A series of collectible one-inch-long plastic figurines that were released by the European toy company Magic Box International and can be used to play various games. They are based off of a game called "Knucklebones" that children played in ancient Greece using the knuckle bones of sheep.
The collectible characters, called Gogo's, each have their own unique personality, and they also came in various colours. They also each had their own special ability starting from the 2007 reboot. Many series of this toy were released, most of which had some kind of theme to it, and a lot of series had a sticker album released with it so that you could attach the stickers that came in packs of Gogo's to the album. The reboot series were released by Panini in Latin America and Asia.
In 1996, Magic Box Int. released the very first series of Gogo's Crazy Bones, which became a huge hit almost immediately; many similar toys followed. Shortly thereafter, however, their popularity died out.
In 2007, Magic Box Int. rebooted the Gogo's Crazy Bones series, which succeeded once more, only to die in popularity again and slowly fade into obscurity afterwards. The reboot was distributed by PPI Worldwide, who own Magic Box. When the series was rebooted, the Gogo's went from unpainted and available in literally any colour to painted and available in a small number of colours usually about two to fivenote . Aside from that, each character also received arms and feet.
The series had many pieces of merchandise released for it, including: some comics, which appeared in various post-2007 Gogo's magazines; a video game based off of the series that was released in 2012 for the Nintendo DS; and various calendars, plushes, etc. There also would have been an Animated Adaptation based off of the series released in 2012, but only a pilot was released before production was cancelled.
List of Gogo's Crazy Bones series:
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Classic series
- The very first series, which was simply called Crazy Bones, was released in 1996 and featured 60 characters.
- The second series, Things, featured characters shaped like various inanimate objects. This was the third series in Canada.
- Buddies: A 1998 set of 58 Gogo's.
- Mutants: 20 characters from the first series get mutated forms in this series.
- Aliens: A set of Gogo's based off of, well, aliens. This was one of the only pre-reboot sets of Gogo's where the characters had paint jobs.
- There were two sports-themed sets of Gogo's released in the late 90's. One is soccer-themed, and the other features characters from a few of the previous series in Olympic-themed variants.
- Mags: A series of magnetic Gogo's. And by Gogo's, we mean not actually Gogo's at all; in Spain, these were actually a completely different toy series Magic Box made. When they were exported to other parts of Europe, the Crazy Bones name was appended to them to get them to sell better.
- New Generation: The biggest set of Gogo's, containing 120 characters, half of which are Gogo's while the other half are Ghosts. Characters from this set are slightly bigger than normal Gogo's. Released in 2005, New Generation was the last set of Gogo's to be released before the 2007 reboot.
- Licensed series of Gogo's from this era include sets based off of Toy Story, Dragon Ball Z, Crayon Shin-chan, and Medabots.
Reboot series
- The first reboot series, simply titled Gogo's Crazy Bones similar to the first 90's series, was released in 2007 and had 80 collectible characters, plus 5 "Most Wanted" characters which were just characters from this series that were given more complex paint jobs, and 15 "Wanted" characters that were like the "Most Wanted" characters but less rare. The 15 "Wanted" Gogo's were only available in North America. In Latin America and Asia, this series was known as Urban Toys and had different coloured versions of the characters. 20 characters were taken out of the Urban Toys release of Series 1.
- Series 2 was called Evolution, and was nothing more than the molds of the characters from the previous series given new names and paint designs (the idea is that they're evolutions of the previous series's characters). This series introduced characters whose plastic was clear and had glitter embedded in them; in Israel, the "glittery" finish was replaced with a shiny, metallic finish.
- Explorer, the third series, actually gave us 80 new characters instead of repaints of the previous series's molds. The Explorer characters are experts at exploring, as the name of the series suggests. This series introduced characters with "Laser" finishes, which was basically just a slight metallic finish.
