ALF: Animated Adventures - 20,000 Years in Driving School and Other Stories (1987)

Alf Animated Series originally aired on NBC's Saturday morning block from 1987-1990. Alf Animated Adventures follows Alf pre-Earth adventures on his home planet of Melmac with his family, his girlfriend Rhonda and friends Skip and Sloop. Alf Tales is a series in which Alf retells classic stories with his uniquely comical twist.

Nice to get this

The Alf cartoons were as good as the sitcom it spun off from and this is a wonderful thing to have on dvd. Alf as usual is great fun for the whole family September 7, 2008

Even Better than the Original Show

When I was young the fall season meant two things besides falling leaves and carving pumpkins. It heralded the start of the school year and a new season of Saturday morning cartoons. I could hardly wait for the premier of the new fall lineup but year after year I found myself disappointed. We kids were fed a steady diet of low quality programming like Teen Wolf, The Snorks and Kissyfur. Then, in 1987 something magical happened. Starting at 10:00 AM children were presented with a solid hour and a half of creative, well produced programming including Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse and Alf: The Animated Series. In a cruel twist of fate, the second season of Alf was pitted against another high quality cartoon, Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters on ABC as well as the second season of Pee Wee on CBS. In the end Alf usually won my attention until reruns started and then I switched to the Ghostbusters or Pee Wee. This was probably the peak of Saturday morning cartooning as far as I was concerned.

After more than 20 years Alf: TAS still holds up. I was surprised at how well I remembered details of episodes, right down to specific lines of dialog. The animation is organic, energetic and colorful and the writing is top notch for its day. It definitely has a late 80's feel to it but the creators really went all out to produce a fully realized Melmac (home planet of Alf). The supporting characters are great and Alf: TAS manages to do something so rare in cartoons. It's actually legitimately funny. What I can't deny is that the animated series has pretty much dropped from the public consciousness. It only survived two seasons (which is one more than most Saturday morning cartoons) before being completely revamped as the lamentable Alf Tales and then cancellation.

In rating DVD's I tend to weigh almost all my calculations on the feature presentation with little to none on the quality of the packaging, transfer or special features but I have to say that '20,000 Years in Driving School' is the bare bones minimum. No special features whatsoever, only nine episodes chosen randomly from the full 26 and some rather mediocre transfers. My understanding is that Lions Gate released this cheapie collection to test the market interest which turned out to be lackluster. It's too bad because Alf is a terrific cartoon. If this is the best I can get I'll have to live with it but I for one would rush to get all 26 episodes if they ever become available and hopefully they'll pull together some better transfers. When it gets right down to it the DVD is priced low and if it helps Lions Gate or some other company decides to release all the episodes then I'm happy to spend 10 bucks. November 5, 2007

ALF Reigns!

I am really glad that the ALF presentations are out on DVD. I missed the little guy. February 7, 2007

Not the original...

My husband loved Alf when it was originally on TV. He was excited to receive it on DVD as a Christmas gift. Our kids (ages 10 and 5) love to watch it with him. We have purchased each season as it becomes available. I thought the kids would love the animated Alf just the same. To my disappointment, they do not. They prefer the original. The "Animated Adventures" just doesn't hold their attention. Not to mention that it confuses them because all the characters look similar and Alf goes by a different name. November 11, 2006

Ahead of Its Time - Great Gratuitous Detail

I, too, been waiting for this. I watched the series when I was in my 30's, and I was thrilled that the writers had gone to the trouble of creating a whole planet from scratch and had gone far beyond the call of duty in filling in the gratuitous details. Every element of Melmac is its own. Every cup and saucer is non-earthly. Alien words are abundant. Some of the background music is jaw-droppingly unfamiliar, while some of it is filled with jazz saxophone. There are lots of "Wow!" moments.

And of course, at the same time, it's a great satire of American culture (and the military). For instance, TV commercials pop up constantly (on perfectly circular Melmac TV screens). In other words, this is true science fiction. All begun a decade before "Futurama" (and a year before "The Simpsons" started).

This DVD contains the first 9 of the two seasons' 26 episodes. I hope enough people buy Vol. 1 to justify Vols. 2 and 3, because there are episodes I'm still craving.

I also have to admit that it's somewhat hard to watch. The animation is cheap: sometimes when something moves, it changes shades of color back and forth. And the directing is awful. For instance, there's often an awkward silence when they want you to focus on something visual. And visual jokes sometimes go on too long. I guess these criticisms apply to "Rocky and Bullwinkle" somewhat, too, but that show wasn't as hard to watch. October 1, 2006

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