In one of its most memorable standalone episodes, Cowboy Bebop brightened up the mood with a hilarious parody of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror masterpiece Stranger. Stranger is one of the most iconic films ever made, with unforgettable imagery (the chest-burster comes to mind, not to mention the xenomorph itself), so it’s parodied surprisingly frequently.
Space balls ended with another baby xenomorph growing out of John Hurt’s chest. Bob’s Burgers redone Extraterrestrials like a school game with a Weird Friday body swap plot. The Simpsons had good Stranger-related gags, for example Santa’s Little Helper chasing Keeper Willie through the vents like Dallas. Cowboy Bebop Session 11, “Toys in the Attic,” is one of the most underrated Stranger parodies.
Cowboy Bebop’s “Toys In The Attic” is an excellent parody of Ridley Scott’s Alien
“Toys in the Attic” begins with a rather boring and uneventful day for the Bebop crew. They have no bounty to hunt and no old enemies have returned to settle scores, so there’s not much to do. But it takes a strange turn when a mysterious blob boards the ship and begins infecting the crew with its venom, one by one.
This is a classic example of “filler“; it doesn’t advance the overall plot, and it’s not as action-packed as the average episode of Cowboy Bebop. But it’s still a great little one Stranger story – a mashup of And then there was none and a monster-infested B-movie – and it gives us some much-needed time to get to know these characters and their interpersonal relationships.
At this point in the series, the team was just coming together. It takes a few episodes for the series to put Spike, Jet, Faye, Ed and Ein under the same roof. Setting an entire episode aboard the ship, where the only antagonist is a creature from a Spike lobster left in the refrigerator, highlights the dynamic that was forming between them.
Cowboy BebopIt is Stranger the parody masterfully deflates the film’s tension by replacing the terrifying, bloodthirsty, and vicious xenomorph with a goofy, unassuming alien blob. The creature that evolved from Spike’s unattended refrigerator is a ridiculous subversion of HR Giger’s phallic star beast.
The Cowboy Bebop Standalone Episodes Were Even Better Than the Lore Episodes
Any sci-fi show worth its salt has a good mix of episodes dealing with overarching mythology and adventure-of-the-week episodes that stand on their own and explore the world and character relationships more than the plot. A bit like in The X Files, Cowboy BebopThe standalone episodes were even better than the historical episodes – and “Toys in the Attic” is a testament to that.
