30 Years of the Lego Minifig

clikit writes "Today, the Lego Minifig turns 30 years old. Gizmodo is running a video contest with Lego, giving away Galaxy Explorer or the Yellow Castle sets and other unopened vintage sets. They also have an exclusive video from the factory, showing how the minifig is built. Check it out ... finding out how the little guys are made will make you smile." Scientists estimate that 98% of the minifigs created in the last three decades have lost a hand in a tragic vacuum accident, been melted by a magnifying glass, or been eaten by your dog.

What about blasters?

Scientists estimate that 98% of the minifigs created in the last 3 decades have lost a hand in a tragic vacuum accident, been melted by a magnifying glass, or eaten by your dog.

They forgot "blown apart by blasters, whips, and batrangs".

Minifig = Lego People

For those who are curios about the arcane technical jargon in this post.

Re:Minifig = Lego People

And the reason for the name is because Lego also introduced larger figures [lugnet.com] at the same time (1974). This is actually the 30 year anniversary of articulated minifigs, as the originals didn't have movable arms or legs.

Re:Minifig = Lego People

For those who are curios

I think the minifigs themselves would be more accurately labeled as curios, not the people wondering about them

so what we're really celebrating

is 30 years of 2 am blood-curdling screams and blasphemous curses against our lord jesus when a parent happened to step on one of these things barefoot.

lego: just because you didnt get candy at the supermarket,
doesnt mean you cant punish mom for her insolence.

Gaaah!

is 30 years of 2 am blood-curdling screams and blasphemous curses against our lord jesus when a parent happened to step on one of these things barefoot.

You just gave me a 'Nam style flashback to pretty much every night this past week, and it wasn't fun. Good God, kid toys are awful. Stepping on Legos is bad - movement-sensitive toys that start a 15-minute sequence of annoying jabber because I walk within 5 feet of it when I get up to piss at night is the worst.

I swear to God, the next one of my in-laws that buys our kid one of those demonic talking toys, I'm buying their kids a drum set or electric guitar. This shit is war.

Re:Gaaah!

When my son was little, his uncle bought him the Sesame Street Atom. It was the atom shaped device that rested on a stand. The child would spin it to hear music, sounds, and the voices of various Sesame Street characters. So far, so good. It was actually kind of cool. But when our son was tucked in his crib and we were in bed, we would hear the Atom starting the music/sound/voice sequence from the other room. Apparently, it would rock with the slightest movement and set off the routine. And THERE WAS NO OFF BUTTON! We finally figured out that removing it from the stand at night stopped the noise. (Thankfully, it wasn't connected to the stand in any fashion.) Now that uncle has a little girl of his own. Revenge shall be ours! (Once we find a suitably annoying toy.)

Re:Gaaah!

All noisy battery-powered toys have off buttons - some of them just require hammers to find.

Re:Gaaah!

When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like an annoying piece of loud plastic shit.

Re:Gaaah!

Best toy revenge.

Being an EE I took apart some toys we bought for my brothers kids... I added an extra amplifier and upgraded the speaker to make it loud as hell.

I also disabled the on/off switch and added a tiny ballbearing/contact switch to make it trigger on movement.

Nothing like a furby that screams... MEE EEK OOKA LIKE YOU.... FURBY WANT BRAINS... and is triggered incredibly easy.

Bonus points if you install lithium longest life batteries and superglue the battery door shut.

Re:Gaaah!

Nah, drum sets are only annoying some of the time. Try this [thinkgeek.com]

Re:Gaaah!

My aunt got one of my cousins a toy that had a steering wheel and such, and a button that when you pressed it would say, in an Elmo voice, "Me drive car!"

A couple weeks later she comes home to an answering message that said "me drive car!" over and over again then my uncle saying "just wanted to know what we've been listening to for the last two weeks"

Re:Gaaah!

I swear to God, the next one of my in-laws that buys our kid one of those demonic talking toys, I'm buying their kids a drum set or electric guitar. This shit is war.

Just do what I do:

1) Grandparents give child noisy annoying toy.

2) Allow child to play with said toy until grandparents go home.

3) Take toy away from child and REMOVE BATTERIES.

4) Give toy back to child and watch him/her lose interest in toy very rapidly.

5) Put batteries back in toy and donate to Salvation Army (Alternately, if you have a gift receipt, just return it to the store.)

