Family Comedy Movies

The cozy, respectable, and rather dull existence of the Tanner family is inexorably altered when an alien spaceship crashes into the family's garage in the opening episode of ALF's first season. Out pops a short, furry, orange-haired, and long-nosed space creature, who explains that he is Gordon Shumway from the recently destroyed planet Melmac. Nicknamed ALF (Alien Life Form) by the Tanners, our hero is invited to join the household, though before long, dad Willie Tanner (Max Wright) wishes he'd turned ALF over to the authorities. Not only does ALF stick his huge nose into everyone's business, but he also breaks everything he touches and eats like food is going out of style -- and he never tires of trying to chow down on the family's pet cat, Lucky. Meanwhile, Willie Tanner, his wife, Kate (Anne Schedeen), and their kids, Lynn (Andrea Elson) and Brian (Benji Gregory), work overtime trying to hide ALF's presence from their boorish neighbors, Trevor and Raquel Ochmonek (John LaMotta, Liz Sheridan). Additionally, the Tanners attempt to keep ALF a secret from Kate's overbearing mother, Dorothy (Anne Meara), though she eventually tumbles to his existence and agrees to keep mum. Though ALF was not the most popular sitcom on NBC's 1986-1987 schedule (that honor was bestowed upon The Cosby Show), the series performed well in the ratings during its first season, ranking at number 28 right between Miami Vice and Hunter. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Our Gang Comedy Festival is made up of public-domain material featuring the kiddie movie contigent better known as "The Little Rascals." Showcased on this video are two of the Rascal's talkie shorts. In School's Out (1930), the gang (including Jackie Cooper) mistake the brother of their beloved teacher Miss Crabtree (June Marlowe) for her suitor. And in Our Gang Follies of 1938 (1937), Alfalfa dreams of glory as an opera star. Also included is an Our Gang reunion, as presented on a mid-1950s episode of TV's You Asked for It. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Abandoned by her parents, eight-year-old Penelope "Punky" Brewster and her little dog, Brandon, set up a home of their own in an abandoned Chicago apartment, where they are discovered by the building's manager, Henry Warnimont (George Gaynes). A bachelor with no great love for either kids or dogs, Henry nonetheless takes a liking to Punky and Brandon, and arranges with the authorities to have the two castaways live with him -- temporarily of course. Thus begins season one of the NBC sitcom Punky Brewster, in which the wide-eyed, spunky heroine brings happiness and purpose to the life of grumpy old Mr. Warnimont -- and several others along the way. During the series' initial season, Eddie Deezen appears as eccentric apartment-building maintenance man Eddie Malvin, while Dody Goodman is seen as Punky's schoolteacher, Mrs. Morton. Both Deezen and Goodman would be gone from the series before long, but three other characters introduced this year, Punky's classmates Cherie Johnson (played by Cherie Johnson!), Margaux Kramer (Ami Foster), and Allen Anderson (Casey Ellison), would "go the distance" right to the end of the run. Likewise seen throughout the series' four seasons, both on and off the network, is Henry's upstairs neighbor Betty Johnson (Susie Garrett), a registered nurse who has been legal guardian to Cheri ever since the deaths of the girl's parents. Once past its three-part opener, "Punky Finds a Home," the series settles into a unique pattern. While most of the subsequent episodes run a full half-hour, others ("Punky Gets Her Own Room," "Gone Fishin," "Go to Sleep") run a scant 15 minutes each. This is because Punky Brewster was originally telecast on Sunday evenings, just after NBC's weekly football telecasts; whenever a game ran overtime, Punky lost half of its 30-minute time slot, necessitating a stockpile of shorter episodes. Conversely, Punky Brewster's season-one finale, "Fenster Hall," ran a full hour -- that is, it was seen in two half-hour segments over a period of two weeks. In addition to bringing the season to a lively close, this elongated episode was also intended as the pilot for a series starring Billy Lombardo as a resourceful orphan named T.C. Fenestra. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This anthology of Hannah-Barbera cartoons contains exciting episodes chronicling the adventures of female race car driver Penelope Pitstop as she attempts to evade the dastardly Sylvester Sneekly. