Gobots actually started life in Japan (where else) as the Machine Robo series of toys, slightly before the Transformers even came into existence. In 1983 western toy manufacturer Tonka licensed the toys for the US market, and renamed them Gobots in the process.

Sales of the toys were initially very good, as the concept resonated with many a young lad. However, when Hasbro launched Transformers the Gobots suffered. This can be attributed to many things, but ultimately the Transformers toys were just a whole lot cooler. The Transformers looked more robotic an futuristic in many cases that their Gobot cousins, and they had better names too. Where the Transformers had Optimus Prime and Starscream, Gobots had Scooter and Tank (no prizes for guessing what they transformed into).

Another area in which the Transformers excelled was with their design and backstory. The look of the toys, their packaging and eventual cartoon told a coherent story and it was easy to see the strengths and weaknesses of each robot from the statistics printed on the box. The Gobots tended to look a little more chunky and basic looking, although some had very complex transformation seqences that easily rivalled those of certain Transformers toys.

The last new Gobot toys were released in 1987, and they had to concede defeat to their more famous cousins, but the story doesn’t quite end there. In 1991 Hasbro bought out Tonka, which gave them ownership of the Gobots brand, although not the toys themselves as they were only made under license from Bandai in Japan.

Hasbro confusingly went on to use the Gobots name as part of the Transformers line up in no less than three different ways. First, they released a Transformer named Gobots, then there were a sub-range of toys named Go-Bots, then finally a range aimed at younger children (released under Hasbro’s Playskool label) called Transformers: Gobots.

Holly Hobbie was not actually a toy range first and foremost however, in fact the rag doll style characters bearing the name were actually originally conceived for use on greetings cards. There are a surprising number of toy lines which started off this way, with the Care Bears and Rainbow Brite being two other examples I can think of off the top of my head.

Another interesting fact about Holly Hobbie is that the name for these old fashioned looking characters actually came from the artist that created them. Denise Holly Ulinskas was the artist in question, who married a man named Hobbie and so became known as Holly Hobbie! When she originally sold her designs to American Greetings the character had no name, so Holly’s name was used to refer to the images, and I guess that name must have just stuck.

The Holly Hobbie characters always had a little air of mystery about them, since most of the time they were drawn side on or from behind, and very little of the face (if any) was visible due to the large bonnet worn on the head. Obviously when the toy line was started the doll had to have a face, but it was always the bonnet, rag doll style dress and brown boots which took precedence.

Sadly though, I now come to the point where I need to have a little rant about things. You see, the Holly Hobbie name is still in use, although if I were Denise I think I would be quite dismayed at what her name is being put to now. In 2006, Holly Hobbie was given a relaunch, and as part of this given a bit of a revamp and turned into that which you see to the right…

Hmm, hardly the same thing I’m sure you’ll agree. They’ve taken a unique and beautifully designed character, and turned it into yet another “me too” tweenager with blonde hair and jeans to front a cartoon series and launch another indistinguishable from the rest girl’s toy line.

This is an instance where I can only believe that the Holly Hobbie name was used because the parents of the current generation of kids would recognise the name and suggest that perhaps their daughter might like to watch the cartoon, only to discover once sat down with them in front of the TV that their childhood memories have been crushed into oblivion.

To finish off on a happy note then, why not take a look at Karen’s Holly Hobbie World, which has loads and loads about the original Holly Hobbie, both the character and the artist.

It first aired at around the same time as Gummi Bears, another series aimed at a similar target demographic. The Gummi’s managed to do a little better for themselves that The Wuzzles, but only slightly.

So what on Earth is a Wuzzle then? Well, a Wuzzle is a creature that is a mix of two regular animals. For example there was Bumblelion, who was a mix of a lion and a bumble bee. In appearance he looked pretty much like what you would expect a anthropomorphised cartoon lion to look like, except he also had antennae, wings and a stripy stomach.

