Bernie Brillstein on ALF: "The worst casting ever done..."

[vampirevsrobot]

This is only my second post here, but I'm surprised no one on the forum has mentioned the comments of Bernie Brillstein, one of the executive producers of ALF who calls the cast, "The worst casting ever done..." (he stops himself); and later says, "the cast just didn't work".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuLLipDhA9U

It begins at the 6 minute mark.

Which is sad really, I think Max Wright created or at least molded one of television's most underrated characters of all time, "Willie Tanner".

He played the perfect "straight man" to ALF's wacky, crazy shenanigans.

[Ninjadragon5]

it was really not that casting was bad, it was just the writers didn't flesh out them enough to seem like real human characters and they didn't give them much to do. with willie it was obviously they wanted him to be the nerdy straight men, but they constantly kept changing is character traits to was hard to tell he really was. kate was easily the best actor out them all because it's obviously he her acting seriously. with lynn, she was an okay actress, but the writers didn't flesh out her character enough to be nothing then an average teenage girl, other then that we no nothing else about her. with brian, he was the most underused character on that sitcom, it barely did anything besides hang out with ALF for a few minutes or just being in the room with the rest of the family. brian never build that strong of a relationship with ALF like the other characters did. if the writers gave them more to work with to play the characters, they could of been great actors.

[ALFicionado]

Well, it's a pretty rare clip with few views, which is probably why it's been under the radar for us ALF fans.

I think he's waaaay off. There was nothing wrong with the casting IMO, maybe some of the characters didn't get enough material to work with, but that doesn't mean they were poorly cast, not by a long shot.

[vampirevsrobot]

Well, it's a pretty rare clip with few views, which is probably why it's been under the radar for us ALF fans.

I think he's waaaay off. There was nothing wrong with the casting IMO, maybe some of the characters didn't get enough material to work with, but that doesn't mean they were poorly cast, not by a long shot.

I agree, completely...I was watching the U-Conn Interview with Paul Fusco and he more or less said one of the reason's of the success of ALF was Max Wright:

"I take 50% of that...but Max Wright is the other 50%"

I think the entire cast was great, and while of course (the show is called "ALF") and they didn't really much to work with...they still managed to make it work.

[samstokes80]

Hmm, interesting. He was a little vague. I wonder what he felt didn't work with the cast.

[White Rabbit]

I feel like I'm parroting everyone else but absolutely one of the biggest fault of ALF is how bland the kids were. I understand that ALF caused more than enough trouble for Willie and Kate but the kids were just too perfect. Pretty much all of Lynn's problems revolved around boys with the only major "issue" I'm recalling is her parents not wanting her to date a much older man.

Brian was the perfect little boy, apparently? I think once Kate scolded him for not putting his baseball glove away.

For as little as he was around Neal was a much more fleshed out and interesting character to see. Heck, even Jake had more going on than the Tanner kids (I wonder why they stopped using him?).

[Calmly Taken Flame]

Can`t agree with this, and think it had a fantastic cast ! I`m maybe a little biased, but enjoying it once again, and they all
worked really well together, and the show was about ALF, so trying to force too much of the others, would probably have
got the show cancelled sooner, when people started complaining that there wasn`t enough ALF in each episode !

And there was another comment, that I`ll find on here at some point, that the cast were unhappy that ALF had all the best
lines ? and I disagree with this as well, there are some hysterical comebacks, and comments from them all throughout the show.

And together, they were part of an amazing show, that will echo through the Universe for the rest of time.