Paul Fusco facts for kids

Paul Fusco is an American puppeteer, actor, and television producer. He is most famous for creating, writing, producing, and directing the popular TV show ALF. He also gave the main character, ALF, his voice and brought him to life as a puppeteer.

Paul Fusco: The Creator of ALF

Paul Fusco started making TV shows with puppets in the early 1980s. Many of these shows were special holiday programs.

How ALF Began

In 1984, Paul Fusco created the character of ALF. He used a puppet that looked like an alien, which he had at home. He would use this puppet to make his family and friends laugh. He really wanted to make a TV show about this funny alien.

He teamed up with Bernie Brillstein and Tom Patchett. Together, they came up with the idea for the ALF sitcom. They presented their idea to NBC, a big TV network, and the network loved it! The ALF show became a huge hit, starting in 1986 and running for four seasons. They made 99 episodes in total.

ALF's Animated Adventures

Paul Fusco also created and produced two cartoon series for NBC. These were ALF: The Animated Series and ALF Tales. These cartoons showed ALF (whose real name is Gordon Shumway) and his family when they lived on their home planet, Melmac, before it exploded. In the live-action parts of these shows, ALF would read letters from viewers and tell stories about his life back home.

Another show Paul Fusco produced was Space Cats. This show also mixed live-action puppets with animation. It aired on NBC in the early 1990s. In Space Cats, Captain Catgut (voiced by Fusco) led a team of space cats on missions. This show lasted for one season with 13 episodes.

ALF's Return to TV

NBC suddenly stopped making ALF in 1990. The last episode ended with a big question mark, leaving fans wondering what happened next. But in 1996, another TV network, ABC, made a movie called Project ALF to finish the story. In this movie, ALF escapes from a military base where he was being studied.

After Project ALF, Paul Fusco kept ALF in the public eye. Between 1996 and 2001, ALF appeared on many TV shows. He was on The Cindy Margolis Show, Talk Soup, and Love Boat: The Next Wave. ALF also appeared on NBC's 75th Anniversary Show and the 2003 TV Land Awards. From 2003 to 2004, ALF was a guest on Hollywood Squares and even became the "spokesalien" for a phone company called 10-10-220. New ALF toys, posters, and T-shirts were also released.

ALF's Talk Show and Recent Appearances

All this interest in ALF led to ALF's Hit Talk Show in 2004. Paul Fusco created and produced this show for TV Land. It was a mix of celebrity interviews and funny skits, filmed in front of a live audience in Hollywood. The show ran for eight episodes.

In November 2007, ALF was featured as the "TV Icon of the Week" on The O'Reilly Factor. More recently, in 2016, ALF made guest appearances on two different TV shows: Mr. Robot and Young Sheldon.

In 2012, Paul Fusco shared exciting news: Sony Pictures Animation bought the rights to ALF. They planned to make a new movie that would mix computer-generated animation (CGI) with live-action actors. As of 2024, there haven't been any new updates on this movie.

Paul Fusco's Filmography

Here are some of the TV shows and movies Paul Fusco has worked on:

See also

• In Spanish: Paul Fusco para niños