Queen Alien from Aliens by Kenner

The 1990's was a great time for boys toys, boys toys based on PG-13 and R rated properties. One series stood out for most visually interesting concepts and the most absolutely nuts premise , Aliens from Kenner Toys. The premise for the Aliens figure line was that if a facehugger could mate with it, then you'd have a new species of xenomorph. And by mate I mean make sweet love to it's mouth-hole. After the facehugger is done laying his eggs in your abdomen( I say his because even though it lays eggs, he still made you his bitch during the process), the hatch lings gestate and feed on your internal organs until it blows through your ribcage like a shotgun blast. This usually renders the host animal dead and the xenomorph will eventually mature into a bipedal humanoid/cockroach hybrid. I'm guessing they were banking on the hopes that if the facehugger had other animals to select for hosts, the end result would be a hybrid of the xenomorph and the host.

(they come in flying too?)

(the production quality of the live action was on par with Photon, not too shabby for 30seconds)

(best one ever made, buy one now if you don't own it)

(the topic of discussion today)

This gave us such memorable creations such as (I'm hamming it up, but you know this by now) gorilla aliens, crab aliens, scorpion aliens, mantis aliens, dog aliens, snake aliens, bull aliens and rhino aliens. In some of those cases, I want to see a National Geographic TV special as to how some of these monstrosities come into existence. And no, just because the Alien was dubbed a King or a Queen doesn't mean the facehugger made sweet love to a queen or king's tonsils.....necessarily. It's a hive system, like ants or bees function. Anyways, over the series' shelf life only 3 versions of the queen alien were made; a flying queen, a movie accurate one that came with the hive playset and the basic assortment Queen Alien.

(simple xenomorph from Aliens)

(behold, the horrors created by the hands of toy designers making an R rated movie fun for kids)

(TV raised your sorry ass better than your own parents)

The basic assortment came on a large blister card and retailed for roughly $10. The figure has 10 points of articulation, stood 7 inches tall and had two action features; swinging tail action (by pressing a button on the hip) and secondary mouth attack (by pressing a soft rubber cushion on the back of the head, under the crest). The detail on the figure was a notch above what you might expect for Kenner, but sadly some of the more basic Aliens had better sculpts. Impressive to me was the swivel articulation added to the Queen's 3^rd set of hands located in the center of it's chest. The figure also came with a pretty much useless queen chestburster, which was a long dark hunk of plastic that looked like HR Gieger's walking cane. I know the Alien from the movies is traditionally black and glistening but this figure could have benefited from some dry brushing. Honestly if I don't have the lights on in my display case, she blends into the background. There's a small amount silvery gray pigment mixed into the black plastic used to make it, but it does nothing to really highlight the figure. And simply, the figure looks absolutely nothing like any of the Queen Aliens portrayed in any of the eight or so movies across the Aliens or Predator saga.

(give 'ems a kiss, muah muah)