Mad Scientist Dissect-An-Alien

In the 80s and 90s, there was an enormous obsession with aliens. Whether it was the faux Alien Autopsy footage shown on Fox or the popularity of The X-Files, aliens were just in the cultural zeitgeist at the moment, and of course people weren't gonna let that go without trying to market them to kids. The movie ET showed that even children weren't going to miss out on the alien craze, and of course, how better to market something to kids than with a toy line. That being said, there were only a handful of toys released for this line, so I'm not sure that actually qualifies it as a line, but I'm not here to split hairs. I'm here to split aliens. While I do plan to eventually cover everything in this line, let's start with Dissect-An-Alien.

Perhaps though, some context is necessary.

The Mad Scientist line was a series of toys and minor accessories released by Mattel in 1987 under the guise of getting kids interested in science...mad science! These toys were gushy, slimy and overall kind of disgusting. But perhaps Dissect-An-Alien was the worst of them all, in terms of what it entailed, thanks to its entrails. Dissect-An-Alien finds our mad scientist leading kids to, as the name aptly says, dissect an alien. The kid is given 12 organs, slime, an alien cadaver, scalpel stitches and a mat on which to perform these hideous experiments on. You would load the body with the organs and slime, then you would then use the scalpel to gut him and remove the organs. After you were done you could then stitch him back up and do it again

Kind of a sick idea, isn't it? I mean, you put all this stuff in the poor guy, then you immediately take it away, only to do it over and over again. Sounds like cruel and unusual punishment to me. 

I would like to veer off track for a moment, if you don't mind, and also say that, as someone who grew up in the 90s, I don't understand the appeal of slime. And it's not because I'm a girl. I played with a ton of weird shit and I love disgusting crap, but slime just...every toy in this time period came with slime. Nickelodeon dumped slime on people. Slime just was ever present and inescapable if you were a child. For some reason, every goddamned toy had to have slime involved, and it's never made sense why or how this even came to be.

Anyway, they made the alien look like a right little bastard, so at least you don't feel too terrible about tearing him limb from goopy limb. I mean just look at this shit eating grin on his face. Smug son of a bitch. To be fair to the toy, though, it was also kind of a puzzle, because you had to figure out how these pieces all stuck together inside the body, so that gave it more of a brain teaser aspect than it would've otherwise had. Also, fun fact, the operating mat includes colorful background names for all twelve of the alien’s unusual organs. These are as follows:

•  “veinausea,” 
• “heartipus,” “
• liverot,” 
• “spleenius,” 
• “mad bladder,” 
• “stumuckus,” 
• “blooblob,” 
• “fleshonius,” 
• “branium,” 
• “gutball” 
• “lungross.”

Let's be honest, mad bladder is absolutely someones Twitter handle. The toy also came with a short comic-book describing the scientist’s discovery of the alien creature, in case you're interested in your toys lore, I guess? This was also actually something that happened quite often with toys from this time period. They loved getting kids to read, even when we were playing. I personally think it's kind of cool to give more backstory, makes the toy seem somehow more real or something, if that makes sense.

I won't lie, had I known this toy existed, I would've been all over it. I love taxidermy, dissection and aliens. Despite my aversion to slime, I definitely would've done my best to see past that and just enjoy the grossness like the weird little hell spawn girl I was. I also have to admit, for a toy that's seemingly just a shell to be filled and emptied repeatedly, the design of this alien is pretty solid. He's got a lot of detail, he's got an almost Looney Tunes look to him, doesn't he? Like something Marvin the Martian would've tangled with at some point.

All in all, I think the Mad Scientist is a pretty unique toy line. It was definitely more involved than most toys, especially at the time it came out, and perhaps that's why there's so many nostalgic look backs at it online. The line seems to be fairly fondly remembered, despite not lasting all that long. But, if I learned anything throughout my life, it's the things that don't stick around for too long that often make the biggest impact.

It's also got a great box design. I didn't really mention that before, but I love the way the packaging of this looks.

So that's Dissect An Alien. Like I said, I do plan to eventually cover this entire line, but that could take some time. It's a shame that Mattel doesn't do cool stuff like this anymore, but I think that, sadly, with the proliferation of technology like smart phones and tablets and high end gaming consoles, toys just aren't a modern day kids highest priority, and as such, the industry is suffering because of it. Toys will never go away, but the creativity that once boomed within the medium is definitely suffocating under the weight of its inability to recapture kids attention these days, and that's sad. But, another thing I've learned through my life is to just simply be happy we got stuff this cool to begin with. It exists, and that alone is worth the joy.

...I kinda wanna watch Aliens now.