Alf notes

Alf notes

Alf stands for Alien Life Form
Willie stands for Will I Ever Escape The Bleak Shadow Of Paul Fusco's Little Hairy Vanity Project

Tensions were high on the Alf set. Everyone hated it, because the scenes were so elaborately shot and took extreme effort to coordinate and everyone, especially the actor playing Willie, ended up being in the shadow of a shitty, hairy puppet. Willie was so maddened by his subordination to this uncanny, inhuman freak that he attacked the puppet during one filming, and after the filming of the final episode, Willie's actor disappeared from the set without a word, never to return

Willie's actor later stated that his harrowing experience on the set, among the simmering resentments of other actors and crew, did not matter because the show made people happy.

The set was constantly besieged with reports of kids trying to imitate Alf's actions, so that a plotline where Alf electrocutes himself in the bathtub was taken out, Alf's alcohol consumption had to be curtailed, and the cat stuff was dropped in the second season after rumors of children trying to microwave cats. Fusco insisted that no one was harmed and prided himself on pushing the envelope before the censors.

In 2010, footage surfaced of Paul Fusco having Alf go on a "kramer's rant" where he repeatedly used tbe N word and expounded upon the vagaries of assholes and hardons. A producer defended the footage, claiming that it came from a time where things were "not so ridiculously PC" and that people should lighten up about the racist tirade delivered by this beloved prime time puppet pal.

For NBC's anniversary segment, Tina Fey resented having to work with Alf, given the extensive technical demands Paul Fusco made on the set in order to operate Alf. In response, Alf explained that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were "murdering women's comedy" in the US and that they "must be stopped before they kill again".

Oh, Alf just did something funny. Wow, Alf's doing that funny thing. Gosh, Alf is doing something funny right now.