Great Beast #1
Number one in the set, and a many-headed monster straight out of the Book of Revelation.
8 Variants

Tiny, squishy and a bit gruesome, Monster in My Pocket landed in 1990 from Matchbox: one-colour rubber monsters from myths, legends and old horror films, each with a points value so you could settle who was toughest. They were massive in UK playgrounds and kept going until 1993.
Complete checklist of 197 Monster in My Pocket figures across 9 series by Matchbox, 1990-1993. Updated 27 October 2026.












Where it all started: 48 monsters numbered 1 to 48, from the Great Beast down to the 5-point Skeleton. They first came in red, yellow, purple and olive green, then in neons, and a few rarer colours like pine green, cyan and glow in the dark turned up too. Plenty to hunt down for each one.
Number one in the set, and a many-headed monster straight out of the Book of Revelation.
8 Variants
The many-headed Greek serpent that grows two new heads for every one you chop off.
9 Variants
Cursed to turn into a wolf whenever the full moon comes up, with predictably messy results.
8 Variants
A colossal land beast from the Book of Job, so big that even the rivers can't make it hurry.
8 Variants
Lion at the back, eagle at the front, and a long-standing reputation for guarding gold.
8 Variants
The odd one out: a real dinosaur rubbing shoulders with all the myths and legends.
8 Variants
Hatched from an egg laid by a cockerel, this serpent-bird can turn you to stone with one look.
8 Variants
One huge eye in the middle of the forehead, as Odysseus found out the hard way in Greek myth.
8 Variants
A winged mountain goblin from Japanese folklore, often drawn with a very long nose.
9 Variants
Son of Poseidon and herald of the sea, half man and half fish, who calms the waves with a conch.
8 Variants
Old Norwegian sailors told of this squid so huge it could be mistaken for an island.
8 Variants
Named after the jotnar, the giants of Norse myth who were forever squabbling with the gods.
8 Variants
Stitched together and brought to life with a jolt, it's Frankenstein's creation in miniature.
7 Variants
A Persian man-eater with a lion's body, a human face and a scorpion's tail for good measure.
7 Variants
Takes his name from the vast temple complex at Luxor and has a suitably Egyptian swagger.
7 Variants
Aztec earth goddess with a skirt made of writhing snakes and, in some carvings, a necklace of hands.
7 Variants
The big, shy ape-man of the Pacific Northwest woods, famous mostly for leaving very large footprints.
7 Variants
The Russian forest witch who lives in a hut on chicken legs and flies about in a giant mortar.
7 Variants
Hindu goddess of time and destruction, many-armed and wearing a necklace of skulls.
9 Variants
Pliny's African beast whose head is so heavy it hangs to the ground, which is lucky, as its gaze kills.
8 Variants
Woman's face, bird's body and filthy manners, the snatching storm spirits of Greek myth.
7 Variants
Based on the Jenny Haniver, a dried-out ray that old sailors carved and sold as a baby sea demon.
6 Variants
An English household sprite who'd do your chores at night, as long as you didn't offend him.
8 Variants
An Algonquian winter spirit with an endless hunger, said to stalk the northern forests.
8 Variants
A nasty goblin from the Scottish Borders said to dye his cap in the blood of travellers.
9 Variants
Snakes for hair and a stare that turns people to stone, so best not make eye contact.
9 Variants
Small, ugly and spiteful, the classic troublemaker of European folk tales.
9 Variants
Three heads, one job: guarding the gates of the Greek underworld so nobody sneaks back out.
10 Variants
The walking dead of Haitian folklore, long before they took over every other TV show.
9 Variants
Part lion, part goat, part serpent, and all fire-breathing trouble from Greek myth.
9 Variants
A good old-fashioned spook in a flowing sheet, ideal for rattling chains in draughty castles.
11 Variants
Big, dim and hungry, the fairy tale giant you really don't want to meet on a forest path.
9 Variants
Cape, fangs and a strong dislike of garlic, the classic Transylvanian bloodsucker.
9 Variants
The giant bird from the Sinbad tales, big enough to carry off an elephant for lunch.
9 Variants
Second World War pilots blamed these little saboteurs whenever their planes went wrong.
9 Variants
The vampire's female counterpart, every bit as fond of a late night bite.
9 Variants
Out of Arabian folklore, a graveyard prowler with a taste for the recently departed.
