Cult series – Alf-Rolle was a blessing and a curse for spokesman Tommi Piper

For Tommi Piper, his most famous role as voice actor for the alien Alf was both a curse and a blessing. The hype was promptly followed by a lull in orders, and a return to the serious business did not want to occur, he told the German press agency. He now has a slightly different view of it: “I’m slowly realizing that I’ve made television history with it.”

This can also be seen in the fact that he is still asked about this character today, a good 30 years after the last “Alf” episode. “Just happened last week at the supermarket checkout,” he says. The popular extraterrestrial with the trunk-like nose developed into a ratings hit in the second half of the 1980s, not least because of Piper’s witty synchronization. On March 19, the actor, voice actor and musician will celebrate his 80th birthday in his adopted Bavarian home, Oberschleißheim near Munich. (apa)