle with the biolords during WWII and the droid incident on the moon. First mention of ALF's meta-human wife, Gloria.
  
• ALF: The Rocket's Red Glare (1999) The final Strike Force movie in which ALF dies, but in the end it is revealed to be a simulation of a computer run by the Chinese.
  
• ALF: Bounty Hunter (2002-2003) Considered the best of the "Bad ALF" material, featured a hard-drinking, hard-loving ALF, a healthy dose of psychedelic influence and extreme violence. Was jointly produced for TV by HBO and the BBC.
  
• Willie, Droid Cop (2006) A pilot was circulated on the Internet in 2009 for this aborted NBC one-hour actioner produced by Dick Wolf and set in a wild west future of 2086.
  

Books

See also: List of ALF books

Hundreds of ALF-related books have been produced, including this book of guitar tabs for ALF: Paradise Cruise.ALF-based fiction predates the premiere of the ALF CBS TV-series. In 1985 Alan Dean Foster ghostwrote a novelization of ALF entitled "Where Fate Will Take Us" which focused heavily on ALF's self-destructive eating and depression, as well as a side-plot involving a race of plant aliens that was cut from the pilot of the show.

The most widely-read ALF fiction is The Reaper Point series of Admiral Stahl books by R. A. Salvatore, in which a disgraced Melmacian despot enlists a rogue biolord to construct a droid fleet and restore his honor. The venerable Cat Hunter series is also much-loved by fans. It is currently on Book 26, Tabby Rising.

Other notable ALF books include Michael A. Stackpole's Rogue Vector pentalogy, Willie's Lament, The Shumway Paradox and the Hugo-winning TANNER, which casts ALF matriarch Kate Tanner as an astronaut crash-landed on Melmac.

Other

• ALF, the character, has provided readings of several books for Audible.com including Jonathan Franzen's Freedom and Toni Morrison's A Mercy.
  
• From 2004-2005 the character dated Jennifer Lopez for publicity purposes and the couple was known as JALF, Lopalf and Jennifalf.
  
• Threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium for the fourth game of the 2001 World Series. This was the second major live sporting event following 9/11 and ALF helped to lift the nation's spirits following the tragedy. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said, "Nobody was alien in those days immediately after 9/11" and The New York Times described, "That night we looked down on Ground Zero from a telescope on Melmac."
  

– Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons (@sexyfacts4u)