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Two and half years after it was cancelled at the end of its first season on CBS, the youth-oriented sitcom Charles in Charge staged a spectacular revival in off-network syndication, returning to the air in most markets in January of 1987. Of the original CBS cast, only Scott Baio as 20-year-old college student Charles and Willie Aames as his best friend Buddy were carried over into the syndicated version. When last we saw Charles, he was working as "male governess" in the New Brunswick home of the Pembroke family, riding herd on the three Pembroke children, whose ages ranged from 10 to 14. In the first episode of the "new" Charles in Charge, Charles and Buddy return from a two-week camping trip only to discover that the Pembrokes (played by different actors than in the network series) have decided to move to Seattle, and to sell their home to the Powell family. Quickly ingratiating himself with Ellen Powell (Sondra Kerns) and her curmudgeonly father Walter (James Callahan), Charles manages to secure a new male-governess position, agreeing to watch over Ellen's three children while her husband, a Navy officer, is commanding a station in the South Seas. Fortunately for Charles, two of three kids are virtual carbon copies of the Pembroke children: oldest daughter Jamie (Nicole Eggert) is crazy about boys just as Lila Pembroke had been; and 12-year-old Adam (Alexander Polinsky) is very much the same carefree sprite as his "clone" Jason Pembroke. Only middle child Sarah (Josie Davis), a shy, mild-mannered girl, represents a contrast to her Pembroke counterpart, the wisecracking Douglas. Halfway through the season, Ellen Travolta makes her first appearance as Charles' free-spirited mother Lillian, whose personality clashes harshly with that of the staunch traditionalist Walter Powell. Though Lillian is supposed to make only a brief visit, she ends up moving to New Brunswick, and by the next season she'll be a full-fledged regular. Although the budget of the syndicated Charles in Charge was lower than that of the CBS version, the producers did not cut corners in their choice of talented and instantly recognizable guest performers. Among the actors showing up in the series' first 24 off-network offerings are Ben Stein, Betsy Palmer, Robert Costanzo, Michael Dorn, Kay Lenz, and Michelle Johnson. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Created and produced by Bill Cosby, the long-running animated series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids was based on Cosby's classic monologues about his boyhood in North Philadelphia. Corpulent pre-teener Fat Albert and his buddies first appeared in cartoon form in the 1969 in the half-hour NBC special Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert, produced by Cosby in association with Filmation studios. It was Filmation who was given the assignment of converting the property into a weekly, half-hour Saturday morning series, which made its first appearance September 9, 1972 on CBS. Described as "lovable and jovial" in the studio's publicity packet, Fat Albert was "the undisputed leader" of a gang of rambunctious black kids living in a seedy but respectable inner-city Philadelphia neighborhood. His buddies included Bill (based on guess who) pint-sized, sarcastic Russell (based on Cosby's real-life kid brother), blustery braggart Rudy, laid-back Bucky stringy Old Weird Harold, affable oaf Dumb Donald, and of course Mushmouth, whose bizarre speech patterns were the source of humor for many a youthful amateur impressionist. Basically a good bunch of kids, Fat Albert's gang did tend to get into trouble from time to time, but always emerged fortified with a valuable life lesson that would serve them well as they grew older. The kids were also remarkably inventive and resourceful, as witness the series' weekly musical numbers, performed on a variety of instruments constructed from discarded pipes, radiators, bed frames, funnels and the like. Bill Cosby himself appeared in the live-action wraparounds, inviting the viewers to have some fun--"and if you're not careful, you might learn something." Cosby also popped up during the action of each episode to underline the lesson that Fat Albert and company had learned or were about to learn. Though light-hearted in nature, the series was not afraid to tackle such issues as peer pressure, lying, betrayal, street crime, substance abuse, the death of a loved one, racial and/or religious intolerance, learning disabilities, and even obsessing about television and overindulging in junk food. Commendably, there were a few dilemmas left unresolved, with Cosby sagely observing that some problems take more than a half hour to solve. To uphold the quality, integrity and educational content of the scripts, the producers solicited the advice of ten prominent psychologists and philosophers from UCLA. In 1979, the series was briefly retitled The New Fat Albert Show. At that time, the kids began sharing air space with