Here is a short You Tube item from Toy Tinker Tim on a toy movie viewer.
The viewer took various film cassettes, and was hand-cranked, as were many of these viewers.
The cassette shown is based on the movie Alien, and is called Alien Terror, copyright date 1979. It is a short reel of film highlights, without sound.
Clearly this was a toy aimed at younger children, yet Alien was R-rated in the USA, meaning that no one under 17 was admitted unless accompanied by an adult.
In Britain the film was rated X by the British Board of Film Censors - no one under 18 admitted at all, but now down to a 15 - no one under 15 allowed to view.
Most of these toy lines would have been in development and manufacture long before the film was submitted to the film censors, and rated, but it is hard to see R and X ratings helping to sell a toy line aimed at children.
There were plenty of other toys based on adult-rated films, or sometimes on a children's spin-off cartoon series. Very weird.
Kenner Alien Movie Viewer 1979 - YouTube
Have you or did you have one?
Paul Adams from New Zealand
Woodsy here. I will make the link work later. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteAt the time of release, Alien merchandise was in very short supply. The big Kenner Alien figure made a very brief appearance on shelves, before it was pulled for being to scary for children. The other item was the seven inch kit by MPC, which appeared briefly and was quite expensive. I didn't manage to get one at the time, but did get hold of the much later Halcyon releases of the APC and Narcissus, which were very nice kits. For me though, the best toys were the Galoob Action Fleet line of four vehicles: https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2010/04/heart-of-darkness.html?m=1
ReplyDelete