Friends, while I quite realize in this day and age that any child can practically watch their favorite animated series on streaming services or DVD whenever they feel like it – I find myself wishing the kids of today could experience the thrill of Saturday morning cartoons. How special and magical it now seems – having to make sure that you woke up early enough to catch your favorite series on CBS, ABC, or of course NBC. Although I am sure that many of us of a certain age can vividly recall the ‘anguish’ of having to decide which show to watch – when two series you liked happened to air at the same time on rival networks. In addition there was that excitement of catching the preview show – those sometimes evening special events that gave you a glimpse at what cartoons were going to be shown on each of the three big networks for that season. That is what we have to share with you today – the 1987 Saturday Morning Preview show entitled ALF Loves a Mystery.
First of all I want to thank Rockford Jay for giving me the heads up on this special – the upside of working down in the Vault with a friend is it makes finding pop culture related treasures a little easier. Now if you are curious as to why ALF is hosting this 1987 Saturday Morning Preview Show, you have to remember that the popular ALF TV series debuted the previous year. It was so popular in fact that ALF Loves a Mystery was giving us our first look at ALF: The Animated Series – a prequel to the sitcom that detailed the early years of the character on his home planet of Melmac.
The set up for ALF Loves a Mystery is that our favorite Melmacian is using his computer to write a story for Brian Tanner (Benji Gregory) – showing how with the power of imagination anything is possible. Since ALF declares he loves a mystery Brian is transformed into Kid Cameron and has to investigate a creepy mansion along with other stars of NBC shows – in an attempt to locate a missing fortune. ALF Loves a Mystery features the likes of Betty White, Danny Ponce, Heidi Ziegler, Stephen Furst, Douglas Seale, Jackee, and Shannen Doherty. While the cartoon characters from the shows that made up the 1987 NBC Saturday morning line up provide clues to the mystery of the fortune – the real treasure are the vintage TV commercials that have been left intact on this video upload!
Did you possibly catch ALF Love a Mystery when it originally aired back in ’87?
Whoooooaahh!!! I have not seen this ever since it aired!! It’s a real moment in time with the stars!! Of course it’s ALF so it was can’t miss for me!! Awesome post!
Thank you as always for the kind words, Charlton – we have Rockford Jay to thank for locating this beauty. A nice little slice out of time to say the least.