The 1980s were a glorious era for pop culture: the films of John Hughes, Aqua Net, Flock of Seagulls, the list is virtually endless. Of course, no list of 1980s icons would be complete without ALF. That’s right: the Alien Life Form from the planet Melmac. He is an icon. Cults could be created around ALF. Perhaps they already have. That’s something I’ll be Googling later.
The show ran from 1986-1990 for a total of 102 wondrous episodes. Lucky for us, the show also spawned several video games (eight total for those of you keeping score at home. The most recent was created in 2000.) The first game was titled ALF: The First Adventure.
For all intents and purposes the game was Pac Man, with ALF replacing Pac Man and Willie Tanner replacing the ghosts. You piloted ALF around the screen collecting pieces for his ship. You also ate pizzas. The pizzas gave you the ability to collect cats, because as you may recall, ALF likes to eat cats. If Tanner caught you, he took all your items and you are forced to begin from scratch. Oh, there’s also a dog catcher who can capture ALF. If he got his hands on you, he placed you in the pound. Get thrown in the pound three times and the game ended. Get the high score, and you became a member of the Honorary Melmac Skleen Club. If you don’t recall the show, it should be mentioned that the name Skleen comes from the game Skleen Ball, a sport on ALF’s home planet Melmac.
That’s it. That’s all there was to it. Still, it was an ALF video game. That’s reason enough to rejoice.
Until next time, I remain…
Just Another Geek in the Geek Kingdom
Shaun Jex is a lifelong gamer, a journalist, and pop culture historian.His love of video games began with a Commodore 64 he played growing up, late night sessions on his NES, Game Boy and Sega Genesis, and frequent trips to the local Tilt arcade. He edits the Citizens' Advocate newspaper in Coppell, Texas and writes about Disney and Walt Disney World history for Celebrations Magazine and the Celebrations Magazine blog. He runs a weekly vlog called "The MCP" dedicated to retro video games, and a channel with his wife Kara called "The Marceline Depot," dedicated to Disney, amusement parks, and travel.