10 Variants
A masked figure in the spirit of the Phantom of the Opera, haunting the cellars under the Paris stage.
10 Variants
Every horror film needs someone in a lab coat cackling over bubbling flasks, and here he is.
9 Variants
Winged big cats crop up in ancient Mesopotamian art, and this one looks ready to pounce.
9 Variants
Wrapped head to toe in bandages and back from an Egyptian tomb, shuffling along as mummies do.
9 Variants
Ferryman of the dead across the River Styx, and he won't take you over without a coin for the fare.
9 Variants
A hulking, hairy brute with no name beyond his title, which tells you all you need to know.
9 Variants
Pointy hat, crooked nose and a cauldron somewhere nearby, the storybook witch in pocket size.
9 Variants
Victorian London's mystery leaper, said to bound over walls and terrify people in the 1830s.
10 Variants
From H.G. Wells' 1897 novel, the scientist you can only spot by his bandages and dark glasses.
10 Variants
Just bones and a grin, a Halloween staple that proves you don't need skin to be scary.
9 Variants
Inspired by Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre-Dame from Victor Hugo's novel.
10 Variants
Another 24 monsters, numbered 49 to 72, with Dragon and the Loch Ness Monster leading the way and points now going up to 30. These came in four bright neons, and six of them also glow in the dark.
Number 49 kicks off Series 2 with the big one: scales, wings and plenty of fire.
4 Variants
Straight out of Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem, with jaws that bite and claws that catch.
4 Variants
A male sorcerer in billowing robes, ready to cast something unpleasant your way.
4 Variants
In Norse myth, the first frost giant, whose body the gods used to build the whole world.
4 Variants
Dripping with weed and bog water, a slimy thing that rises from the marsh.
4 Variants
In Jewish folklore, a giant made of clay and brought to life to protect the people of Prague.
4 Variants
Babylonian guardians who watched the gates of the sun in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
4 Variants
Scotland's most famous resident, and the only one in the set with a tourism industry.
4 Variants
A shelled dragon from Provence, said to have been tamed by Saint Martha in the town of Tarascon.
4 Variants
A sea monster said to look like a bishop in full robes, reported in the 1500s off the Baltic coast.
4 Variants
An antlered ghost said to haunt Windsor Forest, and even name-checked by Shakespeare.
4 Variants
One of the snake-haired gorgon sisters of Greek myth, and she came in glow in the dark too.
5 Variants
Ectoplasm is the gooey stuff seance mediums claimed spirits were made of, and this ghost is full of it.
5 Variants
Hardly a monster at all: the elephant-headed Hindu god who removes obstacles from your path.
4 Variants
From an Ojibwe tale, a cannibal hag with sharp awls sticking out of her elbows.
5 Variants
Bull's head, man's body, and a labyrinth in Crete that he never managed to find his way out of.
4 Variants
Ireland's answer to the mermaid, said to wear a little red cap that lets her swim the deep.
4 Variants
Orkney's nastiest sea demon, a horse and rider fused together and with no skin at all.
4 Variants
A grim, hooded apparition, the sort of ghost that appears at the foot of the bed and just stares.
4 Variants
English bogeyman said to lurk in ponds and cupboards under the stairs, waiting for naughty children.
5 Variants
Ancient Egypt's crocodile-headed god of the Nile, which seems a sensible thing to keep on side.
4 Variants
A tree nymph of Greek myth whose life is bound up with the tree she lives in.
5 Variants
Water spirits described by the alchemist Paracelsus, and this one also came glowing in the dark.
5 Variants
Carved stone grotesques that double as church drainpipes, spouting rainwater from their mouths.
4 Variants
Bigger figures, painted details and points from 50 up to 100. The 100-pointers glow in the dark, and some monsters turn up unpainted too, so check the variants before you tick one off.
The Etruscan demon who escorted the dead to the underworld, swinging a big hammer as he went.
2 Variants
A two-headed giant from the Jack the Giant Killer tales, who ends up taking a tumble into a moat.
3 Variants
The monkey god of the Ramayana, strong enough to leap the sea to Lanka and carry off a whole mountain.
2 Variants
The Hindu god of death, who rides a water buffalo and judges every soul that turns up at his door.
3 Variants
Arabian desert ghouls, shapeshifters said to lure lost travellers off the path and then eat them.
3 Variants
A great duke of Hell from old demon handbooks, said to ride a dragon and have shockingly bad breath.