Other characters from the Isle of Wuz included Rhinokey (rhino and monkey), Eleroo (elephant and kangaroo), Hoppopotamus (rabbit and hippo) and Butterbear (butterfly and bear). These were all good guys, but of course there has to be bad guys, the main villain being Crock, who was somewhat bizarrely half crocodile and half dinosaur (though which particular dinosaur I don’t know, though I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was a Tyrannosaurus Rex – it usually is).

Unsurprisingly the cartoon was accompanied by a range of associated other merchandise, with books, duvet sets and all the usual stuff available. The toy line was particularly well catered for with both action figures and soft toys of the various Wuzzles, including some which only appeared as toys and weren’t in the cartoon series.

There obviously wasn’t a National garage close to us though, as I remember we only had a couple of the freebie Smurf toys. My sister had a Smurfette one, and I remember having a Smurf that was black instead of blue. It always puzzled me at the time why he was black, but in this case I have to thank Wikipedia for putting my mind at rest, as the black Smurf was actually a blue Smurf who was bitten by a fly and went a little insane. He was the central plot for one of the Smurf comics.

Before National used Smurfs as a promotional aid though, I had never heard of them, despite the fact they were actually created way back in 1958 by Belgian cartoonist Peyo. Whilst they are known in Belgium as De Smurfen, which is where the English name for them comes from, they were first given a French name, Les Schtroumpfs.

This odd name came from Peyo asking a French friend to pass him the salt at a meal, but he had forgotten what the French word for salt was, so said “pass me the schtroumpf” instead. This led to Peyo and his friend continuing their conversation substituting the word schtroumpf in place of other words, thus inventing the manner in which the Smurfs tend to speak, substituting the word Smurf for other verbs and nouns. Whilst you could normally work out what they were saying from context, “I’m smurfing my smurf to the smurf” could mean anything really.

The Smurfs are of course little blue creatures who run around wearing funny little pointy white hats and white trousers (which appear to encompass the feet as well). Many of the Smurfs add to this ensemble to reflect their character, such as Brainy Smurf wearing trousers, or Smurf elder Papa Smurf having a beard and wearing red instead of blue.

Quite how the race has survived so long is a bit of a mystery given there appear to be no female Smurfs. OK, Smurfette is quite obviously female, but she isn’t actually a true Smurf, as she was actually created by Gargamel the wizard, the Smurf’s main enemy who was always trying to eradicate them, eat them or, bizarrely, turn them into gold…

In 1981 Hanna Barbera created a cartoon version of The Smurfs, and I certainly remember enjoying watching it. As with most TV shows from my youth it had an infectious theme tune (Laaaa-laaaa-le-laa-laa-laaaa, laaaa-le-la-la-laaaaa, come on you remember it, and I bet you’ll be singing it now after reading this).

So popular was The Smurfs cartoon that it ran until 1989 and notched up an impressive 256 episodes, containing over 400 individual stories.

At the time of writing, there is also a live action/CGI mix Smurfs film in the works, due for release in the second half of 2011.

The Sylvanian Families range of toys harks originally from Japan, and comprises a number of sets of animal families, all anthropomorphised to look more human. For the most part the animals are of the woodland variety, so there are bears, squirrels and hedgehogs, but you can also get dogs, cats and even penguins.

The dolls stand at around 10cm high, and are covered in a very short flock material to make them feel furry. Unusually for this sort of toy, though in keeping with it’s name, you buy the dolls in family sets usually consisting of mother, father, son and daughter. They are even given a family surname.

However, whilst the animal families are a big part of the appeal of Sylvanian Families, the big draw for many is the huge range of additional things you can get to go with the dolls. The concept behind these toys actually owes more to old fashioned dolls houses then to collectable figures.

First and foremost are the houses themselves. They may only be made from plastic but they are nicely made and styled to look very much like the traditional old dolls houses. Whilst primary colours do feature, for the most part the houses are coloured in quite realistic colours, which is probably why adults are quite often more into these toys than children are.

Obviously once you have a house you need something to put in it, so you can buy additional furniture, add on conservatories, cars, boats and just about anything really. Additional clothes for the dolls can also be bought.

The toys were first launched in 1985 in Japan and the USA, and by 1987 had spread to Europe and the rest of the world. In the UK the range was awarded Toy of the Year for three years running from 1987 by the British Association of Toy Retailers.

