Blue...Purple...Red?!?
Kenner's Aliens line of figures is filled with tons of variations, changes, repaints, and more. Most of it well known and documented ( least of all documented here on my blog).
Over 20 years of collecting, and I'm still discovering new things about this action figure line. Just previously I discovered the text changes on two figures' packaging here & here! So there's always the possibility that a detail or change or whatever was unknown for quite some time. Perfect example: the flying Queen alien was only released with an orange egg graphic behind it on it's Euro card back...or so I thought! It wasn't until 2014 that I came across a carded version with a GREEN egg graphic! Who knew? Not me, and I've never seen or heard of it before that. But there you go...you never know.
So I don't personally know when this rumor started or how long it's persisted. I only learned of it a few years ago.
The "Red" Gorilla
At first, I was super excited. A new Gorilla figure? How rare? I've never seen it before in over 25 years of collecting Kenner Aliens! It was...huge. That is, until I looked closer at the image presented. It's the ONLY image in existence of it too. Nowhere else.
Being optimistic, I first suspected it was just an anomaly of lighting, photograph angle, plastic reflection, etc. that made parts look red. But further examination shows it's manipulated. The red "bleeds" into non figure areas. Not by much, and they did a decent job of tracing the figure parts, but you can see it's clearly a red overlay. Just opaque enough to read as a color but not too thick to look like a poor Photoshop job.
No one has come forward with any other info, even the poster from the original website. No additional photos, no explanation. Nuthin.
And I'm always scouring eBay; Nada.
With an already released purple Gorilla, why do another? The KB repaints were a last gasp to squeeze money out of the line. Even if they were to do a 2nd repaint, why red when you already have a bright red Bull repaint? I don't think they would've done a primary color twice in the same line.
It's a shame too. I'm all about discovering new and odd things in this line. But the red gorilla? It's not so...
Other notable Kenner Aliens myths & untruths
- Mini DropShip was produced but was super rare: so this is an oldie, and it's more about the difficulty of getting accurate info back in the '90's. For a long time, publications like Lee's Action Figure News & Toy Review would list this in their price guide, with " NCSR" (" No Current Sales Record"). " If it's listed it must be out there, right?" Over time, it was removed as it became clear this vehicle was never released, retail or elsewhere.
- Hudson, Vasquez, & O'Malley were never released in the US, and the few on US cards were nearly destroyed by Kenner before being dumped in Asia and Australia: simply not true, but due to the rarity, and at the time small Internet, this rumor gained a lot of traction. Ample evidence has shown that these 3 were in fact released in the states, albeit in extremely limited supply.
- Hudson/Vasquez/O'Malley were UK exclusives ONLY!: nope.
- Arachnid alien was a KB exclusive: nah, just KB was the only big retailer to stick with the line and order more figures at the end on '94.
- Drake was going to come in a new costume, as seen in the card back: this one is tricky. There are card backs that feature a Drake with a maroon colored torso. I've only seen it on European card backs, but there has been some speculation that it was the prototype of a planned 2nd Series Drake, perhaps with new accessories/etc (early Series 1 Euro card backs show the normal Drake, it's the later figures that show this different version).
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Nothing has been confirmed, and most agree that it's more likely a photograph of a different prototype. As I've written about before, most of the product photography was different for the European figures (card back, catalogs, etc). So there's a high probability that when it came time to photograph a Drake, that was the figure they had on hand, and it was a different color from the early development of the line.
If you know of any old Kenner Aliens & Predator rumors, let me know!
Thanks for reading.
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