by Sarah Herman
The unforgettable Space sets from this period still delight adult fans who fondly remember their childhood introduction to LEGO through this distinctive theme. LEGO sold smiling astronaut minifigures who busied themselves on space missions for eleven years before the next stage in the theme’s evolution appeared at the end of the 1980s. Space was about to get all shook up with the emergence of good guys, bad guys, and very cold planets.
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Uranium Search Vehicle (6928), released in 1984. © Owen J. Weber
For a company that set out in 1958 to produce simple plastic bricks to entertain and encourage development in children, TLG was unrecognizable twenty years later. By 1979 they had established themselves firmly as a producer of popular toys for children of all ages: From DUPLO’s infant and preschool range celebrating its tenth year in production, to new jewelry sets for girls (see chapter 4) and the evolution of the Expert Builder sets from 1977 for advanced builders (covered later in this chapter), not to mention the Town and Space System sets that were growing in popularity. To an outsider it appeared there wasn’t a toy-buying demographic the LEGO Group wasn’t trying to cater to. But somehow they found a gap in the market. While the company encouraged parents to help their children make the transition from the large DUPLO bricks to smaller LEGO parts customer research showed that some children struggled to build the system sets—often palming off the building process to adults or older siblings—and would find it difficult to play, especially maneuvering the small minifigures without repeatedly breaking the models. While the Basic building sets, which had been a firm fixture since the late 1960s, offered children as young as three the opportunity to build simple models and use their imagination, there was no unified idea to make them marketable and attractive to young children.
FABULAND, first released in 1979, was the first LEGO theme to address this transitional group of LEGO fans. The sets, while including regular-size LEGO bricks, were assembled with the help of larger plastic parts, such as an entire house front with windows and door. LEGO bricks would contribute to the playability of the set, such as building the roofs, chimneys, or parts of small vehicles. The theme was also the first produced by LEGO to include specific characters. The peaceful community of FABULAND was made up of a group of anthropomorphized animals including dogs, cats, mice, sheep, pigs, monkeys, and even a lion. In some territories, the animals had names. Therefore, set 341 was known as Cathy Cat’s & Monty Mouse’s Cottage. These new minifigures were slightly larger than regular LEGO figures, and had looser joints and oversize heads, making it easier for small hands to grip and rotate them.
Despite their construction and color simplicity (with the exception of FABULAND figures, pieces were produced mainly in red, green, blue, and yellow), the sets were fairly detailed to keep small minds occupied. The earlier sets were largely based around building locations, and most included more than one character for imaginative play as well as sticker sheets to decorate the buildings. There was a FABULAND airport (in 1984, a year before the first LEGO Town airport appeared), petrol station, restaurant, bakery, and police/fire station. In 1983 small figurine sets were introduced, allowing children to add to their own FABULAND without their parents having to purchase large, more expensive sets. These were followed by vehicle-based sets in 1985 such as Police Car (3643) and Aeroplane (3625). Imaginative sets of the late 1980s such as Steamboat (3673) and two amusement park sets with Ferris wheels (3681 and 3683) turned FABULAND into a LEGO wonderland, focusing more on the fun side of life than the practicalities of policemen, hospitals, and airports more commonly associated with LEGO Town. FABULAND sets were also accompanied by little booklets which, as a 1985 catalog explained, introduced the inhabitants and the buildings of the FABULAND village. Parents were encouraged to use the booklet to inspire their children to tell their own stories.
FABULAND’s Wally Walrus (released in 1984) came with a tricycle, flask, and umbrella in set 3791. © Fatima Pires Santos
FABULAND sold well throughout the 1980s, but perhaps due to strong competition from the likes of Fisher Price’s Little People, Hasbro’s new Transformers toys, and the popular Japanese craze Sylvanian Families, a toy which took the BATR Toy of the Year Award three consecutive years in a row (1987–1989), it was not to last. In 1990 no new FABULAND sets were released, marking the end of the range. Despite not being one of LEGO’s longest-selling lines, FABULAND was a relative success and the first time LEGO stepped outside of minifigure territory to try and appeal to a marginal market. It would not be the last.