4 Variants
In Jewish folklore, the restless spirit of a dead person that slips inside the living and won't leave.
3 Variants
A child-snatching terror of Greek myth, usually pictured as a woman above the waist and a serpent below.
4 Variants
From the Scottish belief that the last person buried must guard the churchyard until the next funeral.
4 Variants
Every child's suspicion about what lives behind the wardrobe door, confirmed in neon plastic.
4 Variants
A ghost who walks in chains with a noose still round his neck, which rather gives away how he went.
2 Variants
Lancashire's river hag, lurking under the green weed to grab children who wander too close to the water.
3 Variants
Named after the title of a male priest in Haitian Vodou, given a suitably spooky pocket-sized makeover.
3 Variants
Based on a real 1944 panic in Mattoon, Illinois, when locals blamed a phantom for gassing their homes.
3 Variants
A German night spirit blamed for bad dreams, said to sit on your chest until you can barely breathe.
4 Variants
The shapeless threat parents everywhere use to get kids into bed, finally given an actual body.
3 Variants
A Babylonian demon said to slink into bedrooms at night and pounce on anyone sleeping.
4 Variants
A Scottish Highland horror with one eye, one arm and one leg, all sprouting from the middle of its body.
4 Variants
Said to stalk New Jersey's Pine Barrens with hooves, bat wings and a scream that chills the blood.
2 Variants
A Slavic vampire with the nasty habit of going after the very people it loved most in life.
3 Variants
German for noisy ghost: the sort that slams doors, flings crockery and never once helps tidy up.
3 Variants
Japan's huge, bald, shadowy sea spirit that rises out of calm water to tip over passing boats.
2 Variants
China's answer to Bigfoot, a hairy ape-man reported for centuries in the mountain forests of Hubei.
2 Variants
A small, mischievous demon far more interested in pranks and pinching than in proper evil.
3 Variants
The tricky one. These nine monsters never made it to UK shops: they came free in boxes of Shreddies in Canada and in Big Boy kids meals in the US, which is why they are so hard to find now. Blemmyae came packed with the NES game.
A vast sea serpent from the Bible, the ocean-going cousin of land-bound Behemoth.
8 Variants
The yeti of the high Himalayas, shaggy, elusive and very good at avoiding cameras.
8 Variants
Jackal-headed Egyptian god of mummification who weighed the hearts of the dead.
8 Variants
A serpent with a head at each end, so it never has to turn round to go the other way.
8 Variants
Horse below the waist, human above, and famously rowdy at weddings in Greek myth.
8 Variants
A horse-shaped demon from old books of spells, said to answer truthfully about past and future.
4 Variants
Sang sailors onto the rocks in Greek myth, which is why Odysseus had himself tied to the mast.
8 Variants
A pig-headed, tusked creature from the Isle of Man, said to have once been a giant's pet boar.
8 Variants
Headless men from ancient travellers' tales, with their faces planted right in the middle of their chests.
4 Variants
Monster in My Pocket goes creepy crawly. Twenty-four bugs and spiders with groan-worthy names like the Eastern Toe Biter, in two-tone colours and worth up to 200 points.
A huge hairy spider that can flick prickly hairs off its belly at anything that gets too nosy.
2 Variants
Look for the red hourglass on the belly: the classic warning sign of this famously venomous spider.
2 Variants
Big forward-facing eyes and the ability to leap many times its own length to land right on its dinner.
2 Variants
A hunter that chases its prey down instead of spinning webs, and mums carry their babies on their backs.
2 Variants
A real spider that builds a little tower of silk and soil over its burrow, then waits inside to pounce.
2 Variants
Scuttles sideways like a crab and waits on flowers to ambush any bee that drops in for a drink.
2 Variants
A real beetle named for its bright, uniform-like colours, here standing to attention for battle.
2 Variants
Not a beetle but a real fly with a soldierly name, usually seen buzzing harmlessly around flowers.
2 Variants
A real fly that ambushes other insects in mid-air, stabbing them with its beak like a tiny highwayman.
3 Variants
Cockroaches can survive almost anything already, so this one adding a suit of armour feels a bit much.
3 Variants
Real leafhoppers suck sap from plants, so adding fangs and a vampire title is only a small leap.
3 Variants
The firefly, a beetle whose bottom glows to flash signals to a mate on warm summer nights.
2 Variants
Toe biter is a real nickname for the giant water bug, which nips anyone paddling in the wrong pond.
