Kenner's Wacky Aliens Toys

Some of you may find this a bit hard to swallow, but as an unbelievably squeamish child, I was never really exposed to horror films until nearly my teens. I would learn about them in books and the occasional odd bit of merchandise, but I generally knew nothing about the movies themselves other than that they were "R" movies, and "R", as far as I was concerned, stood for Rampant graphic horror beyond anything I was capable of imagining. Even my own parents would try to desensitize me from time to time, but for the first six or seven years of my life, I KNEW that one glance of an R-rated monster movie would be a ghastlier fate than death itself, and even the cases at the video store demanded a sort of profound respect, as though they might leap from the shelves and gnaw my face off at too close an inspection.

But of all the morbid, maniacal characters snarling down at me from TV ads and theatrical posters, none filled me with more curiosity and intrigue than H.R. Giger's world-famous masterpeice, THE ALIEN, which I had personally named "The Banana Head". Too wicked for a real name, my first encounter with THE ALIEN was actually in the form of an arcade game, in which I recall blasting my way through hordes of green facehuggers before having my ass handed to me by a blue, crablike boss. Later, I would get ahold of a rather crappy board game based on the first film, but it still did nothing to explain what the big deal was with these baffling, funky-headed bug men. It wasn't until I read a "younger reader's" paperback entitled "Movie Monsters and Creature Features" that I would finally learn, amidst a wealth of other cinematic horror trivia, that my mysterious friend the Banana Head spent its early years exploding out of human torsos.    As a kid who would run screaming from the sight of a papercut, the notion of a gigantic parasite tearing its way out of your innards was more mind-boggling than anything I could have expected, and not only cemented my phobia of the dreaded "R" film for two more years, but damn near tripled my morbid fascination with horror. In no time flat, I was drawing cute, magic-marker pictures of aliens bursting forth from frowny-faced hosts, and even coming up with my own weird variations of Giger's classic design.    And then, in 1992, something BIG happened.    No, not Alien 3. Alien 3 was such a half-assed film that I didn't even notice a single advertizement for it and didn't even know it was released that year until I looked it up five minutes ago. No, what happened in 1992 was the airing of a toy commercial - the creepiest, foggiest, most INTENSE toy commercial I had ever seen. One that would have me bouncing off the walls all the way to Kiddie City (now a Goodwill)...

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Now, in the aforementioned pile of crap they called "Alien 3," the titular creature wound up hatching not from the ribcage of a hominid, but from a canine, and thus developed into a much smaller, thinner, quadrupedal variant of the alien in the first film. Possibly 3's one and only saving grace, this new take on alien biology was, I must admit, pretty damn original. And to toy makers, it was the franchise's most exploitable marketing gimmick.

Having never been anywhere near the movies themselves, I actually had no idea that creatures like the "Bull Alien" were the product of some serious creative liberties, but I wouldn't have cared either way. This, at the time, was the darkest and sleekest set of figures EVER to hit the aisles of a toy store, from their gruesome package art to their sharp, metallic paint jobs. And as innovative as the figures were, their accessories were truly the icing on the cake...

Each of the original basic aliens included a differently colored face-hugger, sized just right for most standard action figures (yeah, take that April O'Neil! That'll teach you to wear a yellow jumpsuit all the time!) but only the "deluxe Queen" came packed with a rib-cracking alien larva:

Many figures also came with a Dark Horse "mini comic," encouraging kids to complete their collection and piece together the ongoing, poorly written story of Ripley and her friends who should really all be long dead.

...Uh, yeah, remember what I said about marketing and creative liberties? By the second wave of figures, Kenner had already taken the "animal mimicry" premise to crazy and colorful new heights, churning out zoological xenomorphs of every shape and size...

The Mantis Alien:

Recycling the torso and "gripping" action of the Gorilla Alien (see package back, above), Mantis was a monumentally cool-looking toy to my young mind, and for the longest time was one of my favorites. Now, as a more mature toy-collecting nerd, I can only wonder how in hell a chestburster ever fit down the throat of a four-inch predatory insect. Were they spawned on a planet where the insects grow six feet tall? Were there special, tiny face-huggers just for invertebrates? I suppose the latter is the most likely scenario, since Mantis here shared its set with a 'hugger that could take on a hippo...

The Giant Face-Hugger Alien:

How this actually fits into the alien life-cycle is anyone's guess, as the comic features an entire hive of these things instead of the "normal" bugs, and the name specifically calls it a giant face-hugger Alien, not just a giant face-hugger. Whatever the case, it was a figure as cool-looking as it was breakable, as you can see from my own specimen. The frailty of this toy was probably due in part to being stuffed with not one, but THREE action-features; a pull-out/reel-in tail, spring-loaded "capturing" legs, and a tiny mouth that could open and close with the pull of a trigger.    I seem to recall giving one of these to another child as a birthday gift, only to hear that it was thrown away when its features stopped working. I think it's more likely that his mother disapproved of it, since every single toy I ever saw at his house was either Star Trek or Captain Planet.

The Panther Alien:

There's something about the shape and color of this figure that I found extremely pleasant as a child, though what made it an instant favorite of mine was its special little friend...

