Why am I just finding out there was a cancelled Saturday morning cartoon based on Aliens? I’m a bad fan. A terrible fan.
Dubbed Operation: Aliens, the series followed Ellen Ripley and an assortment of colonial marines that retired from G.I. Joe’s unit in every way save for their uber-machismo appearances and inspired one-liners.
Ripley and co. defend different colonies from attacking xenomorphs (including new, animal-based hybrids) and, presumably, high five afterward.
Set to coincide with the 1992 release of Alien 3, production came to a crashing halt for no explicable reason. Except maybe for the fact that the bad guy in the show was a penis-shaped monster that incubated in people’s chests before bursting out of their rib cage. Still, that didn’t stop the Quaalude-fueled producers of the world from adapting several other R-rated features like Robocop, Rambo, and Starship Troopers for the kiddies.
Kenner’s supplementing toyline of mantis aliens, snake aliens, and other strange hybrids (which I owned as a wee lad) had to change their name once the show’s plug was pulled, but some merchandise already hit the shelves with the branding intact.
Yes, Operation: Aliens probably would’ve been toxically cheesy and cripplingly dumb. But that was part of the fun of these cartoons. Goddamn, I would kill to hear this show’s theme song. But, alas, no recording of the pilot seems to exist (for all we know, watching it could be like opening up the Ark of the Covenant; leaving no survivors).