I like to imagine that, in part, the Rambling Brick celebrates the joy that the LEGO Brick brings to our lives. In 2018, we celebrated a number of significant anniversaries, for significant aspects of our hobby – all of which have had a notable impact on the way we build and play with our LEGO elements.

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Last year, we celebrated:

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• 60 years of the LEGO Brick
• 40 years of the minifigure
• 40 years of the first evergreen themes: Town, Castle and Space
• 20 years of Mindstorms
• 10 years of LEGO Ideas and Architecture.

All of these have influenced us, and the way we interact with our LEGO Elements over the years. We also saw some less significant anniversaries in 2018, such as:

• 30 years of Helicopter Carriers;
• 15 years since the great colour change, with the introduction of Medium and Dark Stone Grey.

In 2019, what will we celebrate?

Looking back, we can see a number of anniversaries, with significant events occurring 20, 30 and 40 years ago:

• We start with 40 years since the arrival of LEGO Fabuland, featuring LEGO’s first named figures. Fabuland was the first theme that featured multimedia tie ins. The instruction books were even written as story books.
• In 1979, we also saw the first publication of the 6000 ideas books: inspiring 10 year olds with crazy stories of Bill and Mary, exploring the LEGO town, visiting outer space and returning through a time warp to a castle in the Middle Ages. This book arrived just in time for the Christmas Holidays, and has since inspired many builds, discussions and displays.
• Thirty years ago, we saw the introduction of LEGO Pirates. As a theme, pirates saw the start of a number of changes: we saw our first NAMED minifigures (Captain Red Beard and Governor Broadside), the first figures with faces printed beyond the classic smiley and the first female minifigure. So many innovations in such a short time.
• Fast forward to twenty years ago we saw the introduction of the first Licensed theme related to a movie property: LEGO Star Wars: the first of many such themes, and one that is still running after all this time.

These celebrations may seem a little disparate from each other, but there is a common thread between them: They all demonstrate ways in which LEGO bricks have been used to facilitate storytelling over the year.

And so the stage is set, and we have a theme for the year: – as well as our regular news, reviews and observations, the Rambling Brick will explore STORYTELLING in LEGO Sets – the good, the bad and the Bionicle. We will explore in-house and licensed stories, look for those being told within playthemes, and the way in which they are communicated to the broader public. Perhaps we will explore some fan theories along the way.

Come along, and Join the Journey: it could well be an interesting ride.

Play well.