Column: Even ALF may get his very own network television talk show

Staff

Published Friday, July 30, 2004

By Ed Shannon, Tribune staff writer

ALF can be a shorter version, or even used as a nickname for a person named Alfred. Then again, ALF could be an abbreviation for Alien Life Form. And for television program fans with long memories the second version is based on a strange looking critter called the furry little wiseacre.

ALF was the star of a very popular series of 102 television comedy programs which ran from September 1986 to June 1980 on NBC. There was also a special one-time production, a TV movie, and a series of Saturday morning cartoons which ran on NBC-TV from September 1987 to August 1980.

Then the cat-lover from Planet Melmac who made life for the Tanner family mighty interesting in a warped way faded into television rerun land.

A year or two ago ALF was revived for a series of telephone 10-10 long distance service commercials on television. He performed his very distinctive style of acting with Terry Bradshaw, Mike Piazza, Emmitt Smith and Toby Keith.

Now, this puppet-like creation has joined an overwhelming number of talk show hosts on radio and television.

ALF's debut as a master of ceremonies for a half-hour televised talk show came on 9 p.m. on Wednesday, July 7. For those with cable or satellite service, this comical character from the past was on the TV Land channel. On the Albert Lea cable system that's Channel 49.

Like so many of the cable programs, ALF's Hit Talk Show was scheduled for several encore presentations during the week. However, there's no indication if there will be more of ALF's Hit Talk Show in the future.

ALF's first telecast on July 7 got off to a good start. He has Ed McMahon who served the same function he had on the Johnny Carson program years ago. Guests on this first talk show were Henry Winkler, Drew Carey, Dennis Franz and Joan Rivers. Those four guests didn't add anything worthwhile in the way of political commentary. Yet, that may be a big plus for this particular program.

It's obvious that ALF's Hit Talk Show was scripted. The same comment can be made for all those other radio and television talk shows. In fact, he has "talking points" which are humorous, and not of the partisan and biased political types those other hosts use.

ALF's program didn't use telephone call-in comments by listeners and/or viewers, and that's a real plus. Besides, I have the feeling that some of these callers are arranged for ahead of time. Also, those other hosts are really inaccessible because they have screeners who filter out callers who don't agree with the opinionated host.

His half-hour program really made sense. Some of the other programs, especially on radio, have two- and three-hour formats which can get rather boring.

There is one fact regarding ALF which has to be brought up. He's a real lefty. No, not the stupid left and right labels which are being used instead of the more logical liberal or conservative. ALF is left-pawed, a fact I mentioned in a column many years ago.

In reality, several of those folks on television labeled as extreme conservatives who stress they are on the right side of the political spectrum are actually lefties. Proof of this comes when they start to write anything which indicates their real preference for the dominate hand.

It'll be interesting to see if ALF's Hit Talk Show ever becomes a continuing part of the program schedule on the TV Land channel. This is the cable channel, by the way, which is devoted to reruns of those television shows from the past.

Among those old black and white and early color classics are: The Addams Family, The Munsters, Lucy, Andy Griffith, Green Acres, Three's Company, Cheers, Family Ties, Sanford, Happy Days and Carol Burnett. And to borrow a line from those obnoxious hard-sell television commercials, there's still more.

These include: The Waltons, Bonanza, Bewitched, Gunsmoke (now that's really ancient), Leave it to Beaver, Brady Bunch, Happy Days, Jeannie, All in the Family, and even Wilbur and his friendly critter buddy, Mr. Ed.

(Feature writer Ed Shannon's column appears each Friday.)

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