Taking cues from their extremely successful Star Wars range of action figures with over 40 million units sold during a period of no more than 10 months in 1978, Kenner Products acquired the licencing rights to produce similar toys and games based on Twentieth Century Fox upcoming 1979 science fiction/horror feature, ALIEN. Kenner went into full production in early 1979 and were ready to service a public demand for toys based on the movie and be released on time for Christmas of that year.
Unfortunately, Kenner’s plans to emulate their success from the previous year did not see fruition and their entire range of ALIEN themed merchandise was ultimately cancelled. Those events are a story worth telling of itself but today, we’ll take a peek into what could have been a very different landscape for the toy developer in control of this new licence.
Throughout early 1979, Kenner Products was engaged in designing, manufacturing and packaging their now infamous 18 inch ALIEN action figure. It was intended to be followed up with a mass market release of smaller ALIEN action figures in pocket size format in 1980, a set of figures that would have scaled well with their already extremely popular Star Wars items. Sadly, production on these 3.75 inch tall figures was abruptly halted and they failed to see the light of day during the time intended for their release.
These items, including several figures based on the crew of the ill-fated Nostromo along with the Alien itself, never advanced beyond the prototype phase. Once Kenner closed down their efforts on this range of merchandise due to public outcry of their already released oversized ALIEN toy, these prototypes went into storage and were largely forgotten. The samples went into hiding to become myths of the toy industry and most fans and enthusiasts were only vaguely aware of them at best.
Some collectors and Kenner employees were knowledgeable of their existence and photographs of the unrealised toys were known to exist. Gradually, once again they became more than just myths to the public eye when the proof of such photographic documentation was published in the pages of toy journals like Tomarts and other periodicals of the 1990’s. The early renditions of the unproduced toys survived Kenner’s purge of their unsuccessful licence – a licence they would eventually return to during the 1990s but Kenner would be under the completely ownership of multiple different companies.
During the early 1990s, Kenner attempted to bring back this same Alien line. There is evidence in the form of recast prototype figures that look identical to the known original prototype samples from 1979. Kenner favoured this later endeavor to revisit the 3.75 inch tall action figures and the recast items based on the Alien figure itself were made from a known sample still surviving and it appears below, protected inside a box frame.
The 2nd generation recast items from the early 1990’s were very much like their older 1979 prototype originals in appearance but are distinguished by more modern Urethane resins known to be used by Kenner during the 1990s for their construction – which is how these figures are identified from this period. These recasts are also often known to be painted in bold vibrant color schemes along with metallic finishes.
Kenner was owned by Tonka at the time this brief consideration for the revival of the older figures was being attempted by the company. Unfortunately once again they did not see production. For a 2nd time, more than an decade later, Kenner’s 3.75 inch figures based on the original 1979 movie and the older prototypes were shelved and disappeared into obscurity in the favour of toned down, outlandish and yet more child friendly ALIENS items.
The new designs were part of their product range called Operation: ALIENS and ultimately formed the basis for the more wildly themed action figures and toys we became familiar with in 1992 onward as part of their ALIENS line of figures. That’s another story for another day, complete with its own mythology and controversy.
Today we know for certain that these prototypes have not only survived but are in the collections of people who value and preserve them for their unique standing and reputation in the world of collectible toys and industry history. It is these samples that became the basis for the range of collectible toys known as ReAction figures. Collectors of such rare and unique prototype items were reluctant to provide resource materials for use in the design and development of the new figures due to their sensitive and fragile nature. Instead, reference material for the ReAction figures were sourced from leaked online content along with interviews with from former Kenner Products employees.
Starting with a promotional campaign in San Diego Comic Con 2013, FUNKOxSuper7 released their first ALIEN ReAction figures at the convention. These figures were inspired intimately by the old and largely forgotten prototypes. Their first release was a boxed pair of emulated test shot figures featuring the compression suited Kane and our charming little friend, the Alien. This package was the public’s first taste of what would become the now well known ReAction figure range. 34 years had to pass for this release to happen; and it was only the beginning.
Also at SDCC 2013, where these small blue limited edition facsimile figures were announced and initially made available, an ‘Early Bird’ marketing strategy similar to the one Kenner employed in late 1977 to make up for the high demand of Star Wars figures was launched by Super7 to service pre-order customers and provide them with a complete set of Series 1 ALIEN ReAction figures. It was extremely successful and launched an entire industry revival of retro ’70’s themed toys based on movies and television shows in the popular pocket size format.
Since SDCC 2013, Super 7 have since had great success with this range of figures, releasing many iterations and variants across 2 series; and a third series is about to be released. These toys have come a long way – more than 3 decades – to become a success. The diminutive Alien figure itself has since enjoyed no less than 10 different iterations in various formats ranging from the blue pseudo test shot to the 3 recent 2017 blind box items, all using the same design but varying in presentation and color. Some of these variants are easy to come by – others have become a moderate challenge for more dedicated Collectors.
In which case, it’s unfortunate that Kenner failed to produce this line of action figures based on ALIEN in 1979. The series of toys would have been compatible with items of the same scale in their extant Star Wars range – a range of figures that continued to be released for another 5 years. Had the ALIEN toys seen successful mass market distribution, then scenarios such as this one depicted below would have taken place in playgrounds and the bedrooms of 8 year old children throughout the world.
One of Kenner Products big mistakes was they were simply ahead of their time. As no market for toys based on R-rated movies existed back then, the release of a large scale action figure based on an implacably hostile character like the ALIEN did more than set a precedent. It upset sensitive members of the community at large who campaigned to have the offensive large scale toy removed from shelves.
Arguably, another big mistake on their part was releasing the tall item first; especially considering the market was clearly mercilessly gobbling up the small scale toys based on movies in 3.75 inch scale. Is it possible that releasing these pocket sized ALIEN figures in 1979 instead of the larger item may have changed Kenner Products fortunes?
By the time Kenner Products finished producing Star Wars figures in 1985, they had sold more than 300 million units. Surely, there must have been some room for ALIEN figures of the same scale on store shelves of the day. Sadly, we’ll never know.
Read more about Kenner ALIEN prototype figures.
-Windebieste.
1979 ALIEN prototype images courtesy of Steve Dwyer. Thank you for your contribution to this article.
