A small group of alien botanists secretly visit Earth under cover of night to gather plant specimens in a California forest. When government agents appear on the scene, the aliens flee in their spaceship, but one of them is left behind.

As he returns home from picking up a pizza, Elliott discovers E.T. hiding in the tool shed. The alien promptly flees upon being discovered, and no one believes Elliott's story.

Elliott uses Reese's Pieces to lure E.T. back to his house. Before going to sleep, Elliott realizes the alien is imitating his movements. He feigns illness the next morning to stay home from school and play with him.

Harvey is a large golden retriever. He is initially hostile toward E.T., but the alien calms him with telepathy.

MICHAEL: Maybe he's some animal that wasn't supposed to live; kind of like those rabbits we saw. He could be a monkey or an orangutan.
ELLIOTT: A bald monkey?
GERTIE: Is he a pig? He sure eats like one.

At school the next day, Elliott begins to experience a telepathic connection with E.T. He exhibits signs of intoxication because the alien is at home drinking beer.

Under the influence of his telepathic bond with E.T., Elliott chucks his frog out of the jar and tells it to run for its life. Then he starts liberating all the other kids' frogs.

As E.T. watches John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara kiss in The Quiet Man, Elliott is inspired to kiss his school crush, but she's too tall--so he grabs the nearest kid, shoves him to the ground, and stands on his back

While reading a Buck Rogers comic strip, E.T. is inspired to make a communicator out of various items he finds lying around the house, including a record player, a buzzsaw, a coat hanger, and Elliott's Speak & Spell.

Elliott moans in disapproval when he finds E.T. in a long, blonde wig and dressed as a woman.