Also in 1987 came the first of the TV shows based on the toys. This was a cartoon animation made for US television, but co-produced by French and Japanese companies. In 1988 there were four stop motion animation stories made narrated by the great Bernard Cribbins. The most recent TV adaptation is a CGI series made in Japan in 2007.

Finally, if you are reading this in the US or Canada and are thinking, I recognise those but not that name, then you might well be thinking of Calico Critters, which are in fact the same toys but renamed. Apparently Tomy, the company who distributed the toys back in 1993, lost the rights to the name Sylvanian Families, so started selling them under the Calico Critters name instead.

M.A.S.K. was a high action cartoon aimed squarely at young boys, and can best be described as a mix between Transformers and Action Force as it featured cool looking vehicles that could transform into even cooler looking vehicles, and a group of highly trained action men and women.

As the dots in the name suggest, M.A.S.K. was an acronym. It stood for Mobile Armored Strike Kommand (how Kool is that?) which was an organisation intended to fight crimes that were carried out by the also acronymed group named V.E.N.O.M. (Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem – so no mistaking them as the bad guys then!).

Both M.A.S.K. and V.E.N.O.M. were made up of experts in various different fields, each of which drove their own appropriate vehicle. When the need arose, these special agents could don a special piece of head gear (a mask, see, the acronym works on two levels) and their vehicle would transform itself into something with a bit more oomph, whether that be in speed terms or just extra firepower.

Presumably in order to allow kids to feel that they too could be part of this world, the leader of M.A.S.K. (the very macho sounding Matt Trakker) had a son named Scott who always managed to get himself involved in the action despite his Dad telling him not too. I don’t ever recall seeing Mrs. Trakker though, probably because she would have given her husband hell each week for letting their son get into danger all the time.

Young Scott had a robot companion, which would have been nice enough for most kids I guess, but it too could transform into a funny looking Moped type vehicle so that Scott could get around.

It’s probably not hard then to guess what the accompanying toy line consisted of for M.A.S.K. Yes, it was of course the various vehicles and their drivers, so there were sports cars, planes, helicopters, jeeps and much more, most of which could transform just like in the cartoon. The range of toys influenced the cartoon though, rather than the other way around, and each series of M.A.S.K. changed to accommodate the new toys and characters which were released each year.

Boffins in America (no, not Japan as you might have expected) have released news that they have a working prototype of a real Transformer, that can transform from robot mode into a drivable car in the blink of an eye. Not only can the car drive around, it is also possible for the robot mode to walk, albeit with a bit of a stuttering pace at this stage, though the makers are working on this.

Not convinced, check out the video clip of it in action below…

OK, so it’s just a bloke in a suit, and the top of the car doesn’t sit nicely with the wheels when in car mode, but you have to admit it is very clever. A bit sad perhaps, but clever. Given today’s date I couldn’t resist stringing you all along though…

Unsurprisingly this idea didn’t go unnoticed for long, and soon other toy manufacturers were doing similar things in order to make their toys seem that little bit more desirable to kids. The Pound Puppies range is one such line of toys that repurposed this idea and perhaps helped make the toys more popular than they might otherwise been.

The Pound Puppies were soft toy dogs who, to be honest, looked more than a little sorry for themselves. They were made in a lying pose, with their legs coming out of the sides and their head resting on the floor too, just like a real dog lying on the floor having a snooze. They had big floppy ears (a bit like a Bassett Hound) and had a rather bored looking expression on their faces.

They came in a range of different colours, some just plain in colour and others with spots, and to prove they were a real Pound Puppy had an embroidered heart with a “PP” logo on stitched on to their hind quarters.

The range was later joined by a selection of Pound Puppies who came with a number of smaller, similar looking dogs which were the Pound Puppies’ Puppies, if you see what I mean. For those who preferred feline friends to canine there were also the Pound Purries, which were similar in nature except they were obviously cats.

As with most successful toy lines there was a cartoon series and animated films made based on the toys, although the continuity between the two series of the cartoon and the feature film leave a lot to be desired.