their favorite comic-book superhero The Brown Hornet, another carryover from Cosby's standup act. Though universally applauded by TV critics and the recipient of scores of industry awards, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids did not always get the high ratings it deserved. Too, the network was averse to bankrolling new episodes each season, reasoning that they'd accrue as much profit from reruns as from first-runs. As a result, although Fat Albert remained on CBS Saturday-AM schedule for eight seasons, only 60 episodes were produced. After its network cancellation on August 29, 1984, the series was packaged for daily, off-net syndication, with 50 new episodes added to the manifest. This arrangement permitted Bill Cosby and the other producers to tackle subject matter that had been deemed too "rough" by the CBS censors, including teen pregnancy, alcoholism, and child abduction. The most memorable of the new episodes was "Busted", inspired by the "Scared Straight" program whereby youthful lawbreakers were literally terrified into reformation by a loud and obscene group of hardened prison inmates. The 50 additional episode also introduced a new character, the Southern-accented "Legal Eagle", a farcical attorney. Unfortunately, ratings for the syndicated Fat Albert were disappointing, despite earning two Emmy nominations. The entire 110-episode Fat Albert package was picked up for rerun play by both NBC and the USA cable network in 1989, while the 50 made-for-syndication installments were briefly seen in 2000 on cable's Odyssey Channel, the precursor to the Hallmark Channel. And in 2004, a live-action theatrical feature version of the property was released, with Kenan Thompson of Kenan and Kel fame as Fat Albert. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One of the best-known stories from the Bible gets a new and decidedly playful retelling in this animated comedy, the first feature film from the creators of the popular video series VeggieTales. Archibald Asparagus (voice of Phil Vischer) stars as Jonah, who is chosen by God to help spread his message to the world. Unfortunately, his first stop on his evangelical tour is the city of Nineveh, where the residents while away their days bingeing on cheese snacks and arguing, usually settling a war of words by throwing fish at one another. Circumstances force Jonah to set sail across the ocean, where he's assisted by Khalil (voice of Tim Hodge), a carpet peddler who is half caterpillar and half worm ("but I'm OK with that now"), and "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything," who are led by the well-meaning but lethargic Mr. Lunt, Pa Grape (both voiced by Phil Vischer), and Larry the Cucumber (voice of Mike Nawrocki). However, Jonah's mission gets a bit of a setback when a mammoth whale changes his plans. Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki, who provide most of the character voices, also wrote and directed Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie, and also created the original video series. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Nine years after the Yuletide slasher flick Black Christmas, Porky's director Bob Clark once again took on the holiday genre, switching from gasps to laughs with A Christmas Story. Adapted from a memoir by humorist Jean Shepherd (who narrates), the film centers on Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley), a young boy living in 1940s Indiana, desperately yearning for a Red Rider BB gun for Christmas. Despite protests from his mother (Melinda Dillon) that he'll shoot his eye out, Ralphie persists, unsuccessfully trying to enlist the assistance of both his teacher and Santa Claus. All the while, Ralphie finds himself dealing with the constant taunts of a pair of bullies and trying to not get in the middle of a feud between his mother and father (Darren McGavin) regarding a sexy lamp. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

We get a double dose of Hayley Mills in this Disney vehicle: she plays 13-year-old identical twins Susan and Sharon, who meet for the very first time in summer camp. They soon learn that they were separated at a very early age when their parents Mitch and Maggie (Brian Keith and Maureen O'Hara) divorced. On a lark, the girls switch places: the one living with Mitch goes back home with Maggie, and vice versa. Mitch is planning to remarry the "wrong woman," vituperative Vicky (Joanna Barnes). The twins conspire to reunite their parents, but the road to reconciliation is rough indeed. It takes a slapsticky camping trip to get rid of the troublesome Vicky and to prompt Mitch and Maggie to renew their vows. The film introduced a hit song, "Let's Get Together," which represented the high point of Hayley Mills' very short-lived recording career. The Parent Trap was based on Das Doppelte Lottchen, a novel by Erich Kastner, which had previously been filmed in German and British versions (real twins were cast in both); over thirty years after Parent Trap was theatrically released, a short series of sequels were made for the Disney Channel cable service, with a grown-up Mills back in her original role(s), and two sets of second-generation twins. Baby Boom collaborators Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer would remake the film with a new cast in 1998. