30 Years of the Lego Minifig 167
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.
Lego Bulletin Board? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Minifig = Lego People (Score:4, Interesting)
My first minifigs were from the "Space" series in the mid-70s. Luckily, I didn't burn them in the back yard with kerosene or something, like I've seen other kids do. I've continued to buy a few sets a year since then. I'm not one of those guys who could build a piano out of his Lego and have enough left over for the stool, but I'm happy to hand down a nice collection to the next generation.
Lego Nation [deviantart.com]
Re:Lego People? (Score:3, Interesting)
Thee days, kids don't have to imagine anything!!!
I beg to differ. I grew up with these lego sets and to me, the coolest thing was not just assembling the set the way it was meant to be, but disassembling it and finding out how to create something completely unorthodox by mixing two, or three, or my entire collection of lego's.
I definately remember using my imagination when I built a fleet of small 4 pc. ships and one large, and elegant ship and battled them in a epic space battle all over the house against my brothers team:P
Aah... the fun!
Re:Gaaah! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Had Both of Them (Score:3, Interesting)
Not my first (that one goes to the Coast Guard Station one), but pretty darn close. Man that thing was cool!
The one thing that bothered me with the space minifigs is you could see their smiling faces with the helmets. But I knew (as only an elementary schooler can) that you couldn't see the astronauts faces through the visors. So I would turn their heads around so all you could see was the yellow through the helmet.
Galaxy Explorer - best Lego set ever (Score:1, Interesting)
I had the Galaxy Explorer. I had a few of the older Lego sets (like the moon lander with the big people, and a police motorcycle and a forklift with the little people that didn't have movable arms or legs), and I've picked up a few of the newer sets too, with all their pieces that can only ever have one use.
I consider the late 70s and early 80s to be the apex of Lego technology. Pretty much all the parts could be used anywhere, but there was just enough specialization to allow for some cool stuff.
I used to spend all day building a spaceship upwards of 3 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 2 feet tall, with separate compartments for crew and space infantry, small fighter craft, laser batteries covering every angle of approach, escape pods, missiles ready to launch . . . it was a combination battleship, spacecraft carrier, and troop carrier . . . and then I'd keep it around a week before I tore it apart and built an improved version. I think my final versions had about 6 fighters, and my chief complaint was that I never had enough Legos to make it REALLY good.
I also had it as an article of faith that Lego spaceships should be built tough enough to actually play with. True, I couldn't drop it without it falling apart (except for one small fighter I designed super-tough), but I could "fly" it with one hand for hours without incident. The new models they have out fall apart if you sneeze on them, with all sorts of parts held on by a single knob.
As for that one fighter - I used all white bricks, mounted it with skids, and on an icy day I would go out and practice skid landings on the ice - I would throw it in the direction it was to go, and watch it land. The "engine" would frequently fall off, but that was all. I think I still have that one intact somewhere. No way was I going to take apart a model that worked THAT well.
Finally, after building my awesome spaceship, I'd use whatever bricks I had left to build some crude adversary craft, which of course would get knocked into pieces in the ensuing, one-sided battles.