Wednesday, August 09, 2006

RETRO TOY FLASHBACK # 46: Kenner's Alien


Look who's sitting on my desk today! He just hatched...

Yep, it's that wily "bug" from Ridley Scott's classic horror film, Alien. This unusual and highly cherished toy was released by Kenner (the same company who had the Star Wars license...) in 1979 to tie-in with the Christmas release of the film.

But the monster - who stands a whopping 18" tall - ended up scaring little kids out of toy stores by the dozen and was removed from shelves in a hurry. Ho-ho-ho.

Forget Winnie the Pooh or Teddy Bears or Peter Rabbit, this will be my son's first cuddly "animal" friend...

No, just kidding...my wife won't let me.

As you can see, my alien isn't in very good shape these days. Rubber bands are keeping his barely-attached arms from falling off his body; you can see them in the photos. They are no longer "spring-loaded" to "crush victims" as the toy box once promised.

My alien's head dome is missing-in-action, though he still possesses his inner-jaw; which lunges out to bite people. These are, according to the package hyperbole, his "mechanical, easily operated jaws!"

The alien's finest attribute might be his curled, whip-tail because you can use it to surreptitiously hang the alien on door knobs, in the pantry, from the dish washer, from lamps, etcetera. "Alien can swing from his movable tail!" screamed the box, and I took that advice in earnest.

I enjoy scaring Kathryn with this guy, but truth be told, she's more frightened by my (to scale...) Mogwai/Gremlin figure from the 1984 Dante film. I'm not allowed to leave that Gremlin out anywhere; not after that time I waited until she was asleep and then stood him up on her night-stand so when she woke up, he'd be peering down at her. That was probably very wrong of me...

But that's a different story...

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:02 PM

    Heh, if you go to my myspace page and look at my pics you'll see one of my kid giving kisses to my old Godzilla from the 70's. She loves dragging him around.

    That alien is freaking sweet!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1:23 AM

    I figured the little one's first toy would be the Mathilda May action figure from Lifeforce...

    ReplyDelete

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