Last week I asked folks if they wanted to win some Mr. Men/Little Miss and Noddy promotional items, and the answer was a resounding, “Yes!”

Sixty-five yeses, in fact. (Although the first comment was apparently an old friend of Ty’s trying to find him. Are you hiding, Ty? Maybe she just didn’t want to admit that she’s always wanted a Mr. Men luggage tag.)

Let’s face it: Free stuff rocks. Especially cute free stuff featuring characters your kids love. And with 65 entries for 5 prize packs, that means that your odds of winning were 1 in 13 (not bad). It’s not the Publisher’s Clearing House, but at least your odds of winning were a lot better.

Anyway! The random number generator has spoken, er, generated. Our contest winners are commenters number 4, 11, 58, 29, and 38! Hooray!

Oh, did you want to know who those were? Picky, picky. Okay, that’s ~moe~, virginia, RAN, desi, and DW! If one of those people is you, please check your email—I’ve sent you a confirmation and need you to respond with a mailing address so that Ty’s can get your prize out to you. You’ll each receive the Mr. Men and Little miss luggage tags, a Noddy keychain puzzle, and a Noddy pen.

Thanks to everyone who played! Don’t forget that there’s new merchandise being added to the Noddy and Mr. Men/Little Miss stores at Ty’s, so check back often.

And who knows… maybe we’ll have another contest here. I could get used to giving out cool stuff—I sort of feel like Santa Claus. Ho, ho, ho!

Stop looking at me like that.

It was just a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned that both Noddy and Mr. Men merchandise has come to Ty’s Toy Box. If you have a preschooler, chances are you’re already quite familiar with these little guys. What I didn’t mention, before, is that both of these properties are owned by Chorion, and—as it sometimes happens—Chorion has issued some promotional items in association with these lines which they’ve passed along to Ty’s.

Promotional items are great fun, because it’s somewhat up to the discretion of the licensee (that would be Ty’s, in this case) as to how they’ll be distributed. For example: Starting today (March 24th, 2008), spend $50 at Ty’s Toy Box (either in the Noddy Store or elsewhere at Ty’s) and you’ll receive a Noddy keychain free with your order.

Nice, right?

I love getting a bonus-with-purchase item, myself. I do. But what I like even more is winning something absolutely free, because I’m cheap like that. And I figured that if that’s what I like best, it was a good bet that some of you Ty’s shoppers and faithful readers would like that, too.

So here’s the deal: Five lucky readers of the blog are going to win a promotional prize pack. Each pack contains a Mr. Men luggage tag, a Little Miss luggage tag, a Noddy keychain, and a Noddy pen. Have a look:

All you have to do for a chance to win is leave a comment on this post by noon on Sunday, March 30th, 2008. Your comment should tell me which Noddy or Mr. Men/Little Miss item you think your child would like the most, and please be sure to leave a valid email address so that I can contact you if you win.

Winners will be announced on Monday, March 31st, 2008—one week from today. Leave a comment and you could be one of the lucky ones!

First of all: There’s still plenty of time to take part in Ty’s Easter Egg Hunt to win a giant stuffed Miffy doll! All you have to do is browse around Ty’s Toy Box and find the hidden Easter egg, each day, for your chance to win. (Congratulations to last week’s winners!)

Next, I want to tell you a little bit about two exciting new lines here at Ty’s which you may or may not have noticed, yet. I don’t know about you, but oftentimes I find that Ty’s is bringing in so many cool new things, I can’t possibly keep track of them all without a spreadsheet. Seeing as how most people are not going to resort to a spreadsheet to keep track of things (okay, it’s possible I’m a wee bit compulsive about this stuff), consider me your crib sheet.

If you haven’t met Noddy yet, you can learn all about this great PBS show for preschoolers over on their targeted site. They characterize Noddy this way:

Noddy is a little wooden boy who lives in his own little House-for-One in Toyland. Noddy got his name because his head is on a spring and when he gets excited his head just can’t stop nodding!

(In France, Noddy goes by the name Oui-Oui, which I know means “Yes Yes,” yet my inner 10-year-old boy finds it hilarious. Just sayin’.)

And then once your child becomes completely hooked on Noddy and his pals, come check out the Noddy Store here at Ty’s.

In addition, you may have noticed the new Mr. Men and Little Miss Store here at Ty’s, dedicated to all of those quirky little personalities starring in the book series and Cartoon Network series of the same title. (Oh, look! They even make a tote bag with my daughter on it! That was awfully nice of them.)

And you can of course learn more about the Mr. Men and Little Misses on their site, although they’re pretty self-explanatory, I think. (Hmmm… I wonder what Mr. Grumpy is like….)

Anyway, we’re excited to welcome Noddy and the Mr. Men gang to Ty’s, and hope you’ll enjoy them, too. And who knows—you might find one of those giant Easter eggs while you’re browsing!

I’m a sucker for a good book coming to life. Do you remember the Mr. Men and Little Miss books by Roger Hargreaves? They were really in their prime popularity here in the U.S. when I was in middle school or so. Each little square book only cost a dollar, and although my friends and I were probably a little old for them, we all collected them much the way that we persisted in accumulating Hello Kitty items (because they were cool, you know). The drawings were fun and the stories hilarious.

If you don’t know the series, each eponymous Mr. or Miss has a life tale based on their particular characteristic. Mr. Bump, for example, is always running into things. Obviously. Little Miss Bossy is, um, my daughter. Er. I mean, well, she’s bossy. You get the idea.

What made fun little books sounds like a natural property for a cartoon series, and now Chorion Ltd. has announced that Cartoon Network will be the U.S. home of The Mr. Men Show in 2008:

With a blend of side-splitting, fast-paced physical humor and verbal wit, The Mr. Men Show is the first animated program to bring sketch comedy to young children.

Twenty-five Mr. Men and Little Miss characters will be featured in the new series. To complement the new animation style, some of the characters are being refreshed and some completely re-worked — but all will remain true to the essence of the original Mr. Men and Little Miss creations.

Brought to life by talented writer-producers Kate Boutilier and Eryk Casemiro, the series is being animated in Los Angeles by Renegade Animation. Boutilier and Casemiro have achieved worldwide success with animated properties such as “Rugrats”, “The Wild Thornberrys” and “Rugrats in Paris”. Renegade has delivered three seasons of “Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi” to Cartoon Network US.

“Fast-paced physical humor?” So, they’ll be slipping on banana peels at high speeds?

I was actually so excited about this news, I went poking around online and discovered that the Mr. Men and Little Miss crew already has a interactive website where you can reacquaint yourself with all your favorite characters (oh! Mr. Daydream! He was my favorite!). There’s also all sorts of fun for the kids on there, from printables to games they can play. (You do need to register for full site access, but registration is free.) At the very least, you can amuse yourself there for a while until the debut of the show next year.

[Edited to add: Great minds think alike! The same day I posted this, Animation Insider wrote a piece about it as well.]