Everyone knows that few series are more popular on streaming than Friends. The legendary 1990s/2000s sitcom might’ve ended nearly 20 years ago, but fans have never let it go, and it’s constantly sitting at the top of the charts.
HBO Max even paid a whopping $500 million for the exclusive rights. And yet right now, a cult comedy from the ’80s is proving even more popular than the Jennifer Anniston vehicle on the WarnerMedia platform.
As per the latest stats from FlixPatrol, Friends is the sixth most popular TV title on HBO Max across the world this January 5, but beating it into fifth place is ALF. That’s right, the sitcom about a wisecracking alien who moves in with a regular American family is currently attracting more eyeballs than Ross, Rachel, and the gang.
Running from 1986 to 1990 for a total of 102 episodes, ALF (which stands for Alien Life Form) follows the misadventures of the eponymous extraterrestrial and the Tanner family, who take him in after he crash-lands in their garage, as they attempt to keep ALF’s existence a secret from both the U.S. government and their nosy neighbors.
Despite ALF’s enormous popularity, he hasn’t been seen on our screens since his little-remembered 1996 spinoff movie, Project: ALF. That’s not for lack of trying, though, as Sony attempted to develop an animated film, in the vein of the Smurfs franchise, in the early 2010s, while Warner Bros. announced a live-action reboot of the TV series was in the works in 2018. For whatever reason, neither project ended up going anywhere.
If ALF is managing to beat out Friends on streaming, however, that must prove that audiences — particularly those of a certain age — still have enough affection for him to warrant another attempt at a reboot, probably as a HBO Max original. Basically, ALF needs to come back, and not just in Pog form.