Today is April 26. Today we celebrate all things ALIEN. Yippee! It’s fantastic that we get a day to celebrate our favourite series of movies. This year is special as it marks the 40th Anniversary of the first ALIEN movie released in 1979. Though, truth be told, the actual Anniversary date of its release is May 25. …but shhh! we’re not complaining.
All the same, since it’s release 40 years ago, ALIEN was also accompanied by a large array of tie-in merchandise. In this regard, let’s not forget this celebration is also the 40th Anniversary of all good things consumable relating to the movie 4 decades ago.
Upon its release, merchandise for ALIEN was in abundance. You name it, it was available. Ranging from toys and print media through to bubblegum cards and Halloween masks, ALIEN had a massive tie-in merchandise marketing exercise alongside it. There was a movie novelisation, various magazines and posters, at least 5 jigsaw puzzles, a comic, bubblegum cards and a variety of other goodies released on top of all that.
Noteworthy among these additional items were 3 products intended for children manufactured by popular toy company, Kenner Products. Let’s take a closer look at this trio of items as they’re intriguing examples of marketing. Importantly, they’re each representative of Kenner’s erroneous belief that ALIEN was going to be released as a PG movie following in the success of Star Wars. Kenner Products was a licence holder for manufacturing toys based on that property, too, which makes the relationship between the Star Wars and ALIEN merchandise of the late 1970s inextricably connected.
In this regard, I am currently in the closing stages of a lengthy book on the investigation into how Kenner made this mistake and created a range of toys for children based on this R-rated movie. These findings are the basis for a major Project I am working on. We’ll leave release details of that particular item for a later discussion. Let’s get on with checking out Kenner’s selection of goodies released in 1979.
ALIEN Board Game.
Let’s start with this curiosity. Kenner’s ALIEN board game was released for children “AGES 7 AND UP”. The game play was simple enough. Each player controlled 3 Astronauts and a single Alien, all represented on a board with card tokens mounted in plastic base. Movement was determined by the rolling of a pair of dice. One die controlled the movement of your Astronauts for the greater goal of getting them into the center of the board; and the other die controlled the movement of your Alien to hunt down your opponent’s Astronauts. And murder them.
Yes. This was a kid’s game released by Kenner Products in 1979. The game play itself is a derivative variant of the well known Trouble board game by the Irwin Toy Company. One of the major differences in game play was the permanent removal of tokens from the game. That’s because they were dead. The version featured above is the extremely rare TOLTOYS licenced edition released in Australia. There’s more information on this particular version of the ALIEN board game.
ALIEN was a fun board game of stalk your victims and murder them made for 7 year olds. How can it possibly get any better than that?
“ALIEN TERROR” Movie Viewer.
Well, actually it does get better. Also released alongside the board game was Kenner’s 1 minute long condensed version of ALIEN distributed as a cartridge for their handheld Movie Viewer. Once again, this item was released for children, this time for a younger audience of “AGES 5 AND UP”. The red cartridge features selected scenes from the movie. No doubt parents of 1979 were confused and not just a little concerned as to why content from an R-rated movie was permitted to be the basis of entertainment for their children.
This hand cranked device was popular back in the 1970s with a wide range of cartridges available for popular properties like Peanuts, Six Million Dollar Man and Star Wars. It was released at time when home entertainment systems based on VHS technology was just beginning to make household living rooms the major entertainment center for families around the world. The ALIEN Movie Viewer was the last of its type for Kenner Products and only a single cartridge was produced. It was the only cartridge released on the Movie Viewer format based on an R-rated Property.
Here’s some more information if you would like to know what the content of this short 8mm, “ALIEN TERROR” film actually contained. How this content was deemed appropriate for children by Kenner is astonishing; and while watching these videos ask yourself, “How is a 5 year old even going to enjoy this?”
18 inch ALIEN action figure.
The most notable item of Kenner Products line up of merchandise released in 1979 was their 18 inch tall ALIEN action figure. This notorious articulated toy was expected to be Kenner’s next big thing to follow up on their extremely popular 3.75 inch tall Star Wars figures. Kenner sold over 40 million Star Wars toys in 1978 – an astonishing amount of toys. God knows how many of these ALIEN things they expected to sell in 1979; nonetheless, the endeavor turned out to be a massive and costly marketing debacle for the company.
Today, 40 years later, this item is still relatively easy to find. Go on. Hop onto eBay right now. At any one time you can find up to a dozen of these items for sale by vendors. Sometimes more. Sometimes less – but you will find them relatively easily. They can vary wildly in quality and price from US$50 to US$5000 depending on condition and completeness.
The high price that frequently accompanies them can be attributed to a number of factors. Firstly, this thing is old. 40 years old now and it’s considered to be a vintage collectible toy. Secondly, this item was based on an R-rated movie making it the first toy based on a movie of that rating. It was marketed at children, “AGES 5 AND UP” and being marketed at children amplifies its reputation. So reputation is a significant factor here. That, and the fact the company lost over a million dollars (1979 value) due its failure. …oh, and all the other stories surrounding this toy all go towards its infamous reputation and high value.
Nonetheless, an unknown number of these toys were manufactured by Kenner Products. 40 million of them, though..? Probably not. Certainly, however, the number of these ALIEN action figures available on eBay at any nominated time is testimony to the huge volume Kenner actually produced of this toy.
The box in the image above is a Canadian English/French bilingual edition and more information and images about the large Kenner toy can be found here.
The image below is of the standard US edition.
Celebrating 40 Years of ALIEN Merchandise.
It’s been 40 years since these three items were released. Each one of them is now considered to be a collectible item. The ALIEN Movie Viewer in particular is a difficult item to acquire. Since the release of these items, ALIEN merchandise has continued to become available due to public demand, usually escalating in frequency and volume when accompanying a new movie release in the series.
In recent years, the abundance of merchandise has only increased. There are now 8 ALIEN and AvP movies for licencees to draw inspiration from and the volume of consumer content is only going to continue. It all started 40 years ago with the release of Kenner’s notorious 18 inch tall ALIEN action figure along with a fantastic range of other ALIEN products. Many of them marketed at children.
Today, those children are in their 40s or 50s; and licenced ALIEN content is still being released by a multitude of companies. A little over 40 years ago, none of this content existed. Today, it’s all considered to be adult collectible material. These Kenner toys and other ALIEN merchandise items were inadvertent pioneers in the toy industry intended for children but have now found themselves at home with an adult audience.
Importantly, this trio of oddities also enjoys the privilege of 40 years of celebration.
-Windebieste.
