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Wild Thing is the nineteenth episode of ALF's first season.
It originally aired on March 2, 1987.
Plot Summary
Every 75 years on March 2 ALF goes through a day (sunset to sunrise) of bizarre physiological and psychological transformation in which he will do anything to get his hands on a cat. He warns Willie that he will need to have build him a cage with reinforced sides.
Willie builds him a cage and shuts him in. ALF tries to trick his way out of the cage, doing spot on impressions of Brian and Lynn. When Brian gets up in the middle of the night, ALF tricks Brian into letting him out of his cage. When Kate and Willie discover this, they wonder if ALF can change his shape. To confirm his identity, Willie asks Brian his mother's maiden name. (Although, by this point ALF had met Kate's mother Dorothy Halligan and even confirmed her last name during his phony seance).
They listen to the police scanner and drive around looking for ALF but they don't find him. He eventually returns, possibly because he was practicing mental telepathy with Brian, who was thinking of a fork to lead ALF back home. When ALF arrives, he asks, "Do you good people have a fork?" In the final stage of the transformation, ALF compulsively quotes people.
ALF doesn't think he managed to eat any cats during his transformation, but has a hazy memory of storing something in the garage. When ALF and Willie go to check, they find the tiger that went missing from the zoo.
Title Reference
"Wild Thing" is a song by Chip Taylor. The 1966 cover by The Troggs reached no. 1 on the Billboard Chart.