Reaction to the announced Alf movie is as expected.

There’s the full assortment of statements about “rapings of childhood” and “it’ll be terrible” and “can’t they think of anything new” and any number of other hyperbolic, largely negative ideas.

(How come nobody ever gets mad when they keep reinventing James Bond?)

Alf: The Movie may indeed turn out to be objectively terrible viewed through an adult lens, but similar to what I had to say about the Smurfs movie – which was from the same producers – Alf is for kids.

It was always a kids show, and it should always be a kids show. Yes, in the 80s/90s it was on in prime-time, but portions of that used to be a time-slot for family-fare. (Unless you think Urkel was a deep, intellectual social commentary of some kind.)

/Film went way too far in their angst.

[Alf creator Paul] Fusco also pointed out during the interview that ALF was more of a partier early in the series, before NBC pushed back and demanded he get more family-friendly.

In that light, ALF could actually be more reminiscent of Universal’s Ted than Sony’s own Smurfs franchise. For the sake of ALF’s now grown-up fans, let’s hope that turns out to be the case.

Okay, that’s how you end up with Batman porn, which there’s a lot more of out there than you’d think.

Why would a grown-up fan of Alf – such as myself – hope to see an icon of my childhood reinvented as a complete degenerate? (That’s not a knock on Ted.)

If you’ve never actually watched Alf, this was an example of his early, “more of a partier” ways:

There are a lot of easy jokes about what the Ted-inspired Alf would do with that cucumber instead of just being silly and fun, but then I’d be doing the thing I’m saying not to do.

An Alf movie – even in its best form – will never be Schindler’s List. It won’t even be Cars 2.

It’ll be goofy and stupid. Movie Alf will burp, and eat all the ice cream, and make bad puns, and blow a hole in the garage, and almost get seen by the nutty old neighbors, and learn simple lessons about friendship, family, etc – that was his whole thing.

Maybe I’m extra sensitive to this because I both love Alf and have received some backlash about turning turtlecalls into a kids show, but I just don’t see the problem with letting kids stuff be kids stuff, and not having some need to disparage it as less-than-worthy of existing.

And especially save the “stop raping my childhood” cliches, when turning Alf into a sex/drug/wearing fueled character would actually be the best method by which to do that with.

(If you want to be upset he’s going to be CGI instead of a puppet, that’s a legit discussion.)