With FABULAND helping to bridge the gap between DUPLO and regular LEGO toys, DUPLO was being developed to bring children into the world of studs and tubes from the earliest age possible. The year 1983 was big for DUPLO and saw the range of toys expand to proudly take up six pages in what was named the “LEGO and DUPLO Catalogue.” By this time, DUPLO had developed into a preschool range, providing a variety of toys suitable for up to five-year-olds. Despite targeting children as young as one in previous years, market research had found that the average age for children to receive their first DUPLO toy was two years old. Seeing a large portion of the infant toy market going untapped, the LEGO Group’s research and development team, Futura, set about designing a range of products suitable for newborns and up. Research began in 1979, four years before the range would make it into the catalog. Its secret code name was “Project Baby.” In his book, The World of LEGO Toys, Henry Wiencek describes how a trip to the British Museum inspired the research team. Having seen some of the world’s oldest baby rattles on display, DUPLO designers knew that they wouldn’t be able to invent a new product better suited to the mind and dexterity of a baby than the rattle, so rather than try and beat it, they decided to work with it to make the best DUPLO rattles they could. After various prototypes were made to appeal to babies at different stages of development, focus groups were held with mothers who ultimately informed some of the basic principles of the finished rattles. They were the ones to suggest handles, recommend reducing the size and weight of the rattles, and to make sure they could not be pulled apart, something the initial prototypes were capable of doing. While designers realized after the focus groups that the DUPLO rattles couldn’t have the same construction play value of other DUPLO toys, they were built with studs at the top and holes at the bottom so that they could be integrated into the DUPLO building system when the child was older. The most well-known and well-received rattle from this range was the Duck Rattle-Teether. With its moving eyes, rotating central ball, and two handles, it proved a great success, and was sold virtually unchanged from 1983 to 1996.
This 1988 DUPLO Circus Caravan set (in the foreground) included the new articulated DUPLO figures, a dog (not pictured), and an elephant. © Pieter Stok
The introduction of DUPLO figures with moving arms and legs, and push-trains with track pieces, as well as the introduction of dollhouse-themed play sets, enhanced DUPLO toys’ appeal to the older end of the infant market. Sets such as Crane Set (2646), Play Farm (2655), and Play House (2770) show how, as much attention to detail was being paid to these products as to their System big brothers. Their constructional ability was carefully matched to the age range of children playing with them—all plastic furniture and accessories could be connected to something or have something connected to them, as well as being a non-intimidating, standalone toy. The range continued to develop and expand throughout the 1980s, adding new, innovative products for babies, toddlers, and young children.
It would be fair to say that the LEGO Group was covering all its bases: there should not have been a child out there, whatever age, who wasn’t playing with some type of LEGO. A 1980 survey conducted revealed that 70 percent of all Western European families with kids under the age of fourteen owned LEGO Bricks, so the company was clearly doing something right. But it was those older children—the nine and up age group—the ones enticed by video games, 1980s action movie heroes, and Star Wars figures who LEGO wanted to keep interested into their early teen
s.
The Technic story begins in 1962 with the birth of the LEGO wheel. When the initial Small Wheels (400) and Large Wheels (401) were available to buy, children, for the first time, were able to build LEGO cars, trucks, and buses with real working wheels. LEGO bricks were finally in motion. Once the wheels were rolling, the LEGO Group moved on to design cog-style wheels and basic motors. These were initially sold by U.S. LEGO licensee Samsonite (a later version was sold in Europe) and were large by today’s Technic standards. The round plates, with studs and tubes, would turn when connected to a wheel or a turntable. The gears were available in different sizes and colors and were designed to develop a child’s interest in basic engineering principles. These first-generation gears were never sold in Europe, where LEGO started selling a new, updated version of the gear wheels. To provide more flexibility, gears were no longer attached using the stud-and-tube method, but rather a cross-shaped axle that the gear would fit over, as well as bearings and connectors to fit the axle into brick tubes.
