As a quick aside before I plunge into the Peel Here column proper I’d like to say that I finally bit the bullet and picked up a rather expensive copy of the very first Choose Your Own Adventure style book. It’s called Sugarcane Island and Edward Packard wrote it in 1969. As the story goes he came up with the idea while thinking of bedtime stories for his three children; he found probably one of the most useful ways of taking advantage of the 2nd person point of view in writing (at least in my humble opinion), which is a very tricky way of putting the reader into the shoes of a story’s protagonist. This way he could involve his children in the stories more, handing over the controls to them so to speak and giving them opportunities to decide how the story would play out.

Anyway, it was a pesky book to try and find. I couldn’t locate a non-branded copy to save my life, so I had to settle for the version that was printed under the Which Way banner in ’78 (it was also published again under the Choose Your Own Adventure series in the 80s, but it was modified and updated, and I really wanted the original.) Picking Sugarcane Island up means that I can finally start working on showcasing a bunch of these decision-style books in a new column on the site.

So, with that little bit of news out of the way, lets move on to the meat of today’s post, my meager collection of ALF stickers…

I don’t think I really have to give any background on the character, as he was practically a rock star in the late 80s for a number of years. The 1986 ALF sitcom and franchise was pretty darn big spawning four seasons of the live action show, a couple of cartoon series, at least one popular plush doll, and a bevy of merchandise including stickers. Though I watched the live action show (to the blank stares and amazement of my parents) and the first cartoon series quite a bit, I really didn’t get into any of the ancillary merchandising, stickers included. I did manage to procure some of the more common stuff on eBay like the puffy stickers above (which were released by Russ in 1987.)

There were also a couple of series of ALF cards issued by Topps in 1987-88, and a series called the U.S. of ALF (issued by Zoot in 1987.) The below sticker cards are from the second Topps ALF series in 1988…

I freaking love his skinny tie in sticker #27. There’s also a nice bit of airbrushed artwork in this next set…

And of course there was the obligatory puzzle poster that came along with the set…

I really need to go back and watch the TV series, as I haven’t seen it since it aired. I still find incredible that we managed to get four seasons of a show with a guy in a little furry suit as the main character, on prime time TV no less. There’s no way that would work in today’s TV environment, not unless ALF was invited to take part in the Surreal Life or something (and I’d love to see the logistics of that happening…)