>the bad guys in Toyland used to be the golliwogs, which (since nobody even in *my* generation has probably ever seen a golliwog) were rag dolls with black faces and woolly hair, and hence are racist caricatures. Golliwogs have since been eradicated from the face of the earth and from Noddy stories too.

Actually up until the early nineties, Robinsons (I think it was Robinsons, at least - I'm open to correction on this because I was quite young) Jam had the Golliwog on every jar of blackcurrant jam they made, and used to give away golliwog badges as a promotion. I still have mine somewhere amongst the debris of my childhood that clutters up my parents loft.

I seem to recall that all of the furore over the use of the Golliwog was big news for a short time, as the argument against banning the image was "well, you've never said anything about it before, why now?". How very PC.

I never really got into the kids tv that was around when I was young - I much prefered old re-runs of stuff like "Camberwick Green", "A trip to Trumpton" and "The Clangers" that they showed on channel 4 in the mornings. At least, thats what my Mum tells me.

Then He-Man and Thundercats came along and that was pretty much it for the eighties.

Bo"By the power of GreySkull"urne