My Parents Are Aliens

Did You Know?

• Entertainment Rights Distribution handled worldwide distribution rights to the series.
• Series 1 to 7 was repeated regularly on CITV from the channel's launch in 2006 until late 2017, while series 8 repeats were discontinued by early 2010.
• A VHS release containing all six Series One episodes was released in 2000 by Video Collection International and Granada Media.

Overview

The show centres on the Barker children—Mel, Josh, and Lucy—and their foster parents Brian and Sophie Johnson, who are actually aliens from Valux. The Johnsons crash-landed on Earth after Brian tampered with their spaceship's controls; the house they inhabit is the spaceship in morphed form. Brian and Sophie possess the ability to morph into other people, though their knowledge of Earth life is limited and confused. The children must help them adapt while keeping their alien identity secret to avoid scientific testing. The programme's humour is surreal and occasionally subversive, referencing mature topics and complex science.

Characters

Brian Johnson, played by Tony Gardner from 1999 to 2006, is a Valuxian alien whose tampering caused the crash. He is childlike, easily bored, and prone to following fads, with little grasp of morality; he often creates problems through selfishness or ignorance. Despite this, he is an excellent scientist, a trait appreciated by Lucy. His allergy to ice cream causes him to involuntarily grow moose antlers when he eats it. Sophie Johnson was portrayed by Barbara Durkin from 1999 to 2000 and again in 2005, and by Carla Mendonça from 2001 to 2006. She has more common sense than Brian but is still easily led. Unlike Brian, she can only morph when eating ice cream; after morphing into a new shape at the start of series 3, she cannot revert and remains in that form. Melanie 'Mel' Barker, played by Danielle McCormack from 1999 to 2005, is the eldest sibling, sarcastic and protective due to losing her parents. She has a romantic interest in her friend Trent Clements, and her interest in photography leads her to move to Canada at the end of series 6, returning for the series 7 finale.

Production

The show was filmed in Studio 4 at The Leeds Studios. A laugh track was added from series 4 onward, though some viewers felt it harmed the programme's atmosphere. The series 7 finale, 'Thanks for All the Earthworm Custard', concluded ongoing plots and was the last episode with the original regular cast. The show returned for an eighth series with a clean slate: Brian and Sophie crash again, have their memories erased by Guido, and foster a new family, the Bennetts, whose personalities mirror the Barkers'. ITV closed its in-house children's production unit in 2006, ending the series abruptly after series 8. That same year, Nickelodeon acquired rights for an American version; a pilot script was written with the alien parents renamed the Jonses and the children the Bishops, but the pilot was never produced.