Ryan Reynolds Is Bringing Back Alf (Yes, We're Serious)

After three decades of mystery, "ALF" fans will finally learn what happened to TV's creepiest puppet after the show's weirdly disturbing series finale — spoiler alert: he started selling pills for men's sexual health.

The so-called Alien Life Form was resurrected by none other than the Hollywood marketing machine himself, Ryan Reynolds, seemingly with the sole purpose of doing in-universe ad-reads for a number of companies, including the men's health subscription service HIMS and Reynold's former darling Mint Mobile. Reruns of the long-running '80s sitcom will air with interwoven advertisements featuring the titular character on The Maximum Effort Channel, which can be found on FAST services like FuboTV, Tubi, and Amazon Freevee — because if there's one thing Free Ad-supported Streaming Television doesn't have enough of, it's ads.

Describing this unique endeavor, Reynolds said, "At Maximum Effort, we love taking risks and blurring the lines between shows and sponsorship because we believe both can be equally entertaining. Besides my irrational love of 'ALF' growing up, one of the reasons we licensed this show was precisely because [series co-creator and star Paul Fusco], Shout! Studios and our intrepid brand partners wanted to plot with us to bring ALF back to life."

ALF's return to TV to sell budget phone plans and Amazon's surveillance doorbells will shock some, not least of all, because it follows one of the most infamous cliffhangers in television history.

Cast your mind back to the year 1986, when some unsuspecting TV enjoyer might just find themselves catching the first episode of NBC's "ALF" — a light sitcom about an allegedly cute alien getting into all kinds of whacky shenanigans with a plucky suburban family. How do you, dear reader, think that series would end? If you guessed, "ALF gets indefinitely detained by the U.S. government," you'd be right!

After finally making contact with his planet of Melmac and arranging a return trip back home, ALF and his newfound human family are intercepted by large, FBI-looking vehicles. A spaceship overhead that was supposed to bring him home speeds off in apparent fear of capture as ALF horrifyingly wails, "No! Don't leave me!" The series then comes to a close with ALF surrounded by angry uniformed men inching toward him as he attempts to make jokes (to scattered laughs from the studio audience). Freeze frame. Roll credits.

In their defense, the writers of "ALF" hadn't planned for the series to end that way, with declining ratings ultimately leading to its premature cancellation. A film follow-up titled "Project: ALF" was released six years after the finale, though it's unclear if that will stream alongside the series on The Maximum Effort Channel when ALF returns on July 29.