Yowie was a brand of chocolate encased toy line, manufactured by Cadbury Australia and based on the mythology surrounding the Australian Yowie. Invented by Bryce Courtenay and Geoff Pike, they were similar to Kinder Surprises in that they are basically a chocolate shell around a plastic capsule, with a toy inside. The line was supported by a series of children's tie-in picture books. Unlike Kinder Surprises, the toy is usually an Australian or New Zealand animal.
There have been several series of Yowie toys; the first were animals, with limited edition Yowie pencil toppers in some of them. Later, Grumkin pencil toppers also appeared. In 2001 there was a 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 packaging also got overhauled. The wrappers of the Lost Kingdom Yowies could be distinguished by the sign and shovel being held in their paws.
The Yowies, according to the story, are protectors of the various environments of Gondwana. Their names were Rumble (deserts, resembling a kangaroo), Boof (rainforests and mountains, resembling a bandicoot), Crag (swamps and mangroves, resembling a crocodile), Ditty (bushland, resembling a wombat), Nap (gum forests, resembling a koala), and Squish (rivers and waterways and possibly the ocean as well, resembling a platypus). The Yowies were ruled by Balthazar the bunyip who lived in a billabong.
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).