A Million Little Bricks

by Sarah Herman

  In 1979 the “Scala” name appeared for the first time on a LEGO product and marked the first time the LEGO Group intentionally marketed a product line specifically toward girls. These Scala jewelry sets consisted of 2 × 2 plates with hinges, which could be linked together to make a bracelet or necklace, and 2 × 2 colored tiles with numbers, patterns, and pictures on to decorate the jewelry. In 1980 these were followed by Scala rings and a mirror. But the products were not a big success and were discontinued in 1981.

  A female minifigure tends to her horse at Rolling Acres Ranch (6419), released in 1992. © Streetfly JZ

  When the Scala jewelry line failed to take off, TLG took its time to return to gender-specific toys for girls. In 1992 they made a conscious attempt to interest more girls in the LEGO System with the release of LEGO Town sub-theme Paradisa. The theme centered around a cosmopolitan beach-side community where minifigures sipped smoothies at the Sand Dollar Café, went windsurfing or horse riding, and cooled off at the pool. Five sets tested the tropical waters and they included the Seaside Cabana (6401), which came complete with the first LEGO windsurfer; Poolside Paradise (6416), with its unusual swimming pool baseplate and pink spiral staircase; Sunset Stables (6405); and the more impressive Rolling Acres Ranch (6419)—the largest Paradisa set ever produced with 366 pieces. These 1992 sets were fairly successful for the LEGO Group, and were kept in production for four years, the same sales period allocated to Space Police, Pirate, and Technic sets released that year. TV commercials for the new line didn’t involve much building and focused on the play appeal of the sets as girls maneuvered the horses and minifigures around this delightful holiday village to the sound of a sing-songy jingle. Although no LEGO set is “just for girls” or “just for boys,” one thing’s for sure—you never saw Zack the LEGO Maniac playing with Paradisa.

  The Sand Dollar Café (6411), released in 1992. © StreetFly JZ

  Paradisa was the first System theme to feature light and dark pink plates, and other pink pieces and a new light green. With male minifigures outnumbering females by quite a lot, Paradisa attempted to redress the balance for the girls. Each set included a female figure for every male, and introduced new hair ponytail pieces, new female faces, and even a strapless top. Two Paradisa sets from 1996 are sought after because they include a small brown pony exclusive to this line. Between 1992 and 1997, TLG produced eighteen Paradisa sets, and despite never having revisited the line, elements of the Paradisa world and its influence can be seen in later Town sets.

  A new brand targeting girls joined the LEGO System ranks alongside Paradisa in 1994. Belville sets were made up of regular LEGO bricks, as well as some decorative parts made specifically for the Belville range. For example, the Pretty Wishes Playhouse (5890) included a parrot and palm tree, more commonly associated with the Pirate theme, as well as a DUPLO crib, and Belville pink wall lattice pieces. The Belville figures were larger than minifigures and articulated at the head (both vertically and horizontally), shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, knees, and ankles.

  The largest Paradisa set—Rolling Acres Ranch (6419)—came with three LEGO horses. © StreetFly JZ

  The first Belville sets included the playhouse, a playpark, pony stables, and Love ’N Lullabies (5860)—a mother and baby nursery set that ran for seven years, far longer than any of the other Belville sets. A few new sets trickled out every year including the horse-and pony-related sets of 1997, including Jennifer’s Foal (5822)—a Belville figure with a pony and a few accessories, with no real construction element—and 1998’s beach-themed sets. Despite the dolls themselves, and the packaging, there wasn’t much to distinguish Belville sets from the 1997 re-launched Scala (see below), but in 1999 new Belville sets were all set in a fairytale fantasy. The Belville logo remained the same, but the word “System” was dropped from the packaging, which was adorned with fairies and stars, making the sets stand apart from Scala. Characters Princess Rosaline and Prince Justin had a royal coach (5827), stables (5807), and an enchanted palace (5808), which kept them safe from a witch with the help of a maid, a fairy, and presumably Justin’s father, old King Alfred. Some of the fairytale sets were accompanied with storybooks, such as 2001’s Enchanted Garden (5834), which was packaged with three books including The Adventures of the Little Princesses and a fabric play mat.