By pushing the panther down on its front legs, a hidden mechanism would simultaneously lower its head and fire THE FLYING ATTACK PARASITE, a concept I immediately considered the very epitome of awesome.

This wasn't just a "projectile" to me...this was an entire, second figure. A sentient symbiote with a mind of its own that would even wind up on a few solo-adventures completely unrelated to my Aliens themed playtime. What stories I came up with for a small flying fish-monster, I cannot recall, but I know I brought the "parasite" to friend's houses without the Panther alien on more than one ocassion, swearing up and down that it counted as an action figure.    The figure would later be re-painted and released under the name "Night Cougar Alien", but its all-black body and sparkly, metallic head were nowhere near as tasteful.

The Wild Boar Alien:

Actually one of the last new aliens before the line finally fizzled out, but I'm not really doing these in chronological order. I was strangely indifferent to the Wild Boar when it arrived in stores, perhaps still too enamored with the Flying Attack Parasite to be impressed with this prickly porcine parasite, but it definitely has a nice color scheme and some interesting proportions going on. I also appreciate the lack of overly obvious wild-boar traits. It would have been easy to just slap some tusks on the thing, but the designers at Kenner instead produced something that, while having little in common with an actual wild boar, truly looks like something that chewed its way into the world through a wild boar's sternum. As you can see, it actually uses the same mechanism as the Panther alien to pull off its super-fun head spike attack.

The Killer Crab Alien:

Having wasted the name "scorpion alien" on a perfectly normal alien drone in the first wave, Kenner whipped up this distinctly scorpion-shaped beastie and labelled it a "killer crab." By then, the toys had stopped coming out with little comic-books to explain their characteristics, which is a real shame because if any "Aliens" action features demand an explanation, it's the Killer Crab's "dual launching Chest-bursters"...do the aliens infest themselves now? Or are we supposed to believe that the Killer Crab produces unviable offspring for the sole purpose of self-defense? You probably think I should have better things in life to question, but look at how far YOU just read in an article on Aliens toys.

The Snake Alien:

Now this, without a doubt, is one of the coolest-looking figures in the series, with its wicked-looking fangs, spiny rib-cage and long, bendable tail. It's also the longest figure in the series, and came awkwardly bent into the standard-size blister package. Unfortunately, the bendy feature is so stiff that the above photo captures its full range of flexibility, and good luck making the damn thing stand up.

The Alien Arachnid:

This sad, unloved little mutant came out on the tail-end of the line's last legs, completely failing to impress children who already had enough giant, mutant bugs to choke a giant, mutant horse. It's also the only figure to have "Alien" for a first name, and I'm inclined to question the whole "arachnid" aspect. Is it a vinegarone? An amblypigid? If they were trying for a spider, why couldn't they just say so? It was also another figure boasting three "action features", and two of them could have been planned a whole lot better. The head was a water-squirter, but kids were advised not to get the body wet due to the metal components of its other features. This problem was solved by making the head removable, but it's so "removable" that it immediately falls off when the figure is tipped over or shaken vigorously.    The other major feature was supposed to be a "jumping" action, with legs that could click into an open position and snap shut at the touch of a trigger. In theory, this would make the figure "jump" if you didn't have to hold onto it in order to press the button. Luckily, the jump trigger made itself useful in the end by simultaneously operating its cool, spiny pincers. As professional turtlebitch O'Neil once again demonstrates, you definitely do not want to tangle with banana-heads; even those who fail at jumping.

The Rhino Alien (Photo from toyarchive.com ) :

I've shown you the "Bull" alien from wave one, but didn't really go into specifics. This is because the rhinoceros here is a rehash of the same exact action features, and nobody should have to write two identical paragraphs about plastic aliens shaped like barnyard animals. Both figures sport a pair of switches on the back; one to shoot the head out on an elongated "neck", and the other to jerk the head up and down in a "gouging" motion. The latter is a little more effective with the rhino, but as nice looking as the figure is, it's easily overshadowed by its devilish-looking bovine counterpart.     In fact, the rhinoceros here is the one and only Alien I do not currently own, having traded it for some other toy I can no longer remember. Previously, it was one of two creatures missing from my old collection, but the other has at long last fallen into my clutches...

The Electronic "Swarm" Alien (click artwork to enlarge):

This is the only alien I never even saw in stores way back when, but for the sake of this very article, I've tracked one down off ebay...a victory nearly ten years in the making! Yeah, that's right, Swarm Alien; I WIN.

As you can see, the Swarm Alien consists of two figures in one. The lower half is easily the coolest-looking, but doesn't actually do anything. The wasplike flying portion, on the other hand, houses the only electronic feature in the toy line. When its wings are flapped with the button on its back, it emits a screeching sound and a pair of tiny, red lights blink in the back of its transparent head. We all know that giving eyes to an alien is an abomination unto the natural order, but I think we can forgive something with "Swarm" in its name.

Kenner produced many more aliens than the loveable freakshow I've prattled on about here, and they were even joined at one point by a bunch of crazy Predator subspecies, but I feel I've covered the line's most interesting extremes for the time being.

EMAIL: BOGLEECH@HOTMAIL.COM

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