About
Alf Eating Cats refers to a series of memes referencing the 1980s sitcom character Alf and his desire to eat cats, specifically the cat belonging to the Tanner family, who he lives with on the show. Most commonly, the memes use an image of Alf making a cat sandwich by putting a cat between two pieces of bread. Memes referencing Alf’s hunger for cats appeared online occasionally throughout the 2000s. In September 2024, the memes saw an increase in prevalence following the September 2024 U.S. Presidential Debate, during which Donald Trump said, “They’re eating the pets,” referencing rumors of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio eating pets, including cats. Many of the memes joke that Trump saw the story about Haitians eating cats on Alf and took it as fact.
Origin
The 1980s television series Alf is about an alien named Gordon Shumway who is given the nickname “Alf,” an acronym for “alien lifeform,” after he crashes into the Tanner family’s garage and proceeds to live with them so they can protect him from the FBI. A recurring joke in the series surrounds Alf’s desire to eat cats, which are said to be a popular food on his home planet Melmac.
One of the most famous scenes to reference this appears in season four, episode nine, “Live and Let Die.” During the episode, Alf tries to make a cat sandwich. He is seen placing the cat between two pieces of bread but stops himself before eating the cat, as he finds the cat too cute. The scene was uploaded to YouTube on June 17th, 2016, garnering over 400,000 views in eight years.
It is unconfirmed when the first meme to reference Alf’s appetite for cats was posted online. The earliest known example is a meme posted to the GBAtemp forums by user Logan 5 on July 23rd, 2010, depicting Alf with a fork and knife in front of a plate with a kitten photoshopped onto it.
Spread
Memes about Alf eating cats were posted online occasionally throughout the 2010s and 2020s, although didn’t typically gain any significant interactions. For example, on August 5th, 2012, an Alf meme using the sandwich image was archived by Know Your Meme user Slackin Walrus under the “Your Argument Is Invalid” meme, garnering over 1,700 views in 12 years.
On March 6th, 2020, an image macro using the same image of Alf with the cat sandwich was posted to the subreddit /r/vegan, reading, “What vegans see when they watch someone eat a burger,” garnering over 180 upvotes in four years.
September 2024 Presidential Debate Memes
On September 10th, 2024, a presidential debate was held between candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Around the 33:10 mark of The Wall Street Journal’s YouTube stream of the debate, while discussing immigration, Trump says, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there and this is what’s happening in our country and it’s a shame.”
After making the claim, Trump was fact-checked and told there were no credible reports of immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Trump claimed that he saw the story on TV.
Following Trump’s reference to the rumors of Haitian immigrants eating cats, memes about Alf eating cats saw a surge in virality online. For example, on the night of September 10th, Redditor u/mccarthybergeron posted the image of Alf with the cat sandwich to /r/pics, titling it, “Illegal alien eating a cat on TV,” garnering over 77,000 upvotes in a day.
That night, X user @CBoTheEggman posted the same image, writing, “The Trump campaign has refused to clarify if ALF was the TV show where Trump saw illegal aliens eating people’s pets,” garnering over 700 likes in a day.
On September 11th, 2024, X user @hausofdecline posted an image of Alf, writing, “Not entirely unconvinced that the GOP’s new ‘Cat-Eating Alien’ bit comes directly from a Republican comms guy watching Alf,” garnering over 1,200 likes in under a day.
Various Examples
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