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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

ALF (character)

Protagonist and titular character of American television series ALF

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 23, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Gordon Shumway, also known as ALF, is the protagonist and title character of the American television series ALF and its animated spin-offs, ALF: The Animated Series, and ALF Tales. ALF also starred in the poorly received television film Project ALF, and hosted the short lived talk show ALF's Hit Talk Show. Paul Fusco created and plays ALF, and he also provides the voice for the character. On ALF, Lisa Buckley and Bob Fappiano assisted Fusco with performing the furry brown alien. During the first season of ALF, Michu Meszaros occasionally wore a full costume when full body shots were needed of the character.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “ALF (character)” is protagonist and titular character of American television series ALF. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through character, Protagonist and titular, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current 103-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, character, Protagonist and titular is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “protagonist and titular character of American television series ALF” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “ALF (character)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow ALF (character) primary sources, ALF (character) archive and character research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “ALF (character)”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “ALF (character)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.