This idea of “engineering” toys to produce a plaything that has working parts was the birth of the Technic range, which first emerged as a separate entity to the LEGO System in 1977 with the “Technical” sets. Early advertising declared they were “as technical as the real thing,” and while this may not be entirely true—the models included helicopters, tractors, and fork-lift trucks—the design and appeal of the sets were much more mature than the LEGO System sets, at the time depicting Western scenes and moon landings. New bricks, beams, and connecting parts, produced predominantly in red, yellow, gray, and black, were inspired by and compatible with regular LEGO bricks but had the ability to connect in different ways. They made up the original lineup of four model sets, the largest of which was a 601-piece Auto-Chassis (853), and two supplementary sets, which included spare motors, pulleys, axles, bricks, and gears—many of which were new parts, such as the connector pegs, piston rods, and new Technic beam.
A year later the United States began selling the same products under the name “Expert Builder Sets”—”for experienced LEGO builders,” and while these early sets still relied heavily on traditional LEGO parts, with each year designers developed new Technic components to increase building ability and minimize the space required for gears and motors. In 1980 the first Expert Builder Idea Book showed how much could be done with the parts already produced, and included instructions for mechanical dogs, a clock face, and a steam shovel. A year later a second generation of models was released. A second helicopter, tractor, and auto-chassis meant there wasn’t much variety from the original 1977 models—these vehicles became synonymous with Technic, updated examples of which can still be found in the 2010 range.
In 1982, when Technic was officially named “Technic” in Europe (U.S. sets would not change from “Expert Builder” until 1986), the name first appeared on three sets called Universal Boxes (8030, 8050, and 8090). While the 1980s saw LEGO System sets becoming heavily themed, these Universal Boxes pushed builders to produce one of a number of sets, rather than trying to streamline their creativity. This was also the year a key Technic element was introduced—the friction connector—allowing two beams to be joined together in a secure connection, resulting in many of the frame-structures associated with Technic ever since. As the 1980s progressed, sets included more beams and less LEGO bricks—this move was especially evident in the 1984 Pneumatic series where sets such as the Fork Truck (8843) and Excavator (8851) included a pneumatic pump and cylinder and rubber tubing circuit system. By connecting the circuit and working the pump, builders could cause the vehicles to perform specific actions. In a market becoming increasingly saturated with licensed toys and electronics, the LEGO Group spent some of the decade trying to establish what kind of toy Technic was, and who it should appeal to. This can be seen with toys like 1987’s Robot (8852)—a truck that transformed into a yellow and gray droid—quite obviously influenced by Hasbro’s hugely successful Transformers line.
LEGO FOR ADULTS
Of course, Technic wasn’t technically the first time the LEGO Group had produced a line geared toward the older market. In the 1960s, when Godtfred wanted to produce a scale model of a house he was designing, he realized LEGO bricks were not the right size to match other architectural model materials, so he simply had a new brick designed. These new bricks were 5/8 the size of regular LEGO bricks and formed the basis for a new building system Godtfred marketed under his new company Modulex. While the system was never a great success with architects, industrial planners found it useful and, in 1966, the product was available as the Modulex Planning System. Modulex would go on to produce interior signage systems and merge with an existing international signage company. Concurrently, the LEGO Group was developing three “architectural” sets targeting adults. The three sets included bricks and plates, but no special elements, meaning scale-model hobbyists were restricted in the style of buildings they could create. The range was not a success and was discontinued in 1965.
