Yowie Power!
My school is awesome. If you have no exams on, you don't have to go. This was the situation on Friday, but I went in anyway because DnD was on and it was awesome.
Today had no such things, so I spent the entire day at home, using the afternoon hours to study, as is my schedule of doing things.
While doing Biology, I got somewhat distracted when reading over the very small bit regarding paleontology and its support of the theory of evolution. Said distraction came from the tub of Yowies on a shelf not too far away.
Cue rambling.
What Transformers are to me right now, Yowies were the same during primary school (i.e. my favourite toys). They were, basically, like Kinder Surprises-a chocolate shell around a small capsule with something fun inside it. However, unlike Kinder Surprises, Yowies had realistic animals, usually from Australia or New Zealand, but later on going international. The toys were generally simple, tiny models with some play value-the most common was 'pull head piece to make tail move', and the majority were variations on that theme. The first series was, to put it bluntly, rather simplistic in how the animals were depicted, verging on unrealistic-the tuatara, for example, didn't look much like a tuatara. Later series improved with leaps and bounds.
There was a vague story behind all this, involving the titular Yowies. There were six in all, each representing an ecosystem-Rumble (deserts and plains), Crag (wetlands), Boof (rainforests), Ditty (woodland), Nap (bush and gumtrees-so I guess there was some overlap with Ditty) and Squish (waterways and possibly the sea). The wrappers were all decorated like them, but just because one was on the wrapper didn't mean that an animal from their ecosystem was inside it. Each Yowie also had an enemy, who were collectivly called the Grumkins. They were basically jerks who lived to pollute or otherwise muck up the environment and learn important lessons in ecosystem management from the Yowies (although Ditty's Grumkin counterparts were not so much evil as a small sect of them were just jerks, the rest were perfectly nice). In essence, it was like Captain Planet, but cooler in that the bad guys were less blatantly stereotypical and were indeed willing to learn the error of their ways. Also, Tiger-Toothed Tree-Chomping Grumkin. You do not get more cooler environmental baddies than blue monsters with purple mohawks and sabre-teeth.
So essentially, it was all about teaching environmentalism through showing kids the awesome animals that inhabited the land and how to sustainably take care of it so that the aforementioned animals did not become extinct.
This was all fine and dandy, but in my opinion the line really took off when it launched the Lost Kingdoms series in the early 2000s. This was done in conjunction with an Australian museum exhibit of the same name. Instead of contemporary animals (though it did include the platypus and koala as token examples) it went and used extinct Australian/New Zealand animals-including dinosaurs. I think this was a good move-the saturation of American culture meant that the only prehistoric animals kids knew about were things like the sabre-tooth and Tyrannosaurus. Plus, in terms of prehistory known to eight-year-olds, Australia had a pretty dry time of it in terms of dinosaurs, with only, what, eight or ten known species? In any case, despite seeing myself as a dinosaur expert back then, many of the creatures in the Lost Kingdoms series were knew to me. I didn't know that there were raptors in Australia, for one. It pretty much revolutionised how I saw the prehistory of this country.
The Yowies, once assigned to ecosystems, were now associated with eras, the titular Lost Kingdoms. Squish had the beginning of life to the Triassic period, Crag had the entire Mesozoic, Ditty had the Eocene to the early Miocene, Boof had the rest of the Miocene (since at that point in time Australia was covered in rainforest), Nap had the Pliocene, and Rumble was in charge of the Pleistocene (ice age) to the present day. There was no real story here, and no Grumkins-the Yowies just went back in time or something and were all "Hey, cool, dinosaurs." and such.
Despite amassing quite a large collection, there were some Yowie toys I really, really wanted, but never got. Most famous of all was the Queensland Pterosaur, considered by me and my friends to be the Holy Grail (second to that was the Allosaur). Particularly by me because most Yowies depicting flying animals had them perched, not with wings outstretched like the Pterosaur. So when Matt got one, it was a cause for celebration, and there was a fight over who got to play with it at lunchtimes. It was really big, if I recall correctly-likely the biggest of the line. When it got broken, we were all depressed. I have no idea if Matt has it now. If he does, I may just ask whether or not I can have it.