3 Variants
Pick one up and you'll learn the hard way why it's called that: it leaks a foul pong when bothered.
2 Variants
Named like the one-eyed jacks in a deck of cards, with a single beady eye keeping watch on you.
3 Variants
A real dragonfly named for the swollen, club-shaped tip of its tail, here looking ready for a fight.
2 Variants
California's state insect, named for the poodle-like dog's head pattern on its yellow wings.
3 Variants
Moths are usually the gentle type, but this horned-tail version clearly didn't get the memo.
2 Variants
Scorpions aren't insects at all but arachnids, and this scarred one looks like it's won a few scraps.
3 Variants
A real nickname for the kissing bug, which earned that name by biting sleepers near the mouth.
3 Variants
Usually the gardener's spotty little friend, munching aphids, though this one looks less friendly.
3 Variants
Only the females bite, slicing skin to lap up blood, which is why picnics and horses both hate them.
3 Variants
A real hump-backed cricket with absurdly long legs that loves damp cellars, caves and dark corners.
3 Variants
A beetle with a seriously rounded back, hunched over like it's been reading in bad light for years.
3 Variants
Not pocket sized at all. Four big figures of the Vampire, Werewolf, Monster and Swamp Beast, with light-up eyes and a button that makes them howl, cackle or growl.
A supersized take on the stitched-together creature, with lights and sounds the pocket ones never had.
The soggy horror from the bog, grown well past pocket size and kitted out with lights and sound.
A big, noisy Dracula type that lights up and makes a racket, far too large to hide in any pocket.
One of four giant Howlers, a wolf man that lights up and howls, which rather explains the name.
Twenty-four prehistoric beasts, from T. rex and Triceratops to a Woolly Mammoth and a Cave Man who probably felt a bit outnumbered. Points went all the way up to 500.
Packing one of the biggest bites of any land animal ever, plus famously tiny arms it couldn't do much with.
4 Variants
The long-necked giant many of us grew up calling Brontosaurus, a name scientists have since revived.
3 Variants
Three horns, a bony frill and a beak like a parrot: the face that every dinosaur fan knows on sight.
2 Variants
Big plates along its back, spikes on its tail and a brain famously tiny for something its size.
2 Variants
A big Jurassic meat eater with a horn on its nose, a fairly unusual accessory for a hunting dinosaur.
3 Variants
Longer than a T. rex, with a great sail on its back and a crocodile-like snout made for catching fish.
5 Variants
Its spiky thumb was once mistaken for a nose horn, so early models stuck it on the end of its face.
2 Variants
One of the earliest long-necked plant eaters, roaming what's now Germany back in the Triassic.
2 Variants
A shaggy Ice Age elephant whose last herds were still around when the Egyptian pyramids were being built.
3 Variants
Our hairy ancestor with a club, sneaking into a dinosaur series despite missing them by 60 million years.
3 Variants
Strictly speaking a flying reptile, not a dinosaur, gliding over ancient seas on huge leathery wings.
3 Variants
Gate-crashing the dinosaurs, this sail-backed beast is actually more closely related to mammals.
2 Variants
Not really a tiger and no dinosaur either, just an Ice Age cat with a fearsome pair of fangs.
3 Variants
Built like a walking tank, covered in bony armour plates and finished off with a heavy club on its tail.
2 Variants
A horned dinosaur with an enormous frill, so big it had large openings in it to keep the weight down.
3 Variants
Called the monster lizard, though this Triassic hunter turned out to be a cousin of crocodiles instead.
2 Variants
Wore a crown of long spikes around its frill, plus one big horn on the nose for good measure.
3 Variants
A fast pack hunter with a huge sickle-shaped claw on each foot, the real model for Jurassic Park's raptors.
2 Variants
Its name means ostrich mimic, and with those long legs it was likely one of the speediest dinosaurs.
5 Variants
A smaller African cousin of Stegosaurus, with plates up front and long sharp spikes running to its tail.
3 Variants
Sporting one big nose horn, this one is known from such scrappy fossils that experts still argue about it.
4 Variants
That long tube of a head crest was hollow, so it probably honked through it like a prehistoric trombone.
5 Variants
A duck-billed dinosaur with a hatchet-shaped crest on its head, easy to spot from the side.
4 Variants
A youngster of a small horned dinosaur from the Gobi Desert, where whole nests of them have been dug up.
