List of ALF characters

Gordon Shumway
ALF character
Gordon "ALF" Shumway in the series ALF
First appearance	"ALF"
Last appearance	"Project ALF"
Portrayed by	Paul Fusco
Voiced by	Paul Fusco
Information
Nickname(s)	ALF
Aliases	ALF
Species	Melmacian
Gender	Male
Family	Bob Shumway (father) Flo Shumway (mother) Curtis Shumway (brother) Augie Shumway (sister)
Significant other(s)	Rhonda (girlfriend)
Nationality	Melmac

A listing of the characters from the ALF television series that ran between 1986 and 1990.

ALF (an acronym for "Alien Life Form"), is an alien from the planet Melmac. ALF's real name is Gordon Shumway; he was given the nickname "ALF" by Willie Tanner in the pilot episode.

ALF was born on October 28, 1756 (though he mentions that his birthday is in August in Episode 7, "Help Me Rhonda") on the Lower East Side of the planet. Melmac was located six parsecs past the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster and had a green sky, pink grass and a purple sun. The commonly used currency is Wernicks, and the substance we call foam is revealed by ALF in the first season episode, "Baby, You Can Drive My Car", to be as precious on Melmac as gold is on Earth. Lint also has value on Melmac as hinted in the cold open of the same episode, though ALF did not reveal what it corresponded to on Earth in terms of value. It is possible that lint may have corresponded to platinum, as both materials were used in his ship as part of what appears to be basic amenities, specifically the ship's plumbing, and Alf, surprised that the materials had value on Earth, would sell these in order to buy a Ferrari for Lynn.

ALF's body is covered with rust-colored fur (he once described his color as burnt sienna). He has a rippled snout, facial moles, eight stomachs, his heart is apparently located in his head near his ear. He likes to eat cats and had a best friend on his home planet named Malhar Naik. He attended high school for 122 years and was captain of a Bouillabaisseball team (which is played on a normal baseball diamond using fish parts as a ball). He has at least two cousins "Pretty Boy Shumway" and "Blinky", and has had liposuction. During a bout of amnesia, he believed he was an insurance salesman named Wayne Schlegel.

ALF is troublesome, sarcastic and cynical, and sometimes he puts himself at the risk of being discovered while doing some of his often unintentional pranks. However, if things have gone too far, he does as much as possible to make up for his mistakes, generally with good results. In one episode, he tried to help Brian to gain confidence during a school show, because he was too afraid to perform. In another occasion, he helped Dorothy to deal with her husband's death and move on and accept another man's friendship. He also helped Raquel Ochmonek deal with a depression she suffered after she became the laughing stock in a TV show.

Before his life on Earth, ALF was an Orbit Guard for Melmac and was often called upon to fight the villain calling himself "Versus, the Evil Larson Petty". During one such battle, nuclear missiles are used to try to quell the threat of Versus once and for all. Unknown to everyone, the missiles would not only destroy Versus, but the entire planet along with the Melmacians trying to defend their planet. When Melmac exploded, it threw a few orbit guard ships into space, one of them being ALF's. The ship drifted through space for about a year before picking up Willie Tanner's radio transmission and crash landing on earth.