This U.S. Technic Universal Box (8020) released in 1984, still had the “Expert Builder” name—this wouldn’t change in the United States until 1986. © Jordan Schwartz
The release of eight new sets in 1986 was the largest release in the Technic line at that point, and that was in part due to the arrival of the first Technic “theme.” The Arctic Action series (8620, 8640, 8660, and 8680), while not straying far from the vehicle designs of the non-themed sets—they included a scooter, a helicopter, and a rescue unit comprising of a six-wheeled off-road car and a small snow plough—marked a significant move on Technic’s part to make toys (rather than models) that children would want to play with. By creating a world and scenario as well as articulated figures to inhabit it, the system had moved from simply being about “expert builders” creating clever models toward the playability factor more commonly associated with LEGO toys. The set that stood out most from the group was Arctic Rescue Base (8680)—despite having wheels, and instructions to turn it into a helicopter transporter, this was the first building structure set to be produced using Technic parts.
While the movable Technic figures first included in the Arctic Action sets may not bear much resemblance to the LEGO minifigures fans had been introduced to eight years previously, the iconic yellow used for heads and the C-shaped hands made them unmistakable as TLG merchandise. Unlike their stockier predecessors, the Technic figures had more points of articulation (head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles) and with sculpted noses, ears, and even eyebrows, these folk were clearly the inhabitants of a far more technical world. For those keen to bring their older models to life, there were two sets released, each just including three Technic figures. Set 8712 included a racing driver and mechanic with helmets—a third figure with red trousers had the common black bowl-cut hairpiece. The boys got a revamp in 1993 with set 8714 with three racing driver outfits, matching helmets, a pair of shades, and two mustaches!
This 1988 Prop Plane (8855) originally included one Technic figure pilot dressed in red and blue with a white safety helmet. © Paul Tichonczuk
Despite attempting to appeal to younger builders with the inclusion of these figures, the Technic models that followed continued to get more realistic and intricate. Even the 1988 box revamp, which saw the models posed in front of technical CAD drawings, played up the more mature construction values of the product over playability. While the LEGO Group would continue to include the figures in some sets throughout most of the 1990s, unlike LEGO minifigures they were not featured prominently on packaging or in promotional material. Instead the design and technical capabilities of the models were what drove their popularity and fueled sales. For ten years, Technic would continue relatively unchanged in appearance and intent—the LEGO building system for experts had finally found its place and it wasn’t going anywhere. Popular sets from this period included 1989’s Backhoe Grader (8862),—the back of which could be operated by three separate pneumatic cylinders; the Air Tech Claw Rig (8868) with 9 volt motori
zed pneumatic crane, and the mighty, 1425-piece Super Car (8880) that required a fifty-page instruction booklet to put together. The end of the 1980s saw the introduction of a 4.5 volt motorized set (8054), which was swiftly replaced the following year by the 9 volt Electric system (8720). This change in LEGO toys’ electronics was the first since the 12 volt Trains were introduced in 1969, and soon filtered out from Technic sets across all of LEGO’s electrical output. There were new flexible cables, the first Technic ship (8839), as well as various modifications to cables, hinges, gears, pneumatic parts, a new electronic control center (8485), and many new electronic elements. While future Technic sets would continue to push children to develop more advanced models, the 1990s would see the LEGO Group take the range down a more “playable” path to make the toys more appealing to a younger audience and some new technological advancements that would introduce Technic to a whole new generation of builders.
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The same year the Technic name first appeared on toy shop shelves, the LEGO Group reached another milestone. Fifty years had passed since Ole Kirk Christiansen first started producing toys in his Billund workshop. A toy company that had started out of necessity for a struggling carpentry business was now celebrating its golden anniversary. And although so much had changed in that time, the true spirit of Ole Kirk’s original toys lived on in the 1980s’ bright, plastic designs the company was now producing. Where Ole Kirk had taken risks, embracing new plastic technology when the European market was so against it, the LEGO Group was now following suit with the introduction of new designs, new building systems, and new technology with the introduction of Light & Sound toys. Light & Sound was an electric system through which LED lights and sound bricks were introduced to regular System models. The light bricks were capable of carrying different colored globes and could be set to flashing or continuous mode depending on their usage. There were two types of sound bricks that produced siren sounds—one more suited to Town sets and another to Space. Light & Sound technology was used through the 1980s and early 1990s.
