• September 15, 1997
• Vol. 48
• No. 11

Planet Hollywood

Inspired by NASA's Trek to the Red Planet, Stars Doodle Their Favorite Martians

LAST SUMMER SCIENTISTS LEARNED THAT LIFE once existed on the Red Planet; this summer, Pathfinder gave us groundbreaking pictures of the Mars landscape. Exhilarating discoveries both. But, hey, we had kind of hoped for something a bit...flashier—perhaps a little green guy with one big eye and an antenna or two, driving a sporty, late-model flying saucer. So, PEOPLE asked a few celebs to give flight to their imaginations, put pen to paper and come up with their own renderings of Mars's putative residents. Herewith, the results:

"[Aliens] are like my relatives—happy and with poor credit," says comic Jeff Foxworthy, who named his Martian "Uncle Junior."

One day, says designer Todd Oldham, "I figure aliens will try to pass as us but probably will not get it all right."

Twelve-year-old artist Alexandra Nechita—fans, including Ellen DeGeneres and Whoopi Goldberg, pay up to $125,000 for her paintings—has her own take on why Mars is red. "God took a giant piece of ceramic and decided that the planet he was creating needed to be kept in the kiln longer than the others."

Does this alien look kinda familiar? Step by Step's Jason Martian, uh, Marsden, says life abroad would have one big difference: "We'd probably never find a can of Coca-Cola anywhere!"

Part-time artist Phyllis Diller says some Martians might look "sort of like Dennis Rodman."

"Martians are quite friendly by nature probably because they're so unattractive," says Star Trek: Voyager's Robert Picardo, who imagines that the aliens are quite fond of indoor sports like bowling. "Mating simply wouldn't occur if they didn't give each other the benefit of the doubt."

He was seen as an alien in Men in Black, but Today's Al Roker says Martians look otherwise.

"This is how Martians look; I am not guessing," insists humorist Dave Barry. "If you carefully examine the photographs sent back from the recent Mars probe under a strong light and the influence of at least two frozen margaritas, you will see creatures that look exactly like this. The leader is the one with the teeth."