Back in 1987, the loveable furry character ALF became a household name. While not necessarily a hit among critics, the NBC sitcom rose to popularity among adult and children viewers alike. ALF won a People's Choice Award in 1987 for Favorite New TV Comedy Program. In 1988, it won Favorite Show at the Kids' Choice Awards. And then at the 1989 Kids' Choice Awards, ALF himself won Favorite TV Actor.
With the popularity of ALF came merchandise in just about every shape and form. Plush dolls that talked, hand puppets with records at Burger King, a Sega Master System video game, and his own Marvel comic book series were just a few places you could find Gordon Shumay aka ALF. My 11-year old self ate it all up. I was a huge fan of the show and one other thing I remember collecting were ALF trading cards.
Topps and their Canadian partner O-Pee-Chee produced two series of trading cards from 1987-88. The base sets were pretty standard cards with scenes from the sitcom being the primary imagery. They used bright yellow and red colors for the front of the cards and the back were the classic dull card finish with facts and tips from ALF himself.
The best part about ALF cards were the two special subsets. Each pack came with a sticker and a Bouillabaseball card. Over the series, there were a total of 29 stickers and 44 Bouillabaseball cards. The back of the stickers formed puzzles, two in the first series and one in the 2nd series. The stickers themselves featured fashionable poses of ALF doing normal activities here on Earth.
The biggest reason I bought packs of ALF trading cards were for the Bouillabaseball cards. ALF talked about playing the game on Melmac and I believe we eventually got to see Bouillabaseball games on the Saturday morning animated series. Being a baseball player myself, I was always very curious how the fishy game worked and these cards not only featured players but facts about the game.
Awhile back, I opened a pack of Series 1 cards for the Wax Pack Flashback show on
TRN TV. It was a real trip back in time to rediscover these cards. Watch the opening video video and let me know in the comments if you remember collecting ALF trading cards.
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