  The sets released in 2002 are known to LEGO collectors as Belville: Cold North, because of the icy mountains depicted on the boxes. This range included new characters, such as Wicked Madam Frost, Vanilla, and Queen Rose. The winter wonderland was replaced by a desert theme in 2003, often referred to as “Golden Palace” because of the name of the range’s largest set; and a flower fairies collection. These sets were repackaged to blend in more with the other LEGO sets, and focused more on the bricks: One small set, Golden Land (5872) did not include any doll figures, just a small teddy bear, a parrot, and LEGO elements. The 2004 Belville sets saw a return to an everyday theme sans fairies and princesses. There was an update of the familiar riding school (5941), but less of a focus on domesticity than with earlier Belville sets—in their place, a recording studio (5942), presumably to tie in with the popularity of TV singing talent shows and pop music targeted toward younger children, as well as an interior designer set (5943).

  In 2005 Belville was launched once again into the world of fantasy with five fairytale-based sets called Belville: Hans Christian Andersen; marking the bicentenary of the Danish author’s birth, each set was based on one of his well known fairytales: The Mermaid Castle, Snow Queen, The Tinderbox, The Princess and the Pea and Thumbelina. These were shortly followed by a new range of Belville: Fairytales sets such as Ultimate Princesses (7578) and Winter Wonder Palace (7577).

  The Scala name stayed off toyshop shelves for sixteen years, until LEGO products gave the logo the pink treatment and released ten new doll and dollhouse sets in 1997. Perhaps in an effort to compete with the steam-rolling success of Barbie throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s—Mattel’s Barbie won Doll of the Year (1994), Girls Toy of the Year (1995), and Toy of the Year (1996) at the British Toy Retailer’s Association Awards—these sets featured very little in the way of recognizable LEGO elements. The dolls themselves were not minifigures, but instead larger plastic dolls with “real” hair, natural skin tones, and material clothes. The more basic playsets, such as Beauty Studio (3200) and Laundry Room (3202), came complete with appropriate plastic molded accessories (hairdryers, hand mirrors, coat hangers, and cosmetic bottles), but there was no traditional LEGO construction involved. Unlike Barbie, who was often unable to stand unaided, Scala dolls had their own unique baseplates they could be connected to, and it was possible to clip various accessories onto their hands. For larger sets, including the Dream Cottage (3270), some construction was required, but the Scala walls and roof came as larger complete pieces, which simply had to be connected up, using the specially designed Scala flower studs. Competing with nearly forty years of Barbie brand recognition saw the 1997 Scala line move away from all things pink with a new primary colored logo, and simpler packaging in 1998. TLG continued to produce the plastic Barbie-esque dolls (available for the first time individually, without accessories) and introduced clothing sets to accompany them. The playsets themselves were inviting with lots of new accessories. Sets such as Spicy Kitchen (3115) and Happy Birthday (3108) really illustrate the creative lengths LEGO designers went to to capture little girls’ imaginations, although none of these sets were available for longer than two years.

  Despite announcing its first deficit in 1998, as the new millennium approached the LEGO Group pushed ahead with its rebranded Scala products, issuing more clothes for the dolls, and accessories—it also used its tried-and-tested horse/stables theme on Scala with the release of Ridin’ Camp Out (3134), which came with a horse and tent and Wilderness Waterstop (3144), both of which were available for three years. Seemingly having survived the hardest financial years in the LEGO Group’s recent history, no new Scala products have been produced since 2001. The lin
e was cancelled in 2002.

  Scala jewelry may have been one of TLG’s less successful ventures but this didn’t stop the company from coming up with a more creative jewelry product in 2003. LEGO CLIKITS was the result of these efforts. Released predominantly in Europe, these craft-related kits were available in three different colors (pink, blue, and orange) and each color was represented by a different animated girl character. Kits provided craft materials to make jewelry or decorate photo frames, bags, or cushions. One of the largest CLIKIT sets was the 2004 special Holiday Decoration Kit, consisting of 283 elements to make tree decorations and holiday cards. The year 2006 saw the end of CLIKITS with the last six sets released.

