Be Excellent To Each Other

He lives!

I don't believe you. Please send it in a box to my house for me to verify.

This one is pretty cool. Working pneumatics, with a motor driven compressor.
Also the 4x4 transmission, with proper differentials turns the V6 engine and fan. And the steering works!

I have this on my desk.



It, um, has a spring! And a turny thing.

Aww cute!

Mine could crush it in the pneumatic jaws.

True, but mine's also protected by an angry panda and a huge Zoid.

Worst. Robot Wars. Ever.

I actually think LEGO robot wars would be better. In the current robot wars the fights were really boring, as contestants were afraid of having their expensive robot damaged or in the case of Hypnodisc, they felt sorry about totally destroying the enemy robot and so went easy on them.

LEGO is made of (relatively) cheap plastic and I imagine people won't hold back, thusly increasing the fun.

Look, I already collect Warhammer miniatures. Could you lot kindly not make me want Lego too? Just end each message with "but it's really rubbish" or just mention about how the plastic stinks of poo or something. Thanks.

The first time i saw Hypnodisc I was like "That is incredible" then it went soft, like baby food. it was the same sort of "WOW" like when the first robot flipped itself upright again.

I once bought some chinese knock-off LEGO to check it out -- the kind that doesn't even pretend to not be exactly copying LEGO. The colour was a bit shit, it was very 'sharp', and took even more force to un-snap, but those problems weren't that bad. The fact was that it stank of poo/chinese plastic/fresh tarmac.


Normal LEGO is great and odourless, though.

You could collect lots of Lord of the Rings LEGO and play Brickwars with it to help ease yourself in after playing Warhammer.

I've already got Lurtz, Elrond and a Black Rider

Although it is this one—one of my favourite Zoids of all.

I remember at University wargaming the attack on the Peking Legation Quarter from the Boxer rebellion using lego minifigs (oh and when did it become a 'thing' to call them minifigs rather than Lego men?) and couple of castle sets.

Razer was where it was at.

I found this interesting and spent 20 minutes trying to find out, even resorting to watching 1978 commercials on youtube. NO HELP. So I've asked a question here.

Eager minds must know!

(Thanks for asking the question Pod, in my family we still call the little fellas Lego men)

I had completely forgotten about these guys



These are the original Lego figures, from 1974.

They look like unidexter Playmobil figures

http://www.peeron.com/catalogs/1979/medium/12/?id=96

1979 catalogue calls them PEOPLE.

EDIT:
The yanky version of the 1979 catalogue calls them Mini-Figures (TM), but they're the shitty original kind without arms. Still, that's the same term.

http://www.peeron.com/catalogs/1979/medium/6/?id=97

EDIT2: NORMAL POLICEMAN SPOTTED! SUCCESS.
http://www.peeron.com/catalogs/1979/medium/10/?id=97
http://www.peeron.com/catalogs/1979/medium/12/?id=97
http://www.peeron.com/catalogs/1979/medium/16/?id=97

Personally I always called them LEGO-Men as a kid.

Lego 'homemaker' sets, there, showcasing how the line's always had that split between boys and girls that's recently been brought into stark focus with those bloody awful pink Friends sets.

I mentioned earlier that myself and my girlfriend went into the Lego store in Watford on Sunday and we had a look at those Friends sets. She told me that she wished things like that had existed when she was a little girl, as she would've more likely have got into Lego. I'd always thought Lego was a pretty unisex invention before then.

I *may* have bought a pink Sleeping Beauty's bedroom Duplo set for my 3-year old daughter to open at Christmas whilst in there. I figure if it gets her into Lego, it's all good.

I *may* also be going back to buy that VW Camper Van for the missus, particularly now TK-421 has me worried it might be one of those limited availability jobbies that will vanish soon only to re-appear later at 5 times the price on eBay.

FUCK. I am sure I had those or a variant thereof in one of my sets. Maybe just the old lady. Something about them looks very familiar.

