Mr. Tendril’s BIG Make Over.

Let’s take a closer look at this strange, customised figure and gain a solid understanding of his parts and explore the options available to us. Generally the figure is clean with scatterings of lightly coated dust. He’ll need a good cleaning throughout to remove the film of dirt and strange odors he’s acquired during his long years of being in storage. Where ever that was. Odd character, this Mr. Tendril, that’s for sure. We’re going to celebrate his idiosyncrasies in this make over, respect them as much as possible and retain his personality.

Firstly, we’ll start with examining the figure’s head; and most notably, the covering that adorns it. The carapace, or dome, is in a very shabby state. It suffers from melting in various locations. Significantly, a small melted indentation is visible on the front left of the dome along with a number of other heat blemishes on the front of the dome. The back of the dome is severely melted and a large, gaping hole is present. Neither of the 2 major disfigurements are repairable and they effectively ruin the dome.

Of great concern is the obvious change in color and brittle quality of the material surrounding the burn mark on the back of the dome. The severity of this damage indicates the item was very close to ignition and alighting at one point. It’s possibly just good fortune this figure didn’t disappear in flames and I suspect we’re lucky it still exists today – along with the household it was stored in.

The dome is still usable as it is straight and suffers no warping from the heat damage. From the front, it still displays OK aside from the damage that is present. Some of the other minor scratches can be gently polished out but it will never be anything but a heavily degraded quality item. It’s still a genuine part, though, and finding one of these in any condition is a tough task. As such, they are sought after by Collectors wanting to use such a genuine vintage piece to complete their figure. It’s value is about US$50 as it remains useable despite the overt damage it has sustained.

Before you ask, sorry. No. The dome is not for sale. Besides, it’s fragile; and risking it breaking in transit is less than ideal. I’m counting my blessings it arrived intact.

Moving onto the figure proper we shall inspect the head first. Still possessing its dome is an achievement in itself but unfortunately other parts are missing from the figure. Mr. Tendril is missing both halves of the dentured tongue, which is a common problem with these old toys. At least he still possesses both mouth parts comprising the teeth that fit into his jaws. They’re painted silver. Much like other locations on the figure, the head is similarly highlighted with silver paint, including a complete paint over of the glow in the dark highlights on the head’s crown. Sadly, Mr. Tendril has lost this glow in the dark ability due to the masking of this feature. Even his eye orbits have been silvered out.

The trigger mechanism that activates the jaw still works and I may investigate replacing his lost tongue with an impromptu replacement. I have a few ideas in mind for this task.

On the right side of the head near the neck and upon the shoulder arch, more melting from heat damage can be found. These smaller disfigurements are very likely caused by the same heat source that has mutilated the dome. The toy has probably been resting against a heat radiator or other similar such equipment for an unknown amount of time. These marks aren’t as severe as the damage present on the dome but they are similarly completely irreparable. Along with all the silver paint work, these marks do reduce the quality of the head for potential salvage and reuse elsewhere on another figure.

This means the Good News is Mr. Tendril gets to keep his head, as imperfect as it is. The melted marks are shown (red arrows) below.

Once again on the torso can be found the ubiqitous silver flourishes that adorn the figure. As is typical with these 1979 ALIEN action figures the crest on its back is missing and damage is present to the slot on where it would normally appear. The first of two rubber rat’s tails are mounted as a replacement part instead.

The other 4 tubular appendages to be found upon its back are all present, straight and aligned correctly. This is good and indicates none of these have broken free of their internal mounting plate and no work to rectify any problems needs to be done on them. While this is a welcome outcome, these too have had silver paint applied to them; most notably on the terminating circular surfaces of each appendage.

A coiled, segmented tail is normally attached to the base of the spine on the figure’s torso and Mr. Tendril is missing his. Instead, the 2nd of two rubber rat’s tails has been mounted as a replacement part. Both of these dynamic, wobbling rubber rat’s tails contrast dramatically to the static blended styrene material of which the action figure is largely comprised of and they lend a surprisingly disturbing and unwholesome quality to the entire figure.