- Series 4, also known as Power, introduced trading cards to the series, and gave the Gogo's one of three different powers: Star, Swirl, and Bolt. The powers work like Rock-Paper-Scissors in that each power is weak against one of the other powers. This series also gave characters four possible colours instead of five, two of which had a shiny, metallic finish. They also brought back "Most Wanted" Gogo's in this series, giving 10 Power Gogo's "Most Wanted" variants.
- Superstar, the fifth series, acts as a hall of fame for the four previous series, bringing together 21 characters from each of those four series and giving them two new coloured variations and "fuzzy" finishes. This series had four "Most Wanted" Gogo's, which combined the metallic finish from the Power series with the Superstar "fuzzy" finish. Gogo's Cubes were also introduced in this series, which are LEGO-like building blocks than can be used to display your Gogo's.
- The Series 1 characters were also released as the Mega Metropolis series, where the characters were made twice as big, and also had heads that could be detached and attached to the bodies of other Mega Gogo's. The heads contained Mini Gogo's, which were smaller versions of the Evolution characters. This series included hexagonal pods that could be put together to form various structures, and also be used to display the Mega Gogo's. The Mega Gogo's came with a Mega Metropolis magazine, which contained various activities, games, comics, etc.
- Megatrip was the second series of Gogo's in Latin America and Asia. 80 characters appear in this series, and the series's sticker album came with a storage case shaped like a rocket ship. This series was released in the UK as Series 6, also known as Edge. The UK version took out 20 characters, and gave the characters five colours, unlike the Latin American/Asian release which gave them more colours.
- Foot, the third Latin American/Asian series, was a soccer-themed series that contained nine teams of ten characters, or 90 characters total.
- The Groovy series, known as "Cool" in some countries, is the fourth Latin American/Asian series. It is a music-themed series that has 80 characters (some releases of the series take out 20 characters).
- An Olympic-themed series was released in Israel for the 2012 Olympics and lasted until 2013. It contains 117 characters, some of which were released exclusively in certain products as a means of promoting the series.
- The X-Gogo's is a set of 48 extreme sports-themed Gogo's that were made for a promotion at the Dutch supermarket chain C1000. The Gogo's from this series came with sports-related gear that could be attached to them, and a few of this set's Gogo's are based off of real-life extreme sports people.
- Licensed series of Gogo's from this era include sets based off of Monica's Gang and Disney characters.
Gogo's Crazy Tropes:
Tropes in the classic series:
The first series
- A Dog Named "Dog": Eggy the egg.
- Shout-Out: The character Jaws is made to look like the shark in the movie poster for Jaws.
Things
- Animate Inanimate Object: The whole assortment of Gogo's from this series consist of these, hence the name of the set, "Things".
- Shout-Out: One of the Things is a drum named "Ringo".
Mags
- Dolled-Up Installment: This set wasn't a part of the Gogo's Crazy Bones franchise when it was originally released in Spain. The Gogo's name was appended to it for international releases, presumably in an attempt to get it to sell better.
New Generation
- Nonstandard Character Design: GoodyBaddy has two faces, one on the front and one on the back, unlike the other Gogo's that just have a front and a back. Also, while most Gogo's have a stamp on their back to ensure they aren't bootlegs, GoodyBaddy doesn't have the stamp due to his design.
Tropes in the reboot series:
Series 1/Urban Toys
- A Dog Named "Dog": A ghost named Ghost. Averted in the Urban Toys version, where his name is changed to Bu.
- Big Eater: B-Boy likes to eat popcorn.
- Blindfolded Vision: Boy's bio says that he is very good at running blindfolded and never falls over. His special ability is "Sensory Space Radar", suggesting he uses that to see through the blindfold.
- The Confidant: Angiru. Other Gogo's just have to tell him whatever their secret is and it's safe forever in his mind.
- Dub Name Change: The characters' names were changed in the Urban Toys version of the series. To give a few examples, Mosh, Nasako and Sato are known as Bugui, Shaun and Popow respectively in Urban Toys.
- Ear Wings: Ojaru is stated to use his ears to fly.