The design of them (taller, more detailed people) evolved into the characters you got with some Technic sets like the Polar Copter set I had:

Looking through old catalogues recently, I'd say there was pretty clear separation of gender for a long period of Lego's history, and the mini-figs really arrived as a means to populate what were effectively dollhouse sets. But sometime around 1979/1980, there was a definite period of relative neutrality in the bulk of Lego. Certainly, the town stuff wasn't particularly targeted and there was a massive range of sets, which should have appealed to anyone. (Indeed, as a kid, I recall friends—boys and girls alike—having various sets from that line.) However, at some point during the 1990s, town morphed into 'action playsets' somewhat geared towards boys, and now we're somewhat back where we started.

On the Friends stuff, I also find it a pity Lego decided to silo everything, through making the figures non-standard. I guess perhaps kids won't care, but it's a shame the company didn't have the ambition to simply widen the scope of an existing line (and, let's face it, there are fucking tons of them today) rather than creating a new one, with sets only semi-compatible with standard mini-figs and existing buildings and other bits.

They spent a lot of time and money figuring out why girls didn't seem to play with LEGO as much, even when given completely gender neutral pile o' bricks.

e.g. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/le ... 42011.html
http://aboutus.lego.com/en-gb/news-room ... tion-play/

It seems it not so much the pink, it's the avatar.

Not that I disagree that those sets are too pink and 'girly'. They should figure out a way to entice girls to play with lines similar to City and Creator. Maybe just include a few more colours and girl mini figures?

That Business Week article is fascinating. Boys focus on the exterior while girls the interior. I didn't look too closely at the Lego Friends sets last time I was in Toys R Us but I'm interested to examine them now.

Certainly thinking back now to my sets the means to build anything but the most crude representation of the interior of a building was impossible. Some buildings (especially those you might designs yourself) did not allow easy access to the inside (I think we can all remember shaking a vehicle or structure we'd had a Minifig go "inside") but even some sets like the police stations that folded out on hinges only had a crude interior with maybe a desk and chair.

I digress here into Majorette and their Majokit sets (I owned virtually all the sets shown here and many more) which were a French toy basically halfway between Playmobil and Lego. Building Majokit stuff was fun, a the buildings needed assembly, as did the sidewalks that formed bases for your little city. However, the interiors of all the buildings were empty. The police station, restaurant, all of them: wonderfully detailed outside, but nothing inside. No sergeant's desk or cell in the police station, no furnished rooms or even interior tables in hotel/restaurant. The chef had a hat and kerchief and utensils but no kitchen to cook in, all guests had to sit on the patio to be brought meals by the waiter who must have magic'd them into the platter he carried. Even at the time I thought this odd but I can now see it's because all the emphasis is on the exterior and what happens outside.

Consider: when you (assuming male) play the Sims, how long do you spend on the exterior of the house? You likely just slap on a texture, ensure there's enough windows to keep the light levels high and then go in to ensure there's a toilet, shower, fridge, sink, bed, oven and TV. Your partner (assuming female) will likely spend far longer agonizing over the decor, as well as the landscaping outside and accessories like matching lamps inside.

Or more simply: do you look inside the houses in Viva Piñata? I bet your missus does.

Let me know when you go!

Holy shit, someone else who had Majorkit toys! I had shitloads of that stuff! Back in the early to mid-80s, my dad used to organise regular booze cruises to Calais and Bologne for his work colleagues - sometimes he'd take me, sometimes not, but he'd always come back with Majorkit toys for me. I used to be crazy for Matchbox cars when I was little, so the Majorkit sets let me easily build little towns to 'drive' my toy cars around.

Edit: He used to book most of them through Townsend Thoresen, and as I used to go with him so often, I was a member of their 'Young Captains' club, where you'd get a little stamp in your membership passport everytime you went on one of their ferries. Get enough stamps and you'd get to spend a crossing on the bridge with the ship's captain. Sadly, they had that little accident off the coast of Zebrugge before I ever got enough stamps. Eight of the stamps I did have were from the Herald Of Free Enterprise though!


Most likely Friday night after work if I can get the 'rents to look after Zioette for me for a bit, if you're up for coming along? The missus will be out on Friday night, so it's ideal sneaky shopping time. Failing that, Sunday?

