Alf Cat Memes Surge Following Trump’s ‘Consuming Pets’ Declare

The ALF Cat meme is a reference to the outdated Eighties sitcom character Alf and his odd curiosity in consuming the Tanner household cat, with whom he lives within the sequence. The reference was extensively cited after the presidential debate on September 10th, 2024, between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, the place he claimed that Haitian immigrants were eating family pets.

Origins of the ALF Cat meme

The TV present ALF ran on NBC from September 22, 1986, to March 24, 1990. ALF is an acronym for ‘Alien Life Kind’ and is the identify of the titular character, though his actual identify is Gordon Shumway.

ALF is an extra-terrestrial who crash-landed within the Tanner household house and made himself snug whereas they hid from the FBI. Nevertheless, he has one unusual starvation that’s widespread on his house planet, which is to eat cats. In ALF’s case, he desires to eat the Tanner household cat. 

ALF cat memes have been round because the early 2000s, the most typical involving a screencap of ALF holding two items of bread across the cat to make it right into a “cat sandwich.”

This scene initially happens in season 4, episode 9, the place ALF concludes that the cat is just too cute to eat. After the scene was uploaded to YouTube on June seventeenth, 2016, it has been considered over 502K occasions and has over 3K likes.

Whereas it’s unclear what the primary ALF Cat meme was, one of many earliest recognized examples was posted on the GBAtemp forums on July twenty third, 2010 by person Logan 5. Within the picture, Logan 5 had photoshopped a kitten onto a plate sitting in entrance of ALF, a fork and knife in his arms. Under the picture, Logan 5 wrote, “Welcome to the membership, you possibly can have half of this cat.”

Resurgence of the ALF Cat meme

The meme noticed a resurgence following the presidential debate on September tenth, 2024 between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Throughout the debate, Donald Trump claimed of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, “They’re consuming the canines. The folks that got here in, they’re consuming the cats. They’re consuming, they’re consuming the pets of the folks that dwell there.”

This reminded many of us on-line of the unique ALF memes and his obsession with consuming cats, and the brand new meme was born. 

The remarks from former President Donald Trump occurred a little over 30 minutes into the debate whereas the pair have been discussing immigration insurance policies.

He was instantly fact-checked and advised there have been no credible sources of knowledge to again up that declare. He responded that he had seen the story on TV, though he didn’t specify the place.

Meme examples

Memes surrounding the concept of immigrants consuming cats blew up on-line, with people throughout a number of social media platforms referencing ALF’s unlawful alien standing and the truth that he has the insatiable want to eat cats.

The evening of the controversy, Redditor u/mccarthybergeron posted on r/pics with a picture of Alf with the cat sandwich to /r/pics and titled the publish, “Unlawful alien consuming a cat on TV.” The publish has gained over 84K upvotes since being posted. 

On X, previously often called Twitter, @hausofdecline posted a picture of ALF and wrote,  “Not fully unconvinced that the GOP’s new ‘Cat-Consuming Alien’ bit comes instantly from a Republican comms man watching Alf.”

One other particular person on X, @CBoTheEggman, posted the ALF Cat meme and mentioned, “The Trump marketing campaign has refused to make clear if ALF was the TV present the place Trump noticed unlawful aliens consuming individuals’s pets.”