- Eyeless Face: Sato and Hazard both have faces that only have a visible mouth.
- Faceless Eye: Helly has one eye.
- Humanoid Aliens: The Gogos are aliens in Urban Toys, making the more humanoid ones (such as Mosh, Sato, etc.) an example of the trope. Most of them have enough quirky features to distinguish them from Human Aliens.
- Market-Based Title: In North America, it's known simply as Series 1. The Latin American and Asian releases of the set distributed by Panini rename it Urban Toys.
- Meaningful Name:
- Codi is renamed Canal in Urban Toys. It means "channel" in French, referring to a television channel since Codi has a TV on his head.
- Ojaru is named Plusha in Urban Toys, fitting his plushie appearance.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Zar Zar pretends to be ditzy, but he's actually smarter than you think.
- Odd Organ Up Top: Guess what body part Fist has in place of a head. This also extends to his Evolution counterpart, Fizer.
- Super-Speed: Helly has this power.
- Trademark Favorite Food: B-Boy absolutely loves popcorn.
- Volumetric Mouth: Shizuoka's open mouth covers the entirety of his face.
Evolution
- Big Eater: Boki is always home for dinner, Vatco is always hungry but can't think of what he wants to eat, and Doki likes to eat sweets.
- The Ditz: Imooki's memory is so bad that he has to wear a pair of headphones that tells him the rules to every game he plays.
- Everything's Better with Sparkles: This set is the first in the reboot series to feature Gogos which are clear with visible glitter in them, causing them to look sparkly on the inside. Averted in Israel, where the glitter effect was replaced by a shiny metallic appearance not unlike some of the Power Gogos' alternate colors.
- Faceless Eye: Satori has one eye.
- Fire/Water Juxtaposition: Neko from Series 1 is a living, walking flame and uses his body to save other Gogo's from fire. His evolution, Nebub, does the same thing, but he's made of water and can put out the fire.
- The Insomniac: Insomnia is Angor's special ability.
- Shout-Out: Cupix quite clearly has Tetris blocks on his screen.
- Unusual Ears: Jitty has lost the ability to use his ears to fly, but still uses them to cool himself off.
Explorer
- Born Lucky: Lucky Rab's entire schtick and special ability revolves around him being extremely lucky.
- Fish People: Scamy is a humanoid with fish scales on his skin. His bio says that he spends so much time in the water that he has to shout "Wait for me!" to catch the others' attention when he comes out.
- Living Museum Exhibit: Artix's bio states that he goes to museums and pretends to be a statue to trick people into thinking he's an exhibit.
- Lucky Rabbit's Foot: Referenced with the character Lucky Rab, who, according to his bio, is the luckiest known Gogo. His special ability is even called "Very Lucky".
- Meaningful Name: Lucky Rab's name is taken from the "lucky rabbit's foot" lucky charm. His special ability is that he has unprecedented amounts of good luck.
- Non-Human Head: Hilbo's head is a cookie with a bite taken out of it near the top.
- Pie-Eyed: Tivi has pie-shaped eyes. Since he's a video game enthusiast, they're a subtle shout-out - they're shaped like Pac-Man.
- Shout-Out: Comco has Pac-Man on his head and a scared ghost from the same game on his chest.
- Sweet Tooth: Hilbo, with his special ability of "cookie cravings".
- Trademark Favorite Food: Hilbo's special ability is "cookie cravings". His head is literally a cookie with a visible bite mark near the top.
- White Bunny: One of the colours Lucky Rab can come in is white.
- Wingding Eyes: Whas has exclamation points for eyes.
Power
- Big Eater: Shod's bio states that he never shares food with anybody.
- Chicken-and-Egg Paradox: Referenced. Frug, an egg Gogo, is somehow first and last at everything.
- Egg Folk: Frug is an anthropomorphic egg with a face and arms.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: This set's trading card game has an interesting variation of this where the three elements are a yellow lightning bolt, a green swirl, and a red star.