6) While out donating (or returning) annoying toy, buy child quiet, quality toy such as LEGOS, a ball, an "action figure", a dolly, a stuffed animal, ect.

7) Tell grandparents (later) the toy broke on the first day, and that next time they should get child something more durable and less gimmicky.

I did this for the first 5 years of each child. Eventually, the GP's got the message. Now my kids get fun and educational toys, or sports/activity related toys. For my son's 6th birthday just last month my parents gave him a 16 foot Trampoline with safety net. Both kids (6 and 7) love it and play on it every day. No annoying noisy crap toys sit around the house, and people know not to bother wasting money buying those toys for our kids.

Of course, they all think my kids are incredibly rough with their toys, but if it keeps the crap out of my home, it's worth a little bending of the truth. (actually, the gimmicky toys wouldn't last much more than a month anyway. I just shortcut the breakage process by ensuring they "break" on the first day.)

Re:so what we're really celebrating

I still remember being like 6 years old, and looking all over for a 6inch by 6inch (rather big, for legos) space ship i built out of legos. I looked for like 2 hours, until I had an idea. I asked my friend's (exceedingly obese) mother to stand up, and she stalwartly refused and told me to go run along and play. So I sulked for an hour, and eventually found a way to make her get up (don't remember, it was a LONG time ago).

Turns out, she just thought our couch was really uncomfortable. And, gave me a good reason to watch my weight all these years. Because, really, who wants to loose an entire spaceship in your gigantic ass?

Re:so what we're really celebrating

"Did you know I built a spaceship out of Legos that visited Uranus?"

Re:so what we're really celebrating

Oh I so wish I had moderator points for your wit.

I do.

Oh damn.

Re:so what we're really celebrating

"Because, really, who wants to loose an entire spaceship in your gigantic ass?"

I believe you know the real reason she didn't want to move, but just don't want to admit it to yourself.

Re:so what we're really celebrating

Two possible meanings:
1: She was embarrassed that she sat on it, and didn't want anyone to know.
2: She liked it.

Please, for the love of all things in my childhood, don't let it be #2!

dude, you cut off my hand!

Scientists estimate that 98% of the minifigs created in the last 3 decades have lost a hand in a tragic vacuum accident, been melted by a magnifying glass, or eaten by your dog.

Or how about a kid using a lighter to heat up a paperclip cherry-red so that he could reenact the ventilation shaft scene from Empire Strikes Back with his lego dudes?

Lego Bulletin Board?

Am I the only one who saw those Lego heads on that big board and thought "It'd be cool to have a Lego bulletin board in my office"? Put some big Lego sheets on the wall and then have special Lego bricks with clips to hold papers that connect to the wall sheets. Perhaps some Lego bricks with magnets embedded in them so you could stick magnetic items to part of the wall.

Lego People?

My generation didn't have any lego people, hell we only had rectangles. No curves. I remember "clear" legos being introduced and wanting them.

These days, the lego's are barely what I remember. Specially shaped parts, windshields, wheels!

We had to PRETEND our model cars with square wheels could role. Thee days, kids don't have to imagine anything!!!

Re:Lego People?

Ah, your generation had it easy.

In mine, we only got the plastic beads. We had to melt them using the frictions of our hands and sculpt them using only a fork and spoon.

Then we had to run outside finding roots, flowers and berries, to masticate and make colors so we could paint them.

Holy Crap, do I need more coffee

I read the title as 30 Years of the Lego Milfing

Boy was I surprised!

The faces...

Backinmyday, which was the Galaxy Explorer era, all the little figures had the same face. It was a 1970s-era smiley face. The only thing that changed was the headwear: space helmet, fireman hat, girl-hair.

Now, my son has space lego sets. The guys in the Mars Mission sets have decidedly bad-ass faces. Bad-ass facial hair with the bad-ass grimace of a real bad-ass.

Make no mistake about this: my 1970s astronauts did not lead pleasant lives. They fought brave battles, lost limbs, sometimes cracked (literally) under the pressure. Sometimes they even had that stupid smile wiped off their faces (again, literally).

Why do today's miniature astronauts wear their emotions on their sleeves? What happened to the steel resolve of yesteryear? Why not, when under alien attack, smile?

Kids these days.

Re:Lego Beer Song

I'd love to see someone top the infamous Lego Beer Song:

Done! [youtube.com] Now in exchange I demand you bring me a shrubbery!