Toys! Toys! Toys! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Duplo

Lego Duplo, to give the range its full name, is a range of large Lego bricks aimed at children between 1-and-a-half and 5 years old, as they are larger than normal Lego bricks and present less of a choking hazard. They were first introduced in 1969 and only came in red, yellow, blue or white, but over the years, the range of colours and shapes were expanded, and also included people figures and trains.

The name 'Duplo' comes from 'duplus', the Latin word for 'double', because the bricks are twice the size of Lego bricks.

In 1977, the range's name was changed to 'Lego Preschool', but got its original name back two years later; a short-lived name change to 'Explore' also occurred in 2002.

Answer: Tomy

Tomy Company, known as Takara Tomy in Japan after the merger with rivals Takara in 2006, is based in Tokyo and produces and markets a wide range of toys, both toys of its own and tie-ins with other series such as 'Naruto', 'Zoids' and 'Thomas the Tank Engine'.

In the '80s, it marketed a range of robots known as Omnibots, which had cassette recorders in their chests. My adorable little robot, Dingbot, was considerably less sophisticated, but had a charm of its own; it moved its head, made funny little robot noises, and rolled around the room bumping into objects, and then promptly changing direction.

It was based on ET and originally made for a Japanese whisky advert. Other similar robots included Ding-Bo and OMS-B.

Answer: Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur

'Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur' was created by MB Games and pretty much did what it said on the tin. You had four families of cave people, one blue, one yellow, one red and one green. Each family consisted of a mother, father, boy, girl and baby, and you had to get each family member in turn to the cave in the middle of the board; the winner was the one whose entire family got home safe first.

However, there was a spanner in the works in the form of Dizzy Dinosaur. The game had two dice, and each die had five numbers and a dinosaur head. If you rolled a dinosaur, you would have to wind up the dinosaur and let him loose after advancing the number of spaces on the other die, and if he knocked your piece off the board, you had to go back to the start. Woe betide you if you rolled TWO dinosaurs (and this did happen to me a couple of times) - you had to unleash the green beast twice!

Answer: Sylvanian Families

Sylvanian Families are families of anthropomorphic animal figurines originally from Japan. As well as the families themselves, you could also buy accessories such as furniture, the above mentioned house and bus, or boats. The families were originally nuclear families but were later expanded to include grandparents and babies, and plenty of non-woodland creatures such as meerkats, penguins and kangaroos were later added to the range along with the usual rabbits, bears and so on.

The critters have amassed quite the cult following, and collectors will scour the internet for rare toys.

In Japan, they have a sizeable following; there are various cartoons and video games based on the toys, and there's even a Sylvanian Families village in the GrinPa theme park in Susono. If, like me, you have a dark sense of humour, you might enjoy the 'Forest Friends' Twitter which has photos of Sylvanian Families with rude captions, but it is NOT child-friendly!

Answer: Keypers

Keypers were made by Tonka and came in two varieties, the large ones (which could be opened with a key) and the small ones (which had a slit on their backs, like a piggy bank). They came with small trinkets such as key rings and hairbrushes. The first series of Keypers included a kangaroo, a tortoise and a penguin, while the second series included a cat, a bear and a dog, and were more colourful.

The third series included Musical and Jewellery Keypers. The Keyper I had was called Joyful Rabbit; she was one of the larger Keypers from the second series, a pink rabbit in a wedding dress with a heart motif and a veil.

The Keypers also came with small friends known as 'Finders' (Joyful's was a little pink guy called Bowtie). Fans of the Welsh band Catatonia might recall that a snail Keyper appeared on one of their earliest EPs, 'Hooked', and the compilation album '93-94'.

Answer: A zippable mouth

Glove puppets - of which I had a few - are puppets which the puppeteer wears on their hand like a glove, and they put their fingers in the puppet's arms and sometimes its head as well. Zippy was one of three puppet characters on 'Rainbow', a kids' TV show which ran from 1972 to 1992, along with George, a camp pink hippo, and Bungle, a bear.