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Long resistant to film adaptations of her Mary Poppins books, P.L. Travers finally succumbed to the entreaties of Walt Disney, and the result is often considered the finest of Disney's personally supervised films. The Travers stories are bundled together to tell the story of the Edwardian-era British Banks family: the banker father (David Tomlinson), suffragette mother (Glynis Johns), and the two "impossible" children (Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber). The kids get the attention of their all-business father by bedevilling every new nanny in the Banks household. Whem Mr. Banks advertises conventionally for another nanny, the kids compose their own ad, asking for someone with a little kindness and imagination. Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews in her screen debut) answers the children's ad by arriving at the Banks home from the skies, parachuting downward with her umbrella. She immediately endears herself to the children. The next day they meet Mary's old chum Bert (Dick Van Dyke), currently employed as a sidewalk artist. Mary, Bert, and the children hop into one of Bert's chalk drawings and learn the nonsense song "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" in a cartoon countryside. Later, they pay a visit to Bert's Uncle Albert (Ed Wynn), who laughs so hard that he floats to the ceiling. Mr. Banks is pleased that his children are behaving better, but he's not happy with their fantastic stories. To show the children what the real world is like, he takes them to his bank. A series of disasters follow which result in his being fired from his job. Mary Poppins' role in all this leads to some moments when it is possible to fear that all her good work will be undone, but like the magical being she is, all her "mistakes" lead to a happy result by the end of the film. In 2001, Mary Poppins was rereleased in a special "sing-along" edition with subtitles added to the musical numbers so audiences could join in with the onscreen vocalists. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Those who worried that the Disney studio would collapse without the presence of the late Uncle Walt were put at ease when the profits starting rolling in for The Love Bug. The "star" is Herbie, a lovable little Volkswagen with a personality all its own. Abused by a bad guy race-car driver (David Tomlinson), Herbie is rescued by a good guy racer (Dean Jones). Out of gratitude, Herbie enables the luckless good guy to win one race after another. The real fun begins when the ruthless hot-rodder connives to get Herbie back through fair means or foul. Based on a story by Gordon Buford, The Love Bug inspired two equally lucrative sequels, Herbie Rides Again and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (from the popular television series Full House) are back with another TV-movie for the kids. This time around the twins go West to help save their grandmother's endangered dude ranch from their greedy uncle who wants to take it over. Western cliches abound, but kids should find the duo heroines entertaining in this safe family choice. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi

E.B. White's classic children's story is brought to the screen in this fantasy, which combines computer-animated characters with a cast of live actors. Mrs. Little (Geena Davis), Mr. Little (Hugh Laurie), and their son George (Jonathan Lipnicki) live in a brownstone near New York's Central Park. The Littles have decided to adopt a younger brother for George, and while they're meeting the children at an orphanage, they are greeted by a mouse named Stuart (voice of Michael J. Fox), who can talk, walk upright, wear clothes, and do nearly anything a human child can do. The Littles are so taken with Stuart that they decide to adopt him, and soon the rest of the family is just as charmed by Stuart -- with the possible exception of Snowbell (voice of Nathan Lane), their house cat. The cast of humans includes Jennifer Tilly, Bruno Kirby, and Dabney Coleman; animal voices are contributed by Chazz Palminteri and Steve Zahn, Jim Doughan, and David Alan Grier. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi