A L I E N TOO

Following on from my mention of the rare Kenner Alien toy, Paul Vreede kindly dusted off his model for us and sent this article.

Standing a tad over 18" tall, it's made of hard black plastic with hands and the protrusions at rear in a slightly softer grade. Under the smokey-coloured clear top there's some glow-in-the-dark details picked out and teeth are plated. Arms, legs and tail can be rotated. The tail has a curl so the Alien can be suspended from it.

The arms could also be pulled back and released to clap together onto whatever victim came to hand. With age the elastic band operating the arms has lost most of its strength however, and it won't keep the arms in a horizontal pose anymore either. A trigger at the back of the head opens the mouth and extends the second jaws inside.

I bought this new in 1980 but the box has sadly disappeared since. A repro can be seen and obtained here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/174730995926 (but for that money I shan't replace it).

The box shows a boy of some 12 years old playing with his Alien but that's where things didn't work out. Intended customers of that age were actually way too young to go see the Alien movie, which was rated 15 in the UK and even had an R rating in the US (17 unless accompanied by an adult). Pity, because it -is- a very nice toy, and nowhere near as frightening as the Alien in the movie!

Thank you to Paul Vreede for the opportunity to see this rare toy in such detail! Very often, loose versions on the secondary market are missing the semi-transparent cranium, showing the white skull shape beneath. It’s interesting to note that Kenner elected to include the skull motif, with very prominent eye sockets. This indicates that they must have had access to images of Hans Rudi Giger’s original suit design, which made use of various anatomical model parts and castings of various bones. The final version of the suit had a much more opaque finish to the exterior, losing the pronounced ‘eyes’ to give the creature a much more menacing appearance.

Beneath the cranium were a series of hydraulic lines and wires, which designer Carlo Rambaldi used to operate the jaws and inner mandibles. The detail of the head and various bony protrusions running along the crest of the skull beneath the cover would be used by James Cameron in Aliens to discriminate a separate caste of ‘warrior’ xenomorphs, as opposed to the standard drone.

You can see the shape of the skull moulded into the fibreglass headpiece and the various mechanisms Rambaldi employed to bring the creature to life in these shots from the 1993 ‘Giger’s Alien’ book. The chromed teeth on Kenners toy appeared as a result of the way the model was filmed in a very high contrast shot, with running water on the jaws, making the teeth appear to be made of metal.