Technic was where it was at. Gears and crown wheels and stuff. Awesome. Had the huge Test Car as a kid.

Both are fine with me. Anna will be here from Saturday, so she'll be coming with us if we go Sunday. She likes Lego*, so it's all good.


*Or she will if she knows what's good for her.

No, really, I'm pretty sure she does.

Yes, they were superb. OUTRAGEOUSLY French, though, when I went over there some years later I was recognizing all the street furniture because of the Majokit stuff.

I had another car set (I forget the name of it) where you joined Hot Wheels-style tracks together with intersection, curve and other pieces along with 2D 'buildings' clipped to the sides. Majokit with the genius idea of the transparent road markings to hold the sidewalks the right distance apart was a fantastic idea. I had a massive fucking city by the end of it.



Very cool. Way back in the day I had a cockpit visit or two before they clamped down on that sort of thing. I have a picture of a very young me standing in the cockpit of a then-brand new B757.

I think I had that - the track was white and slightly bendy, right? And the intersections/curves were hard plastic and possibly green or orange. I think it was a Matchbox product.

That Majokit stuff looks like something First Born would flip for - it's a shame toys aren't as good these days. I mean, you can't even buy micromachines any more.

I think I had some of it, too.

What was it called? Google searching for "white car track" isn't helping.

Don't have a scooby, mate.

found an image of it (it's the white stuff with the stripes), but still can't find the name!

Ha! I was image searching, too!

I had that!

Don't know what it's called!

Malc

I had that stuff too!

Majorkit was miles better though.

Like Meaty says, it was Lego-like in that each set required assembly and you could mix and match parts to make whichever road layout you liked. Road markings like zebra crossings were done via a transparent plastic strip which fit into grooves underneath the pavement pieces, thus providing the perfect set width to your roads. Each pavement piece would have little holes in it for you to peg in roadside furniture, so along with my big Lego box, I also had a big Majorkit box with all my pavements, road markings, building bits and a whole load of peg-in road signs, phone boxes, post boxes, advertising billboards, lamp posts, etc. I used to fucking love all of that stuff.

As Meaty says, it was all very French though, all the roadside bits were little plastic models of the things you'd see on French streets.

Dog shit and condoms?

Flagpoles with white flags?

Cheese...they must have had cheese.

So, I'm packing up my house ( ) and find my Lego sets and instructions...

I have:
(I still have the box for this one).







Lots are in various build states. Set 8880 is complete and in perfect condition. The Millennium Falcon is a complete mess as my cat took a liking to it after I built it and decided to sit on it. Lots. The Star Destroyer is 100% complete. I built it once and completely dismantled it, then rebuilt it, gluing each piece as I went. It's been hung from my bedroom ceiling ever since. Until today!


This is still my most favourite Lego build ever.

re: Majokit: They had these weird triangular indentations in the sidewalks in some places, which I later discovered were to allow you to park at a 45 angle to the curb and that's where I should have been putting the parking meters. I also remember when we were in Loches and I realized what that little thing on the traffic light poles was... it's a mini traffic light so if you're stopped at the line you can see the traffic light. What a genius bit of toy design, by the way: you turned the top of the traffic light to rotate a tube with red, yellow and green sections to make the lights change!



Many more wonderful pictures here! I had that Parisian bus!

That is indeed the white car tracks I was referring to, I recognize some of the parts though I don't remember some being that dark a shade of gray. I will have to ask my mother if she remembers what it was called, though a nagging voice in my head (mom?) tells me it was 'Toytown' or something similar.

My friend used to have 8880 in his room. I really wanted it.

ALSO: I saw a fullers moving van around the corner. The only possible person it could be is you?!

Ha. It's not me as I'm only yet packing my house up. I still have nowhere to go.

Ask the LEGO shop if you can live there?

Knowing him, he's probably building a Lego house to live in as we speak.

I'm not sure I have enough Lego to build a house with, at least not big enough for me. I know I'm short, but still.

One day, though, I will have the time, space & money to do just that. It'll put James May's one to shame.

Lego Mecha-Bowser: