The Yowie is a rare cultivar of the marijuana plant, also known as the Maui-Wowy.
The Yowie is also a mythological character in native Australian Aborigine folklore. Also called the hairy-man, it is the subject of hoaxes in Australia similar to hoaxes in the United States of America concerning Bigfoot. Sightings of the beast vary from half-baboon, half man to giant gorilla.
On the other hand, the Yowie (or Yowie-Whowie) is also the name of a completely different mythological character in native Australian Aborigine folklore. It is said to be a giant beast, resembling a cross between a lizard and an ant. It emerges from the ground at night to eat whatever it can find -- even humans. This is sometimes considered to be the same legend as the bunyip.
Yowies are also a kind of chocolate in Australia. Invented by Bryce Courtenay and Geoff Piker, they were much like Kinder Surprises, they are basically a chocolate shell around a plastic capsule, with a toy inside. Unlike Kinder Surprises, the toy is usually an Australian or New Zealand animal, with a leaflet with educational facts and a picture of the animal. The Yowies, according to the story, protecters of the various environments of the earth. Their names were Rumble(deserts), Boof (rainforests and mountains), Crag (swamps and mangroves), Ditty(bushland), Nap(gum forests) and Squish(rivers and waterways, possibly the ocean as well). The Yowies each had a respective enemy, called a Grumkin, representing the damage being done to it by careless humans. The Grumkins were Munch (careless building, enemy of Rumble), Blob (pollution, enemy of Crag), Ooz (also pollution, enemy of Squish), Spark (careless firelighting, enemy of Nap), Slob (litter, enemy of Ditty) and Chomp the Tiger Toothed Tree Chomper (deforestation, enemy of Boof).
There have been several series of Yowie toys. The first were just animals, with limited edition Yowie pencil toppers in some of them. Later, Grumkin pencil toppers also appeared.
In 2001 there was a radical departure from the usual kind of Yowies. In conjunction with an Australian Museum exhibit called The Lost Kingdoms, new yowies came out. Instead of endangered animals, these had extinct animals in them, along with the modern koala and platypus. The yowies also got overhauls as well. The wrappers of the Lost Kingdom yowies could be distinguished by the sign and shovel being held in their paws. The yowies got their own time periods: Squish was Pre-Cambrian to Triassic, Crag was the age of dinosaurs, Ditty got the least number of Yowies in his time period (End of Cretaceous to Miocene), Boof was Miocene, Nap also got a low number of yowies (Miocene-Plestiocene), and Rumble got Plestiocene to now. The rares also chaged, being the skulls of some of the species in the series. A series B was realeased a year later. This contained only the first 3 time periods (Squish, Crag and Ditty). The rares for this were glow-in-the-dark versions of dinosaurs in the series. This was followed up almost instantly by Series C. This was the last 3 time periods, as well as some 'International Dinosaur' toys. The rares were sparkly, see-through versions (called Dazzling Dinosaurs) of six of the International Dinosaurs:Plateosaurus (blue), Amargasaurus(pink), Lambeosaurus (green), Baryonyx (red), Chasmosaurus (yellow) and Edmontonia(orange). The colors for Plateosaurus and Chasmosaurus were often mixed up.
Also premiering around the Lost Kingdoms were Yowie Adventures. These had a comic strip on the leaflet which told the story of a Yowie's battles with the Grumkin. The toys were things from the comics. They were an animal, a yowie yurt, a Kin (grumkin helper)and a sidekick (yowie helper). There was a series 2 of these yowies.
They continued their extict range with Forgotton Friends, which were extinct animals from 1600's (dodo) to recent times. The rares were glow in the dark verisions of the original pencil toppers.
See also
Last updated: 05-21-2005 23:45:33