They couldn't cover all Australia's prehistoric animals in one series, so they launched a second series, which was more in-depth than the previous series because it covered only the first three Kingdoms, and so had more room. In my opinion, it had the most interesting animals, including some iconic ones like Minmi and Eric the pliosaur. Unfortunately, it was also the shortest running of all the series-I don't have many from that series. The third and last series covered the last three Kingdoms, as well as a mini-series of six International Dinosaurs from all the other continents. It dragged on forever, IMO. The advantage of this is that I got all of them bar the Giant Echidna.
There were also the Yowie Adventure series, in which the Yowies, well, went on adventures, often outside of Australia. It served to flesh out the Yowie universe, giving them animal sidekicks, vehicles, yurts, and even new enemies in the form of the Kin, who were basically demi-Grumkin. While it was fun, I didn't really like it. The yurts in particular, because I just could NOT get them together. Also, it didn't help that about the only ones I got from the second series were Grass Ferns (plant Yowies were pretty much fail, since you couldn't do much with them aside from scenery).
It started winding down after the third Lost Kingdoms series, re-releasing the old Yowies and a new series called Forgotten Friends, which was made up of more recently extinct animals. I didn't really like this series much: for one, the extinctions were recent enough to be rather depressing to me, and also the official website didn't update with them, so I was kind of doubting them from the start. The whole Yowie thing ended around 2005/2006. Admittedly, it had been on its last legs, but if they were re-releasing classic Yowies, I wouldn't have put it past them to re-release the Lost Kingdoms-especially the second series, since that got about six months before getting shoved off.
While typing this, I idly looked up the eBay prices for various Yowies. The words 'dirt-cheap' come to mind to describe them. Once I do get onto eBay, I am going to try bidding on a Yowie toy for my first try. The cheapness means that I won't lose massive amounts of money if something mucks up. Woohoo.
That's all I can really recount about Yowies. I think I'll take out my camera and get some photos of particular ones so I can make another post showing them off.
Today had no such things, so I spent the entire day at home, using the afternoon hours to study, as is my schedule of doing things.
While doing Biology, I got somewhat distracted when reading over the very small bit regarding paleontology and its support of the theory of evolution. Said distraction came from the tub of Yowies on a shelf not too far away.
Cue rambling.
What Transformers are to me right now, Yowies were the same during primary school (i.e. my favourite toys). They were, basically, like Kinder Surprises-a chocolate shell around a small capsule with something fun inside it. However, unlike Kinder Surprises, Yowies had realistic animals, usually from Australia or New Zealand, but later on going international. The toys were generally simple, tiny models with some play value-the most common was 'pull head piece to make tail move', and the majority were variations on that theme. The first series was, to put it bluntly, rather simplistic in how the animals were depicted, verging on unrealistic-the tuatara, for example, didn't look much like a tuatara. Later series improved with leaps and bounds.
There was a vague story behind all this, involving the titular Yowies. There were six in all, each representing an ecosystem-Rumble (deserts and plains), Crag (wetlands), Boof (rainforests), Ditty (woodland), Nap (bush and gumtrees-so I guess there was some overlap with Ditty) and Squish (waterways and possibly the sea). The wrappers were all decorated like them, but just because one was on the wrapper didn't mean that an animal from their ecosystem was inside it. Each Yowie also had an enemy, who were collectivly called the Grumkins. They were basically jerks who lived to pollute or otherwise muck up the environment and learn important lessons in ecosystem management from the Yowies (although Ditty's Grumkin counterparts were not so much evil as a small sect of them were just jerks, the rest were perfectly nice). In essence, it was like Captain Planet, but cooler in that the bad guys were less blatantly stereotypical and were indeed willing to learn the error of their ways. Also, Tiger-Toothed Tree-Chomping Grumkin. You do not get more cooler environmental baddies than blue monsters with purple mohawks and sabre-teeth.
