Story: This animated series finds everyone’s favorite wisecracking extra terrestrial in a wealth of new adventures, or at least new to ALF. So we have tales like Robin Hood, Rapunzel, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and others, all brought to life with ALF’s special sense of humor. As you can likely guess, the episodes stick to the basics of the stories involved, but also add in a lot of comedy and alter the narratives at times, to serve the comedic nature of the series. While ALF Tales was marketed as a children’s cartoon, it manages to blend the silliness that appeals to younger viewers with cultural references and jokes that will miss those same kids, but give their parents some solid laughs. The show has a lot of pop culture references and is fairly competent about working them into the stories, while also preserving ALF’s signature wackiness.

Entertainment Value: The second cartoon series centered on ALF, ALF Tales ran two seasons for a total of twenty-one episodes from 1988-89. Unlike ALF: The Animated Series, which served as a prequel of sorts, this series doesn’t add much to the lore of the franchise and instead, focuses on humorous spins on established stories. The tales chosen are fertile ground for this kind of project, as classic stories like The Wizard of Oz, Little Red Riding Hood, and King Midas are so familiar, so the need for exposition is minimal. That frees up more time for the jokes and the weirdness, both of which are in high supply here. I appreciated the wild, sometimes almost random pop culture references and jokes put in to make the parents or older viewers laugh, as this spruced up the well worn classics just enough. Not all of the humor works of course, but I found the writing is to be solid or better in most episodes and the general wackiness adds a lot to the entertainment.

The animation is perhaps crude by comparison to more recent releases, but this is a nostalgic charm here, whether you watched the show at the time or not. This kind of animation just has a certain warmth, similar to other 80s cartoons that might looked dated now, but still has an undeniable visual spark. The character design work is fine and since the entire cast are aliens from ALF’s home world, we get to see a wealth of different type of citizens, so no worries that everyone looks just like ALF. I enjoyed how the visual approach varied so much from episode to episode, as the different stories warrant very different visual elements, even if the detail isn’t always that deep or revelatory. A simple animation style that to me, is timeless and nostalgic, and a chance to see ALF in some tales that let him get into all kinds of mayhem. In the end, while not a cartoon classic perhaps, ALF Tales is silly, nostalgic, and fun, not to mention quite wacky at times. So if you appreciate 80s cartoons or ALF in general, this short series is worth a look.

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