The bar consisted of Cadbury’s famous Dairy Milk chocolate, but it had gas passed through it during manufacture that caused it to go all bubbly on the inside.

It was initially advertised on TV by various well known comedy double acts, including Jan Francis and Paul Nicholas from Just Good Friends and Ruth Madoc and Simon Cadell from Hi-De-Hi (see ad embedded below this post).  I’m also pretty sure Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones did an ad in the style of one of their talking heads sketches.

Over the years new variations of the Wispa were also brought to market, such as Wispa Gold, that had a layer of caramel in the top of it, and Wispaccino which had coffee flavoured chocolate.  There was also Wispa Bite  which had a caramel and biscuit filling and Wispa Mint, which unsurprisingly had a gooey mint filling.

In 2003, after flagging sales of Wispa, the bar disappeared from our shelves, although not actually entirely.  At the time Cadbury suddenly reinvigorated their range of Dairy Milk chocolate bars, and one of the varieties was Dairy Milk Bubbly.  Whilst this bar was split into chunks, meaning it wasn’t a true Wispa, the chocolate itself was pretty much identical.

Annoyed fans of the Wispa started to campaign for its return however, and a limited production was launched in late 2007, with Cadbury’s saying they would consider a full Wispa revival if it proved popular.  It obviously did, since McDonalds recently featured a Wispa McFlurry and the Wispa bar itself has now been spotted back on shop shelves.  Personally, I would suggest there are far better sweets to bring back, Pacers being one, and Galaxy Counters another.  Anyway, I always preferred Aero…

n

This first set of figures were fairly accurate depictions of different types of real life soldiers from different ages and countries, including a British Royal Marine, an SAS Frogman, a US Paratrooper and a German Stormtrooper.  There were also some more generic entries into the line up such as a helicopter pilot or a deep sea diver, complete with old fashioned diving bell helmet!

The figures were also accompanied by a number of different vehicles and playsets such as a Jeep or a command centre.  These figures weren’t quite so historically accurate, as the “multi-mission-vehicle” clearly demonstrates, being a wheeled vehicle with flotation devices to enable it to become amphibious and a set of foldable wings to give it flight.  OK, I’ll go with the flotation devices but the wings seem a bit unlikely…

The range was very successful, and the following year a new range of figures were released.  However, this new range started to lose the more historically accurate trend of the original figures and started to group the figures into squads based on the soldiers abilities (e.g. armed soldiers, sea based or more fancifully space bound soldiers).  An enemy squad called the Red Shadows was also introduced, led by a certain Baron Ironblood.

The figures also started coming with cards with details about the soldier in question, who had taken on a more comic book persona thanks to the Action Force comic strips that appeared in UK comic Battle.  The Action Force strips proved so popular in fact that the comic actually got renamed Battle Action Force!

In 1985 there were more changes when Palitoy was bought up by Hasbro, who were manufacturers of a similar range of figures in the US under the G.I. Joe brand name.  Some of the G.I. Joe figures were added to the line up, and the “good guys” in the range now became collectively known as Action Force, whilst the baddies, in line with the US counterpoints, were called Cobra.

The toys and the comic book adaptation started to feed into each other, and before long the Action Force were even taking on a reanimated Adolf Hitler.  Quite how Hitler was reborn I don’t know, but given that the Action Force at this time always appeared to be from the present day there were obviously some kind of scientific shenanigans involved in bringing the Fuhrer back to life.

Over time the Hasbro influence took more of a hold, with the G.I. Joe name making its way onto the Action Force packaging as well.  I certainly remember the TV advert jingle saying “G.I. Joe - The Action Force”.  Eventually the Action Force title was lost completely and the toys adopted just the G.I. Joe name.  A shame really, since in the UK the abbreviation G.I. would have been lost on most kids.

Yes, Pat Clifton (bet you didn’t know his surname!) really is a happy man, as the theme tune to the series states, and let’s face it he deserves it.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him get angry or impatient, so good for him.

The first series of Postman Pat aired on BBC1 in 1981, and was a stop motion animated series about a friendly postman and his black and white cat, Jess, who rides around in Pat’s bright red van doing what cats do best.  That is, not a great deal.  Jess generally just stuck her head out of the window and miaowed a bit.

Some facts about Pat’s post office van.  It’s registration was PAT 1, so he must have paid through his (quite long) nose for that particular number plate.  The van initially had a yellow crown on the side, but before long the UK Post Office gave permission for the proper Royal Mail logo to be used.  It may only be a small thing, but it did make Pat’s job as a postman seem somewhat more credible (in so far as a puppet series can be).  This led to Postman Pat being used by the Post Office as a sort of mascot for a time.

The village of Greendale looks like a lovely place to go and retire, full of beautiful rolling hills, dry stone walls and little flowing streams.  The inhabitants are also a friendly and helpful bunch, from Mrs. Goggins who runs the post office in the village, to the village vicar Reverend Timms and handiman Ted Glen, who appears to be able to fix just about anything, from fences to broken cars.  The only slightly disagreeable member of Greendale was Miss Hubbard, the busy body old lady who was always wobbling around on her bicycle and sticking her nose in where it wasn’t needed.

