As a child of the 80s, I have fond memories of carting my parents off to various toy shops in town to purchase lots of small, plastic pieces of playful joy. Whether it was Lion-o, He-Man or Hot Rod, I wanted them all.

Perhaps nothing caught my attention quite as much as M.A.S.K., however. Developed as a series specifically to shift an awful lot of toys for manufacturer Kenner - responsible for several of the world's most popular toy lines such as Star Wars, Zoids and The Six Million Dollar Man - the show ran throughout the mid-Eighties (I was around 6 or 7 at the time) and became what I consider to be one of the very finest cartoons of my childhood.

At the heart of M.A.S.K. was the rather dark plotline involving the death of Andy Tracker, a young chap who worked for an organisation dedicated to maintaining peace throughout the world. Together with brother Matt and the fantastically-named Miles Mayhem, Andy was responsible for coming up with ideas for vehicles, weapons and, of course, masks that were developed to take on the enemy - whomever that may be - anonymously.

Miles Mayhem didn't like that one bit as he wanted to receive praise for the work he was carrying out - the media whore - and promptly blew Andy Tracker up in a huge building blaze. Mayhem had walked off with the blueprints for half of Andy's proposed inventions while Matt was left with the remaining designs.

And so, M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) and V.E.N.O.M. (Viscious Evil Network Of Mayhem) were born, with V.E.N.O.M on the bad side, and M.A.S.K. on the good.

This central concept of good gang vs. evil gang was familiar to any young viewer at the time with Transformers, Thundercats et al, so M.A.S.K. was already on steady ground. What M.A.S.K. did bring to the table, though, was an awful lot of cool vehicles, plenty of amusing accents and weekly battles between the two factions.

Those vehicles were at the core of the toy line, with my particular favourite being Condor, a luminous green motorcycle that also turned into a helicopter. That's right, a helicopter. If that isn't the stuff of boyhood dreams, I don't know what is. The problem with Condor as a toy, however, was that the flimsy propeller broke in my rather clumsy hands. Gutted, I moved on to purchasing Matt Tracker's Thunderhawk, a car that turned into a plane, no less.

My joy at getting my hands on those vehicles as a boy still puts a smile on my face today. Perhaps inspired by the Bond vehicles, certainly influenced by the likes of G.I. Joe and Transformers, the vehicles were at the heart of what made M.A.S.K. the fun experience it was.

Credit, too, must go to the deliciously over-the-top vocal work, though, with particular notice being paid to Miles Mayhem, whose pantomime villain act was always good fun to watch.

The look of Mayhem was another highlight to the show as he looked not unlike a fat, old colonel type you've seen a million times in those vintage British war movies from days gone by. Was he scary? Not especially, which makes the good vs evil battle appear not quite as viscous as you imagine it should be. This was only furthered by the appearance of Cliff Dagger, a plump, camp-looking character with an eye-patch and a penchant for a rather rubbish black wooly hat. He could have joined a Village People appreciation act and wouldn't have looked out of place. Great name, though.

Another favourite aspect of the show for me was the Mission:Impossible-inspired way of selecting the right team for each episode. The computer, with a thoroughly annoying voice, would select many of the same characters week-in, week-out , just as with Mission:Impossible, but I was always hoping that Condor's driver Brad Turner would be picked. Ah, Brad. With your shades and rock band day job, you were my idol. I particularly loved the way in which he would leave midway through a concert, surely leaving paying fans more than a little aggrieved.

The battles themselves were pure 80s animated action, with plenty of bombs, guns and high-octane entertainment. There were dogfights, great transformations and a fun vibe that 80s animations were superb at delivering.

The animation itself was unmistakeably 80s - all bright, colourful visuals and frenetic action - while the synth soundtrack was also unmistakeably linked with the era. With no let-up in the action, each twenty-minute episode flew by at a heck of a pace and while the series has a 'seen-it-all-before' feel to it (most episodes were a variation of V.E.N.O.M. stealing, or attempting to steal, something while M.A.S.K. would obviously win the day by stopping them) for young viewers at the time, this familiarity was welcome.

The final series of the show changed that fabulous initial concept entirely by turning the show into a series of races, again designed to ship more toys which has since been repositioned as fun racing vehicles. It wasn't a patch on the original, secret agency-led idea of the initial series, though. The less said about the obligatory kid and his annoying robot, T-Bob, however, the better.

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