"ALF" was huge in Germany - It's true!

[astro]

Wiki link

The original series spans over four seasons and 102 episodes (each episode’s name is also the name of a song relevant to the episode’s plot), at the end of which he is about to be rescued by other survivors of his home planet, but is instead captured by the American military.

After the series run in the United States, it went on to even greater success in re-runs in many European countries such as Poland and Germany. The series was so popular in Germany in fact that the made-for-TV Film “Project ALF” was released there theatrically under the name “Alf Der Film” (“Alf the Movie”).

[aruvqan]

=) one of my absolute best friends who lives in germany is nicknamed ‘gordon’ after gordon shumway …

[kellner]

It’s always fascinating which things your own country seem remarkable to others. Unfortunately I have no idea how huge or not ALF was in the US. What probably helped the show was that there was far less competition back then. An average household at the time got perhaps five channels and ALF was on one of the big two reputable public ones. So there is hardly any German who was alive at the time and has never seen ALF (the reruns are of course still on, but less visible.) At the time it was certainly very popular and there was far more merchandizing than for a normal TV show.

Now a good measure for the relative hugeness of TV shows would be nice.

[Revtim]

Was there ever an episode with David Hasselhoff as a special guest star? That would have been so huge, the date of the original broadcast would have been made a German national holiday.