He was so-called because he had a mouth that could be zipped up, something that the other characters on the show took advantage of whenever he got too obnoxious. Both Zippy and George were voiced on the show by Roy Skelton, who also voiced the Daleks on 'Doctor Who'. Zippy has also appeared in various TV adverts.

Answer: Buckaroo!

'Buckaroo!' was made by Milton Bradley and instead of being a board game, it involved a toy mule called Roo with a spring mechanism inside it which would cause it to rear up when triggered. You had several plastic items, such as a saddle, bedroll, rope and stick of dynamite, and the aim was to see how many of these things you could put on the mule's back before it reared up and threw everything off.

The saddle, as the largest object, always had to go on first. As soon as a player caused the mule to buck, they were out of the game and the winner was the one who put the most items on the mule.

A lever under the mule's belly enabled players to change the sensitivity levels. (Incidentally, my mum bought me an anniversary version for my birthday a few years ago, but I have yet to play it.)

Answer: WereBears

The WereBears were created by cartoonist George Nicholas, who came up with the idea because he wanted boys to be able to have teddy bears without being bullied. I had Grizzler, who was yellow and wore a green-and-white striped jumper, while my brother had Howler, who was light blue and wore yellow shorts. Fang was red and yellow, wore blue shorts and a blue baseball cap, and had a single fang, while Gums was toothless, dark blue and pink, and wore red shorts.

The WereBears looked like ordinary teddy bears, but their heads could be turned inside out to reveal a more frightening face. Each WereBear came with a tape narrated by Oliver Postgate of 'Bagpuss' fame: one side explained the origin story of the bears, while the other featured a story starring that particular bear.

A fifth bear, Growler, was released in 1986, along with another line of creepy bears called Terror Teds. Growler was orange and pink and had a badge which made a howling noise.

Answer: Polly Pocket

Polly Pocket was originally made by a British company, Bluebird Toys, and were conceived by Chris Wiggs, who wanted to create a doll small enough to fit in a pocket, but who had worlds of her own to play in. He created a tiny doll for his daughter and made a house for it using a compact, and Polly Pocket was born.

The tiny dolls were housed in cases, some of which were like miniature houses, and the dolls' feet could be placed into recesses in the floor. Some of the houses were rings or pendants; my make-up compact, with garish lipstick and eyeshadow, was shaped like a seashell. Mattel eventually acquired Bluebird Toys in 1998 and completely revamped the Polly Pocket range, making larger dolls with plastic clothes. Male dolls were also added to the range. Mattel discontinued the toys in 2015, but they made a comeback in 2018, reverting to the old style, albeit with dolls that could sit in chairs.

The Bluebird toys are now considered to be rare collectibles.

Answer: Cupcakes

The Cupcakes were made by Tonka and were dolls with wide crinoline-like skirts (but no legs!) and big broad hats attached with ribbons or an elasticated chin strap, which resembled icing. If you flipped up the doll's skirt, you could turn it into a cake.

There were originally three ranges: Cutie Fruti, which had a fruit theme, Sugar 'n' Shine, which had sparkly dresses, pink hats and wore glittery make-up, and Sweet Treat (Candy Sprinkle) which had a dessert theme, patterned gauze dresses, and a particularly sweet smell. I had Grape Suzette from the Cutie Fruti range, who had a purple colour scheme, brown hair with a purple streak and grapes on her hat; Honey Drop from the Sugar 'n' Shine range, who had red hair and a glittery blue dress; and Bon Bon from the Sweet Treat range, who had a turquoise and violet colour scheme and diamonds on her dress.

Other variations included Princess Parfait, which had longer skirts shaped like parfait glasses; Jam Pops, which had a fruit theme and could be pushed down into their skirts to form jam jars; Tropical Treat, which were brightly coloured, had crimped hair and a tropical theme; and Cotton Candy, which had fur muffs and fur trim on their dresses.