So essentially, it was all about teaching environmentalism through showing kids the awesome animals that inhabited the land and how to sustainably take care of it so that the aforementioned animals did not become extinct.
This was all fine and dandy, but in my opinion the line really took off when it launched the Lost Kingdoms series in the early 2000s. This was done in conjunction with an Australian museum exhibit of the same name. Instead of contemporary animals (though it did include the platypus and koala as token examples) it went and used extinct Australian/New Zealand animals-including dinosaurs. I think this was a good move-the saturation of American culture meant that the only prehistoric animals kids knew about were things like the sabre-tooth and Tyrannosaurus. Plus, in terms of prehistory known to eight-year-olds, Australia had a pretty dry time of it in terms of dinosaurs, with only, what, eight or ten known species? In any case, despite seeing myself as a dinosaur expert back then, many of the creatures in the Lost Kingdoms series were knew to me. I didn't know that there were raptors in Australia, for one. It pretty much revolutionised how I saw the prehistory of this country.
The Yowies, once assigned to ecosystems, were now associated with eras, the titular Lost Kingdoms. Squish had the beginning of life to the Triassic period, Crag had the entire Mesozoic, Ditty had the Eocene to the early Miocene, Boof had the rest of the Miocene (since at that point in time Australia was covered in rainforest), Nap had the Pliocene, and Rumble was in charge of the Pleistocene (ice age) to the present day. There was no real story here, and no Grumkins-the Yowies just went back in time or something and were all "Hey, cool, dinosaurs." and such.
Despite amassing quite a large collection, there were some Yowie toys I really, really wanted, but never got. Most famous of all was the Queensland Pterosaur, considered by me and my friends to be the Holy Grail (second to that was the Allosaur). Particularly by me because most Yowies depicting flying animals had them perched, not with wings outstretched like the Pterosaur. So when Matt got one, it was a cause for celebration, and there was a fight over who got to play with it at lunchtimes. It was really big, if I recall correctly-likely the biggest of the line. When it got broken, we were all depressed. I have no idea if Matt has it now. If he does, I may just ask whether or not I can have it.
They couldn't cover all Australia's prehistoric animals in one series, so they launched a second series, which was more in-depth than the previous series because it covered only the first three Kingdoms, and so had more room. In my opinion, it had the most interesting animals, including some iconic ones like Minmi and Eric the pliosaur. Unfortunately, it was also the shortest running of all the series-I don't have many from that series. The third and last series covered the last three Kingdoms, as well as a mini-series of six International Dinosaurs from all the other continents. It dragged on forever, IMO. The advantage of this is that I got all of them bar the Giant Echidna.
There were also the Yowie Adventure series, in which the Yowies, well, went on adventures, often outside of Australia. It served to flesh out the Yowie universe, giving them animal sidekicks, vehicles, yurts, and even new enemies in the form of the Kin, who were basically demi-Grumkin. While it was fun, I didn't really like it. The yurts in particular, because I just could NOT get them together. Also, it didn't help that about the only ones I got from the second series were Grass Ferns (plant Yowies were pretty much fail, since you couldn't do much with them aside from scenery).
It started winding down after the third Lost Kingdoms series, re-releasing the old Yowies and a new series called Forgotten Friends, which was made up of more recently extinct animals. I didn't really like this series much: for one, the extinctions were recent enough to be rather depressing to me, and also the official website didn't update with them, so I was kind of doubting them from the start. The whole Yowie thing ended around 2005/2006. Admittedly, it had been on its last legs, but if they were re-releasing classic Yowies, I wouldn't have put it past them to re-release the Lost Kingdoms-especially the second series, since that got about six months before getting shoved off.
While typing this, I idly looked up the eBay prices for various Yowies. The words 'dirt-cheap' come to mind to describe them. Once I do get onto eBay, I am going to try bidding on a Yowie toy for my first try. The cheapness means that I won't lose massive amounts of money if something mucks up. Woohoo.
That's all I can really recount about Yowies. I think I'll take out my camera and get some photos of particular ones so I can make another post showing them off.