3 Variants
The same 24 dinosaurs with a hidden trick: get them wet and a rough outline of their skeleton shows through. They were a short-lived promo, so they are much harder to find than the regular dinos.
The king of the dinosaurs as bones only, revealed with a bit of water, little arms very much included.
2 Variants
Dunk it in water and the whole skeleton of that endless neck appears, vertebra by vertebra.
2 Variants
Under the tap, its three horns and big frill appear as bone, a bit like a pocket museum exhibit.
2 Variants
Dunk it and see the plates and tail spikes as bones, though sadly the tiny brain doesn't show up.
2 Variants
A secret skeleton hides in this one, horned skull included, waiting for a splash of water to appear.
2 Variants
Water brings out its skeleton, long sail spines and all, a nice nod to how few fossils have been found.
2 Variants
Bath time brings out its bones, including that thumb spike scientists once put on the wrong end.
2 Variants
Hidden under the colour is a skeleton outline that only turns up once the figure has been dunked.
2 Variants
A good soak brings out the bones under all that shaggy fur, curly tusks included.
2 Variants
Splash some water on and his skeleton appears, which feels fair since he's from the Stone Age anyway.
2 Variants
Wet those leathery wings and the thin, hollow bones that held them up start to show through.
2 Variants
Add water and you can see the long spines that held up its sail, outlined right through the figure.
2 Variants
Splash it and the skull appears, giant fangs included, just like the ones dug from tar pits in LA.
2 Variants
Get this armoured tank wet and its bones show through, tail club and all, like a soggy X-ray.
2 Variants
Wet it to reveal the bones beneath that giant frill, a neat trick for something mostly known as a fossil.
2 Variants
The monster lizard has a skeleton secret: add water and its toothy jaws show up in outline.
2 Variants
Splash on some water and the spiky frill turns into a ring of bones right before your eyes.
2 Variants
Run it under the tap and the outline of its bones appears, killer toe claws and all.
2 Variants
Give this speedy runner a soaking and you'll see the long, bird-like leg bones that made it so quick.
2 Variants
Spikes on the outside and a hidden skeleton within, revealed only when the figure gets a soaking.
2 Variants
A quick dip in water shows its skeleton, from the big nose horn right back to the tip of the tail.
1 Variant
Get it wet and you'll see the bones of that trombone-like crest, which is a pretty handy party trick.
2 Variants
A splash of water shows off the bony crest of this duckbill, as if a museum skeleton came to life.
2 Variants
Even the little one has bones to show: wet it and a tiny skeleton outline pops up through the plastic.
2 Variants
The last of the original run: 16 aliens with brilliantly silly names like Saturn Scumsucker and Jumbo Jupiter Junkeater. Unlike the early series these were all new creations, and some were worth a whopping 500 points.
Dinosaurs got their own Series 6, and then one turned up in outer space too, as you do.
2 Variants
Every alien army needs a robot, and this one gets the wonderfully ordinary name of Floyd.
3 Variants
A cheeky nod to the Masters of the Universe, swapping power swords for the more direct blasting approach.
3 Variants
Clearly someone who gets a bit strange when the moon is round, and this one lives a lot closer to it.
4 Variants
Named after a nova, the sudden flare of an exploding star, which makes it sound very hot to handle.
2 Variants
Three Js and one big appetite, chomping through whatever space junk drifts past the biggest planet.
2 Variants
No fancy pun on this one, just a straightforward alien that very much does what it says on the tin.
3 Variants
A robot whose whole job description seems to be right there in its name: asteroids, then attacking.
4 Variants
A pun on the Venus flytrap, the plant that snaps shut on bugs, reimagined as a sneaky alien.
2 Variants
A space spin on the Creature from the Black Lagoon, trading a murky swamp for the deepest dark there is.
3 Variants
Something nasty that hitched a ride on a falling space rock, judging by the name alone.
4 Variants
Take an Earth scorpion, send it to the stars and give it a cosmic upgrade: that's the general idea.
3 Variants
Saturn has the lovely rings, but this resident clearly hasn't picked up any of its good looks.
3 Variants
Picking on the sun itself is a bold move for an alien small enough to fit in your pocket.
3 Variants
Little green men from Mars have a long history in comics and films, and this one is the unhinged sort.
4 Variants
A glowing space rat whose name sneaks in a planet pun: Uranus, uranium, you get the idea.
3 Variants

More 90s toy lines collectors love