Are Mini Boglins the best toy of all?

When I go into a high street toyshop these days all I see are licensed toys: Star Wars Lego and Dora The Explorer Putty and Transformers Transformers. BOO. Forget all that, for in the late 80s and early 90s there was a much better toyline: Mini Boglins.

If my house were on fire, I'd save these first.

"Long ago the Boglins used to live in the Swamp but when the swamp dried up the Boglins had to find a new place to live"

- the official backstory

As you can tell the Boglins lore was artfully minimalistic, just like the rules. Every Boglin tribe was organised into a chief, spy, scout and messenger, as well as four regular Boglins. None of these sets came with the rules though. Some of the Mini Boglins had little stickers on their underside with secret codes that would show up when heated. Unfortunately heating them would also cause them to come off, and none of my surviving Boglins have their codes anymore :( It seems likely that the rules will be forever lost to future generations.

Chiefs were denoted by three horns on their heads. Who would entrust leadership to a guy repeatedly hitting his finger with a hammer? Boglins, that's who.

Tribes included:

• The Clumsies
• The Freaks
• The Greedies
• The Jokers
• The Rude Dudes
• The Tough Guys
• The Disgustings
• The Army Guys
• The Medievals
• The Prehistorics
• The Samurais

Each tribe lived in a different part of the house, like the chimney, or the drains. Further information can be found here.

The tribe I had the most of were the Clumsies, which I think explains my tendency to root for underdogs. Either that, or why I trip over thin air.

Army Guys got the garage, probably because they killed everybody else...

...Except this guy, who killed himself. Hey, kids have to learn about suicide before they find their dad swinging from the fixtures.

Mini Boglins were of course a spinoff of Boglins. I only had one large-sized Boglin, of the kind whose eyes pop out when you squeeze him. The larger Boglins came in plastic cages. I would have included a picture but I can't find him. And that, my friends, is about what you can expect of me.

This small (but not Mini) Boglin lost an eye, so I found another toy to share one with him.

There were others too, including these relatively rare, smaller ones.

I think they were "The Cool Dudes". Everything in the late 80s/90s involved "cool", "dudes" and sunglasses.

But no Boglin article would be complete without the greatest Boglin of all, from the Prehistoric tribe:

In back: a Boglin about to make an unwise decision.

Do you have any Boglins that I'm missing??? Are Boglins ur lief??? Have you ever written to Mattel demanding they produce moar Boglins or you'll top yourself??? That's probably taking it too far!!!