- Faceless Eye: Garin, Uyu, and Goomi all have one eye.
- Messy Pig: Inverted in the case of Hamo, whose bio states that while he has a reputation for being dirty, he's obsessed with being clean.
- The Power of the Sun: Xiu-Sun's bio reads "A Gogo with solar power? This is Xiu-Sun." He's also got a sun symbol on his forehead to make it more obvious.
- Shout-Out: Tego is made to look like he's made of LEGO bricks.
Superstar
- Adaptational Dye-Job: And not just the two new color schemes, either; certain parts of a Gogo might be altered to the point of giving them a radically new look. For instance, Nasako has black eyes when they were white in Series 1, and an orange panel on his body and arms the color of whatever color he's in (red or blue) when he had clothing in one solid color.
- Call-Back: The entire set consists of Gogos from the previous four series. To distinguish them from their original counterparts, the Superstar figures have a fuzzy texture applied to them.
- Seesaw Catapult: The commercial depicts Terin jumping on one end of a seesaw, launching a Gogo's Cube being used to construct buildings on the other end.
Megatrip/Edge
- A Dog Named "Dog": Bul the bull.
- Brought to You by the Letter "S": A handful of characters from this set were reused in Dino Gogo's, a set of Gogos from Danone with both original characters and Megatrip characters, and a promotion for Sutas Taltlimmm, a Turkish brand of yogurt. In the former, the Megatrip characters have a "D" symbol slapped on them somewhere; in the latter, they have an "S" symbol.
- The Confidant: Tsu keeps the secrets of other Gogo's in her hair.
- Dub Name Change: Tsu had her name changed to Suti in the Edge release of this series.
- Einstein Hair: Stein has Einstein's white, frizzled head hair, but not the mustache.
- Extra Eyes: Tau has three eyes, with one of them on his forehead.
- Eyeless Face: Fuyu has a line pattern on his face and a grin, but no eyes.
- Innate Night Vision: Plank has this as his special ability.
- Market-Based Title: The original name of the set was Megatrip. The UK version of the set is called Edge.
- Roger Rabbit Effect: This series was often used for promotions in certain European stores, such as Carrefour in Belgium and Real in Poland. Both promotions' advertising campaigns included TV commercials where CGI-animated Gogos appear in live-action environments alongside real-life people or animals.
- Smart People Build Robots: Stein, an inventor and a reference to the real-life Albert Einstein, built Gosuke, a bio-android who is a Gogo in his own right.
Foot
- Nonstandard Character Design: Some of the Gogo's in this series appear to be more humanlike in appearance than most.
- Reused Character Design:
- Jarum, a character made exclusively for Dutch supermarket C1000's Foot Gogo's promotion, uses the same mold as Lyu.
- Each team has one character with a soccer ball for a head. All of these characters are just the same mold, but in different colors.
Cool/Groovy
- Animate Inanimate Object: S-Pray is an anthropomorphic spray paint bottle.
- Band Toon: The toy version of this. Six of the set's Gogo's (Tez, Blinq, Flow, Silo, Zip, and Bee) form a band called The Breakz that has had actual songs made for them.
- Market-Based Title: Whether this series is called "Cool" or "Groovy" depends on the country.
- Wingding Eyes: Why Ren's eyes are perpetually heart-shaped is anyone's guess.
2012 Olympics
- Big Eater: India (yes, that's the character's name) is constantly hungry.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Pot is almost always angry, but whenever someone needs help, he's there for them.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Usain Bolt got a Gogo's version of himself named "Bolt" in this series.
- Non-Human Head: Serb has a tennis ball for a head.
- Nonstandard Character Design: Bolt, being based on Usain Bolt, is one of the few Gogos who actually looks like a human.
- The Olympics: The set was made to commemorate the 2012 Olympics (the set is literally called "2012 Olympics", after all) and features many characters representing various Olympic sports and other aspects of the games, such as the medals and Olympic rings.
