Toys: The nineties brand going for a re-furby-shment

Furbys passed for interactive in the days of Cool Britannia

Remember the Furby, that squawking, animatronic toy of 1998? The one that looked like an Ewok, tweeted at its multi-coloured brethren (in the old-fashioned way) and caused thousands of children to keen at Christmas because their parents couldn't get one at Toys R Us?

Well, it's back, joining those other émigrés from the Eighties and Nineties, Transformers – which we all know went to Hollywood and made it big – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and those PVC-clad crime fighters, the Power Rangers, both of which had a massive sales resurgence after new TV shows. You can't help feeling, though, that the Furby is different. It might have passed for interactive in the days of Cool Britannia (they "spoke" in "Furbish" when close to each other), but today – not so much; even if the new version has LED eyes and a "Furbish" dictionary app.

Perhaps we are missing something, then. Hasbro knows its business – after all, it trousered $4.29bn last year.

Are we then to expect Furby: The Musical? A Furby In Love, a feature film, or maybe a six-parter on cable?

I wonder what's Furbish for "watch this space"...