  In 2008 TLG put out four non-fantasy Belville playsets. Holding firm to the success of horse-riding related products, one of them was set 7585, Belville Horse Stable. As of 2010, Belville was the only line specifically targeting girls that LEGO produced, with the exception of some preschool products.

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  In 1986 Godtfred Kirk Christiansen resigned as chairman of LEGO System A/S and LEGO Overseas, and his son Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, whose smiling face had appeared on many a Town Plan set as a child, took over. By 1990 the LEGO Group was one of the world’s ten largest toy manufacturers with 7,500 employees, five factories, 10,000 molding machines, and a popular theme park to its name. Despite the success of the previous decade, TLG was not resting on its LEGO bricks—far from it—as the company saw this position and success as an opportunity to push its toy line even further, expanding the LEGO System but also introducing new lines targeting girls, developing programmable bricks, and providing stimulating toys for all age groups.

  The same year Kjeld took the LEGO reins, fans saw the introduction of some of TLG’s most accurate models yet. While Technic sets strived for engineering accuracy, the new Model Team sets were all about aesthetic precision. The first three sets, released in 1986, included a yellow 4 × 4 off-road vehicle (5510), a red Formula 1 racing car (5540), and a lorry (5580). Even the smallest set was made up of 288 pieces and the constructed toys were the most realistic vehicles TLG had produced. After this initial launch, one or two Model Team sets were released almost every year throughout the 1990s. They became known for their attention to detail as well as their impressive part counts—at one point Model Team set 5571, also known as Giant Truck, was the largest LEGO set ever with 1,757 pieces. Targeted toward keen builders, rather than children who wanted to play, the sets were fairly expensive but represented good value for money because of the pennies-to-parts ratio. They were also versatile, with instructions included to build more than one model—for example, 1995’s 5541 could be built as a Hot Rod or a Roadster. This set was re-released in 2004 as part of the LEGO Legends series.

  The 1990s also gave the LEGO Group the chance to reassess the playability of the Technic line where it made some radical changes to keep toys relevant and exciting to the target market of young teenagers. The first half of the decade saw the introduction to Technic of the new 9 volt electric system—the first new electric development since the 12 volt Train system in 1969—the Flex-system that allowed force to be transmitted where bulkier gears and cross axles could not, and 1994’s Super Car (8880)—one of the most complex Technic sets every produced. But things were about to get a bit less technical. The year 1995 saw the release of a new gear box to simplify gear assembly for younger builders, and complex sets such as the 1995 Pneumatic Crane Truck (8460) and 1996 Space Shuttle (8480), while considered high points of Technic design especially by the older Technic community, were gradually phased out to make way for toys children could build more easily. This was achieved at first through the introduction of models such as 1996 set Convertibles (8244) that relied heavily on the Modul System. This set instructed children to build nine models, the base of each made up primarily of 2 × 4 LEGO bricks that had connectors at each end to help them snap together with Technic parts including the new rounded, studless beam created the models’ frames. Fiber-optic elements were also introduced into some sets, adding aesthetic qualities to the vehicles more commonly associated with LEGO sets than Technic.

  The writing obscured by a price label on this 1990 Technic helicopter explains how the set can be motorized using the new 9-volt electrical system available as set 8720. © Jordan Schwartz

  In 1997 a complete overhaul of Technic’s box design marked the division of the system, with two separate types of models emerging. The CAD drawings that had previously appeared on the boxes of all Technic sets were replaced, on the whole, by graphical environments for the vehicles, e.g., a race track for Turbo 1 (8216) and a landing strip for VTOL (8222). These small-and medium-size vehicles continued along the modular theme, and were fairly easy to build, and while there were functional components, such as Bungee Blaster’s (8205) pull-back-and-go elastic cord fixing, the real mechanics of Technic sets were reserved for larger, meatier builds such as Pneumatic Front-End Loader (8459) and 1998’s Tow Truck (8462). The year 1997 was also when the first programmable brick appeared in a Technic set with the Code Pilot Barcode Multi set (8479). MINDSTORMS—LEGO’s robotic engineering line—was quick to follow, but never included the Technic name despite models being made largely from Technic parts.

