Comments on: 1980 Kenner Alien Catalog https://plaidstallions.com/reboot/1980-kenner-alien-catalog/ Reboot Wed, 10 Mar 2021 01:11:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 By: DON CHISHOLM https://plaidstallions.com/reboot/1980-kenner-alien-catalog/#comment-12847 Wed, 10 Mar 2021 01:11:04 +0000 http://plaidstallions.com/reboot/?p=16447#comment-12847 Hmmmm…. I find it weird that there’s so much questioning of the logic behind the Alien toys. Space was popular, so were monsters…. seems like a winner. I DESPERATELY wanted one when they first came out, but it wasn’t until a few years later I finally found one in the discount bin at Zellers. (At a time when I was tragically too old to play with it. But it was a great display piece.) I sorta wonder if the poor sales were specifically because parents didn’t want to buy them, even if the kids wanted them. (I recall my friends all wanting one too.)

]]> By: DBenson https://plaidstallions.com/reboot/1980-kenner-alien-catalog/#comment-12837 Thu, 04 Mar 2021 21:03:06 +0000 http://plaidstallions.com/reboot/?p=16447#comment-12837 I was an adult in 1980 but still paid attention to new cartoons and toys as a snarky observer. I remember there was a bit of a kerfuffle over the Alien toys — or maybe was the Jurassic Park toys (featuring “Dino Damage” patches of skin that came off to reveal muscle and ribs on the dinosaurs. There was also a human figure who had a removable arm). In any case, for a brief period such toy commercials had a vague text disclaimer along the lines of, “CHOOSE MOVIES WISELY”.

Was there any equivalent rumbling back in the early days of James Bond? The films went as far as they could in those pre-rating days, and while the toys focused on weaponry the ubiquitous marketing for the movies themselves emphasized sex.

To this date haven’t seen any of the Alien films. Still prefer my monsters lumbering around the Universal backlot in B&W.

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