Extended Toy Box - Aliens (1992-1998)

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

It’s become something of a cliché now to point out how, when it premiered, Star Wars changed everything, but it really did.  The ramifications of Star Wars as a film and, more importantly here, a multimedia phenomenon are still being felt today.  One of the biggest changes brought about Star Wars was a complete revamp to the way toys are created and sold.  Before this moment toys tended to exist as unique entities.  There were a handful of tie-in toys but for the most part toy “franchises” stayed confined to the medium of toys.  With the advent of Star Wars, suddenly franchised toys were big business, and Reagan’s deregulation of the FCC’s rules about advertising led to even more through TV shows built as ads for the toys. 

This was the first time something called ‘structured play’ entered the realm of American toy production, where the idea was that toys weren’t just for the imagination, but they were coming with a prebaked story and universe that informed them.  As such, when toy companies in the ‘80s and ‘90s wanted to keep selling new action figures from Terminator or Predator after the original film ended they needed to come up with new stories to base the new toys around.  

This series of events led to a ton of various toy lines at the time acting as the first expanded universe for the various franchise, the first place officially licensed new stories emerged even if it was just in the form of commercials or on the back of the packaging.  In this series, Extended Toy Box, I’m going to take a closer look at these franchises as well as occasionally touching on toys in general.  With all that said, let’s look at one of the best examples of this with Aliens.

Static Thoughts - History of Spider-Man TV Shows

If you like this post or want to support the blog, please consider donating

In case you’re unaware, today marks the fourth season finale of Marvel’s ongoing Ultimate Spider-Man animated series.  The show is one of four ongoing Marvel animated productions running through their Disney connection alongside Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Hulk & the Agents of SMASH, and Guardians of the Galaxy.  

The show has become pretty widely popular with kids, introducing a wide supporting cast of Marvel mainstays while also blending its elements with the popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe while also featuring great comic shout outs, like the debut of fan favorite Miles Morales as played by Donald Glover.  We’ll see if it persists now that Marvel has an onscreen Spider-Man as well but for now, I figured we could celebrate with a look back at Spider-Man’s long, storied history on television as Marvel’s #1 franchise. 

Movie Monthly - Leviathan (1989)

For some reason in 1989 the world just decided it was obsessed with deep sea diving and exploration.  This was the year that gave us The Abyss, DeepStar Six, The Evil Below, Lords of the Deep, The Rift, and today’s topic Leviathan.  Now for most folks that list probably seems pretty obscure aside from James Cameron’s The Abyss but chances are if you grew up in the era of video rental stores chances are you know quite a few of those entries by sight if not by name.  Almost all of these deep-sea base films had a very unique and similar box art design, which is actually how I stumbled on Leviathan as a choice for this review.  That was just nature of rental video in the days before the immediate reward and no risk structure of streaming.  This also means that even when you’re talking about low-rent video rental scifi horror like Leviathan you can count on it to at least look good and be bonkers in all the right places.