  1997’s Future Car (8437) included Flex-system cables and hoses, and was one of the last Technic sets to use this packaging design. © Jordan Schwartz

  This gap between easy and advanced builds was widened with the introduction of Technic Competition toys in 1998, where two vehicles or machines (usually with action-figure riders) were built and then pitted against each other in a duel. The toys either fired projectiles, as with Blue Thunder Versus The Sting (8233) or were weapons in themselves as with the trigger-activated Cyber Strikers (8257).

  Between 1999 and 2000, over sixty new sets were released, a figure not repeated by Technic since. A quick glance at the products released during this period shows how TLG was determined to provide Technic-style building toys to appeal not only to expert builders, but to children as young as seven and everyone in between. There were small sets averaging thirty pieces like Bike Blaster (1259) and Piston Car (1260), multi-build, midsize sets like Fire Helicopter (8253) and the fifth addition to the Technic auto-chassis collection—Super Street Sensation (8448)—which, although not as complex as its predecessors, required builders to piece together nearly 1,500 parts.

  In addition to these more traditional Technic toys and the Competition range, LEGO also introduced Technic Slizer—a series of elemental robots made from some Technic pieces, but other parts such as their head pieces and a specially designed throwing arm were not really compatible with other Technic sets. These were followed with a similar product called RoboRiders in 2000. Both Slizer and RoboRiders are covered in more detail in Chapter 5.

  MINDSTORMS: RCX

  The year 1998 was a significant one for the LEGO Group. Not only did it mark forty years since the birth of the LEGO System, but it was a year of new product lines such as Aquazone’s Hydronauts and Stingrays, Adventurers, a rebranded Scala line, and even new building systems such as Znap—a flexible plastic connecting toy similar to the American brand K’Nex. Unfortunately, this was the year TLG reported its first deficit of $24.5 million, and as a result many of these new lines did not survive long. There was one new product, however, that, despite making its debut on the eve of some of the LEGO Group’s toughest financial years, created a following and carved out an educational niche unrivaled by any other LEGO product. LEGO MINDSTORMS was named after Seymour Papert’s 1980 book MINDSTORMS: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas in which the author proposes the benefits of a computer-based learning environment for children. Not only has MINDSTORMS weathered the financial tempest of the early part of this century, but it has filtered into school and extracurricular learning environments around the world.

  The life of MINDSTORMS’ original programmable brick started some years earlier in 1984, when TLG began providing funding for research at the Media Lab at the Massachuse
tts Institute of Technology (MIT). Part of this partnered research included the development of a programmable interface to control LEGO robots. The technology developed at MIT was then used by the LEGO Group to produce a commercially viable product, known as RCX. While TLG had dabbled in electronic products with LEGO Trains and Light & Sound toys, this was by far the most technologically complex product they had ever produced: A plastic casing (covered in LEGO studs) with LCD panel, function buttons, and six electrical connections (three output motors and three input sensors) housed a battery space, microprocessor, and the brick’s 32K of memory. A program to control the robot’s behavior was created by the user on a computer using a programming language (although TLG provided software with its MINDSTORMS products, many third-party languages were developed and used to similar effect) and uploaded using infrared technology.

  The first MINDSTORMS product was 1998’s Robotics Invention System or RIS (9719), now known as version 1.0. This kit contained all the components required to build and program a robot including the RCX, the infrared transmitter, two touch sensors, a light sensor, two motors, various cables, a manual, and software for your own computer (the essential component not included in the set!). On Jim Hughes’s thorough Technic history website, Technica, he says that while other themes were becoming more character-focused and sets more elaborate, the RIS manual provided suggestions and parts of models, leaving the builder free to create and construct his own individual robot—similar to the earlier LEGO sets of the fifties, sixties, and seventies.