The Original Alien Action Figure Is The Creepiest Kid Toy Ever Made
I’ll fully admit, I was too young to be really paying attention to movies at all in 1979. And even if I had been, I’m quite certain my parents wouldn’t have let me sit through Alien at that tender age. The resulting therapy bills would have been a crippling financial burden.
Imagine the surprise, then, to discover that in 1979, somebody looked at Ridley Scott’s terrifying genre classic and said, “I bet five-year-olds would like to play with toys based on this.” Let’s get an Alien action figure toy line going.
It’s true. There was an albeit brief time when the original Alien Xenomorph was being marketed to our youth, and we have the commercial to prove it. Check out the commercial for the Alien action figure.
I realize it falls to each succeeding generation to complain that toys and TV were way cooler back in [insert decade here], but this Alien action figure ad suggests you children of the ‘70s were a lot more hardcore than I ever gave you credit.
The best part about this Alien action figure commercial is that the kids themselves mostly just end up playing a game where they are scared of it. And in the end, the Alien action figure wins because the kids simply leave the room that it’s in.
Sure, this is pretty accurate regarding the original Sigourney Weaver movie, but as far as an Alien action figure to play with? Well, it all just seems a little weird and problematic. I get wanting to capitalize on the movie’s popularity at the time, but this just doesn’t seem like the way to do it.
This Alien action figure just raises all sorts of questions. Did they have a Kane figure complete with chest-burster and scale-model internal organs?
Was there a line from the sequel that I somehow missed during my expeditions to the aisles of Toys “R” Us?
Perhaps a Bishop figure that would pop in half or a Random Victim figure that would beg you to kill it? Somehow I feel I’ve missed out on an important childhood experience.
These vintage Alien action figures are actually now worth a pretty penny. Unsurprisingly, not a ton were made or sold at the time. This means the ones that are left can fetch hundreds (or more) on some reselling sites.
Sure, these Alien action figures harken back to a “simpler” time, when no one seemed to be paying all that much attention to what was happening with kids. So sometimes the dolls were just the bad guys and the whole game was making sure they didn’t kill you.
