"Monsterriffic"

After finding enormous success with such toys turned television characters such as The Care Bears and The Popples, The American Greetings company decided to follow up with a plush toy, known simply as “Monster,” one of the few ever to be marketed towards boys. And to coincided with toy’s release, it was only natural to have an accompanying animated series, My Pet Monster.

The show followed the tale of a young boy named Max, who purchased the blue monster with a pink face from the local toy store. Unbeknownst to Max at the time of purchase was that his furry new friend had the ability to grow to over six feet in size. And despite the fact that it ate garbage, Monster was just as pleasant and friendly as can be. Luckily for Max, when the situation warranted, all he had to do was slap a pair of orange handcuffs on his furry friend and Monster would instantly return to his smaller size.

Besides Max, two other tykes were aware of Monster’s secret – sister Jill and best friend Chuckie. The trio would embark on various weekly adventures where they frequently encountered a fellow resident of Monsterland - a beast named Beastur whose goal was to bring Monster back to his former home.

Besides the short lived series, which only lasted a single season, a 1986 feature film was also produced. Unfortunately, cute and cuddly as Monster certainly was, he only managed to demonstrate the hit-and-miss nature of the industry, sadly as an example the latter.