Usually when I post about items being sold on eBay, I simply focus on the 1979 Kenner ALIEN toys currently available. …and believe me, for a forty plus year old toy that is often listed as rare, there appears to be a significant number of them available at any time I search on eBay. Eh… They’re not rare. Not by a long shot. Anyway, today I’m posting something different yet still inexorably connected to the notorious 1979 Kenner ALIEN toy. This post is dedicated to a Tsukuda Hobby ALIEN being sold along with a a pair of Super7 ALIENS ReAction figures. All of these figures are listed together for US$150 and they each have a story to tell. Marvelous! I love it!
First up, let’s tackle the Big Chap. This isn’t a bootleg. It’s a legitimately licenced item. This large figure is a Tsukuda Hobby action figure from 1995 and is indirectly derived from the older 1979 Kenner ALIEN action figure which I frequently post about on this page. Anyway, this 1995 ALIEN figure is a modified recast of the Halcyon model kit released in 1991. Significantly, the Halcyon ALIEN kit in turn is a recast of Tsukuda Hobby’s previous Jumbo Series No.2 ALIEN figure, released in 1984. That 1984 Tsukuda Hobby figure was itself a recast of the original 1979 Kenner ALIEN toy. Confused yet? Wait, it gets even more complex. For whatever unknown reason, when Tsukuda Hobby recast this figure and released it in 1995, they neglected to modify the date stamp that originally appears on the 1991 Halcyon kit. The manufacture date on the Tsukuda item will erroneously display 1991 on its right foot instead of the correct date of 1995. It has often been referred to as a 1991 Kenner ALIEN which of course is equally erroneous, although it does share a legitimate heritage with two other aforementioned figures associated with Kenner’s original ALIEN toy.
If you would like to further investigate this unusual figure made in Japan, you don’t have to go too far. Here’s a page I prepared some years back to help explain the curious history of this 17 inch tall item. Now let’s tackle the other pair of smaller human figures.
This is a pair of ALIEN characters being held in the ominous clutches of the Alien, Captain Dallas and warrant officer Ripley. This may appear to be a pair of figures of vintage toys, but they’re not. These two figures were made by Super7 in 2013. Super7 made an entire run of 3.75 inch tall ALIEN action figures as a tribute to Kenner’s original line up of these ALIEN toys. More than thirty years ago, Kenner’s production of these toys were cancelled. These decade old releases from Super7 were sculpted from photos of known original 1979 Kenner prototypes that still exist today. So the big question here, is why did Kenner cancel the production of these pocket size ALIEN toys back in 1979? Let’s do this! Originally slated for a 1980 release, Kenner’s 3.75 inch ALIEN action figures were expected to be enormous sellers for the toy manufacturer, much like their 3.75 inch 1978 Star Wars counterparts, of which Kenner sold millions of units by the end of 1978. Kenner wanted to replicate that success. Unfortunately, manufacturing was immediately abandoned during early stages of production due to a number of factors. Significantly, ALIEN wasn’t rated as the child appropriate movie Kenner had hoped for. ALIEN was given an R-rating in the United states along with similar global ratings and was not the child friendly PG rating Star Wars was awarded in 1977. Another major contributor to these little guys being cancelled was the poor sales of Kenner’s 18 inch ALIEN action figure. Hah! It always comes back to this action figure around here, hey. That Big Chap action figure failed miserably at retail outlets and Kenner cancelled production on all future ALIEN product line items, resulting in the product line cancellation and completely abandoned.
If you are seeking some more information about Super7’s successful line of 3.75 inch ALIEN ReAction figures, you can explore two dozen pages of these tribute items right here on HIDEOUS PLASTIC.
-windebieste.
