Operation: Aliens is a cancelled cartoon series that would have been based, of course, off of James Cameron’s Aliens. The stories surrounding just how far it came along have become the stuff of fanboy mythology, to the point where it’s virtually impossible to tell which ones are true. Supposedly the final nail in its cosmic coffin was Alien 3 killing off Ripley (that film is really a downer, guys), but I kind of doubt that was the reason.
In any event, lots of merchandising was in production prior to it getting the boot, and since the cartoon was being made to help sell the toys anyway, they still made it to store shelves. Kind of. Some of it was released under the Operation: Aliens banner, including a board game, and a Tiger Electronics product which was apparently never actually sold. But most of it was just branded as Aliens, because it was the early 90s, and R-rated films just had to have action figures back then. It was the law. Thank Ronald Reagan.
The ads for these were my first exposure to the franchise (I don’t think I was even aware of the movies). As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Garfield and Friends was really the only Saturday morning show I was allowed to watch since it wasn’t violent. One weekend when we were away from home, my parents set the VCR to tape it, which was a real treat for me as it meant the commercials were recorded too. Which included this one…
My mom was not happy at all that this had been taped. I’m sure it had something to do with the “send in the marines” talk and the alien getting blown up at the end. So she found a random cooking show on PBS one afternoon and taped this commercial over. Now, this meant she was only recording about a minute of an unfinished recipe, but hey, it meant I wasn’t being shown toy marines killing toy aliens every time I rewatched the episode, which was all that mattered to her. So that’s my silly Aliens toy commercial story.
Have a great night, y’all!