In 2004, over 20 years since he first appeared, a new series of Postman Pat was produced.  Here Pat’s responsibility has grown somewhat (somebody must have realised he was living an easy life) and he is now head of the Special Delivery Service for the town of Pencaster, of which Greendale is a local offshoot it would appear.

This water bottle was made out of blue rubber, and was in the shape of a bunny rabbit with big long ears.  It was still sat inside its cover, which was made of a furry blue fabric with a picture of a teddy bear sewn on the side.  The cover was important as it both helped retain the heat for longer, but also stopped the hot water bottle from feeling too hot.

Unfortunately though, time had not been kind to my poor old water bottle, and the rubber had completely perished, separating the head of the rabbit from it’s body, poor thing.  There seemed little point in taking a picture of it in this state, hence the more generic picture accompanying this post, which I think is a good thing as the tartan covers in the picture are far more evocative of what an old hot water bottle generally looked like.

Seeing this little piece of personal history made me realise how much better we have things today.  I remember going to bed with several blankets, hot water bottle and dressing gown since we didn’t have any wall heaters in our house for several years.  These days you take central heating for granted, and generally only need a duvet to keep you warm and snug all night.

Today we also have all these other home improvements such as double glazing, cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and so on, which until the early to mid 1980’s were much rarer to find installed in houses.  With everybody trying to be greener and most houses now having most of these improvements made to them, it does make you wonder how much energy we wasted back then compared to now.

So, does anybody out there still have a hot water bottle that they use regularly?

The eggs are manufactured by Italian company Ferrero (creators of the Ferrero Rocher - thank you ambassador, you’re really spoiling us) and they first appeared in 1972.  Whilst the chocolate egg part has remained pretty much unchanged since then (personally I don’t find it that tasty) the toys have steadily improved in quality.

I remember as a child the toy was usually a disappointment, being something like a ring or a pencil topper, but some time in the 1980s (I think about the time the TV advert that I talk about later in this post aired) the toys suddenly became more interesting.  Self assembly toys started to appear, where you clicked little pieces of plastic together to build much larger toys such as cars or people.  Now they can be quite sophisticated toys with moving parts.

Sometimes the eggs will contain a special range of limited edition toys that are intended to be collected, which has increased the appeal of this confectionary to adult toy collectors.  Some examples were a range of Smurf figurines, a collection of variously posed crocodiles called Crazy Crocos, and the frankly odd pairing of sharks with the stories of the Arabian Knights to produce the Sharkie Babas.

However, if you want the best quality toys then apparently you should buy your Kinder Surprise in Germany, as the Germans get their own special range of toys.

Whilst writing this post I was surprised to find that the Kinder Surprise Egg is banned from sale in the United States due to the small parts contained within the toy.  I’m frankly surprised at this, since getting into the plastic container holding the toy parts isn’t always that easy.  If you want proof, check out this link to a page on the US Consumer Product Safety Commission website.  It’s dated 2006 but the text makes reference to an earlier influx of Kinder Eggs in 1997 when a country wide recall was issued!

Finally, the real reason for writing this post today is because I came across this old TV advert for Kinder Surprise that I certainly remember from my childhood.  It’s pretty hard to forget because it features a very disturbing looking Humpty Dumpty type character who looks pretty frightening to begin with, but when it starts talking it becomes even more sinister, manically giggling “yibble shriky” and “chocadooby” and shouting “tooooooy!“.  I can only imagine someone at the ad agency concerned misread “jolly humpty dumpty character” for “scary egg shaped genetic experiment gone wrong“.  I guess the UK TV ban on advertising sweets to children is a good thing after all if it stops kids being scared by this unholy freak.  You have been warned.

Me scrooble now.

The series was about a young boy named Sport Billy who came from a planet called Olympus, a place that was modelled around the myths of the ancient Greek Gods.  Sport Billy was sent to Earth to try and stop the evil green skinned Queen Vanda, a hater of fair play, and her henchman Snipe from removing all sports from history.

Sport Billy is aided in his task by his friend Lily and his talking dog Willy (why is it all these cartoon characters end up having talking dogs?).  Since Queen Vanda is trying to destroy sports the only way for her to do so is travel back in time to when the sport in question was first invented.  Sport Billy therefore has a big yellow spaceship/time machine combination, that looked something like a giant alarm clock with a big winding key sticking out the back, which he used to track Vanda and stop her in her tracks.

To further aid him in his adventures Sport Billy was also equipped with his Omni-Sack.  This must have been constructed on Gallifrey, as it had some real Tardis like abilities.  Basically the Omni-Sack was a kind of gym bag, but a very magical one.  Firstly it could reduce in size so that Sport Billy could stash it away in his trouser pocket.  Secondly, once opened Sport Billy could reach inside and pull out some sporting related item to solve his current dilemma.  Tennis rackets, footballs and even sports cars could all be produced from inside the bag, with the items themselves also growing in size to their correct dimensions once removed from the Omni-Sack.  Pretty cool huh?

In total 26 episodes of Sport Billy were made, though to date they have yet to appear on DVD.  Each episode generally revolved around a particular sport that had to be saved from Queen Vanda, thus illustrating to viewers the importance of such things as fair play, friendship and teamwork, all the kinds of things that most sports require in order for you to be successful at them.

Anyway, this weeks survey is to find out which of these two classics is most fondly remembered by our readers.  Will it be the monochrome alien invaders, or the greedy yellow circle?

n