Although smaller companies have limited access to high-profile licenses or products, they still have space on their minds.

Beyond Hasbro and Mattel, a small manufacturer called Funko had a lock on pop culture nostalgia at the 2000 American International Toy Fair with their "Wacky Wobblers" collection.

These figures have spring-mounted heads that bounce back and forth, and range from benevolent restaurant mascot Big Boy to Underdog.

One Wobbler is Funko's own Space Ace, Captain Johnny Funko.

The good Captain -- who looks like a cross between Buck Rogers and one of Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds -- invites his space cadets to "come along for the adventure of a lifetime as we explore the wonders of our galaxy."

The line's signature space toy is a bright green extraterrestrial beanbag with enormous eyes called -- what else? -- Roswell.

Other companies licensed familiar space characters in novel ways. California-based Wood Expressions has a Star Trek: The Next Generation chess set that uses characters from the series as its chessmen.

A Captain Picard figurine was the obvious choice for king, with Doctor Crusher as his queen. The roles of rook, knight and bishop were played by depictions of Data, Riker and Worf respectively.

Models of the starship Enterprise took the place of the pawns. The black side had the Enterprise-D seen in the television series, while the gold side used the Enterprise-E featured in First Contact and Insurrection.

Game company Looney Labs has a new spin on chess with "Icehouse", a self-proclaimed "Martian chess set" featuring pyramid-shaped game pieces that can be used like cards in a variety of abstract strategy games.

One of these games is Ice Traders, which the company calls "an epic game of interstellar conflict." Players choose to either collaborate or compete while "constructing colony ships, navigating to distant star systems, trading for new technologies and building up a stockpile of weapons."

The Rhode Island Novelty Company makes alien-themed merchandise out of almost anything they can paint green. Their product line includes alien yo-yos, alien "coil springs" (i.e., generic Slinkys), glow-in-the-dark stretch aliens and alien paddle ball.

Aliens are just the beginning. In addition to superballs, whoopee cushions and drinking birds, the company's catalog offers space shuttle play kits, electronic laser sword key chains, UFO disco lights and laser guns.

Some companies seemed almost embarrassed by their space content.

Applause produced the Star Wars Episode One toys given out with KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell kids' meals, but a sales rep at its booth avoided commenting on their involvement with the highest grossing space film of the year.

Space also stimulated entrepreneurial spirits. Toy developer Mark Frawley launched his line of "Sun Spotts - Alien Astronomers" at Toy Fair.

The characters, "loveable little teachers of the universe," represented planets and other celestial phenomena.

Marris from Mars, Nelson from Neptune, and all their friends throughout our solar system came with basic information about their planet of origin and the space missions that have visited or will someday visit them.

Frawley will try to position Sun Spotts as educational toys. The characters' goal will be "to supply aid and education to all earthlings wanting to learn more about the solar system around them."

Much like children learn about Earth's geological and evolutionary past through the study of dinosaurs, Frawley hopes, Sun Spotts might whet their appetite for space by associating characters with the cosmology.