- Reused Character Design:
- The three Olympic medal Gogos (appropriately named Gold, Silver, and Bronze) use the same basic design.
- The five Olympic ring Gogos are all the same except for the color of their rings.
Mega Metropolis
- Alliterative Title: Mega Metropolis.
- Comic-Book Adaptation: The magazines that come with the Mega Metropolis Gogos contain comics featuring the characters.
- LEGO Body Parts: The Mega Gogos have heads that can be detatched from their bodies and attached to the bodies of other Mega Gogos to make your own mix-and-match Gogos.
Other tropes in the series:
- Amazing Technicolor Population: The Gogo's come in colours that cause them to fit this trope quite well.
- Animesque: Characters from the reboot series can be this.
- Art-Shifted Sequel: The reboot series. In the 90's, the Gogo's looked like cartoon characters. In the reboot series, the characters were made to look more Animesque.
- Big Eater: A common characteristic for Gogos is that they're obsessed with eating, whether it be a specific food or just food in general.
- Canon Foreigner: The failed TV show pilot introduces a team of new main characters that weren't originally represented in the toyline.
- Continuity Reboot: The reboot from 2007 completely forgets about any of the characters from the 90's and doesn't even so much as reference them, with the possible exception of 2007's Tut being similar to another mummy Gogo from the 90's named Tut that was distributed in McDonald's Happy Meals.
- Funny Animal: Some of the Gogo's are anthropomorphic animals.
- Gratuitous Japanese:
- A few of the reboot series Gogo's have Japanese symbols on them somewhere; for example, Nasako has one right on his torso.
- A good amount of Gogo's have Japanese-sounding names, some of which are actually Japanese words (this was probably unintentional, though). For example, one Gogo is named Satori. That's actually a Japanese Buddhist term.
- Long Runner: The classic series started in 1996 and ran until 2005, when New Generation, the last classic set of Gogo's, was released. That's a total of 9 years. The reboot series began in 2007, and the most recent reboot set was released in 2015. That's a total of 8 years. Put both runtimes together and you get 18 years (both runtimes plus the year 2006, which did not see a Gogo's release).
- No Mouth: Both the classic series and the reboot series contain multiple characters who don't have a mouth.
- No Plot? No Problem!: The series as a whole has no major plot to speak of. The Urban Toys series, however, does have something of a plot: the Gogo's are aliens that came to planet Earth to be played with by human kids.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted, which was bound to happen given the amount of characters.
- Is Atori the character with a zipper in his head from Series 1/Urban Toys, or is it the dino-like character from Megatrip/Edge?
- Is Tsu the Gogo holding a drink in his hand from Series 1/Urban Toys, or is it the character from Megatrip/Edge whose hair can keep others' secrets? The Tsu from Megatrip had her name changed to Suti in Edge, possibly to combat this.
- Palette Swap: For starters, Gogo's are available in different colours (the reboot sets generally gave them around five possible colours, but the pre-reboot sets take this up to eleven by making them available in literally any colour), but character moulds have been used to make completely new characters as well:
- Miro-K uses the same mould as Ayu from the Megatrip series.
- Mr. Peako is a recolour of Horo from the Power series.
- All of the characters in the Evolution series use the molds of the characters from the previous series. This example is justified in that they're supposed to be evolutions of the characters from the previous series, hence "Evolution" being the name of the series.
- The 2012 Olympics series gave us the the three Olympic medal Gogo's, the five Olympic ring Gogo's, and some Gogo's with flags painted onto their faces meant to represent certain countries, all of which use the same mold.
- Every team in the Foot series has a character with a soccer ball for a head, and all nine of them share the same mold. Two other unrelated characters from the Foot series, Jarum and Lyu, share the same mold as well.
- A UK newspaper called The Daily Mirror once released two special Gogo's, an alien and a dragon, and sold them with their newspapers. The molds of these Gogo's were later used for Gogo's with the Panasonic branding on them.
- Series Mascot: Eggy for the classic series, and Mosh for the reboot series.
