fabuland

LEGO® Animal Crossing Sets Revealed for March 2024 Release

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You’d think that someone with a track record for themes with a nostalgic call back – be it space, castle or time cruisers would be right on top of posting this sort of news. Unfortunately, I’ve had a couple of things to work through, that have occupied a chunk of my energy. That said, I was excited to see the latest Nintendo sets previewed last week. I could not help but feel that there is at least a little Fabuland Inspiration at play here. Perhaps I might consider the notion that Animal Crossing is to Fabuland what Friends is to Paradisa: There are certainly some similarities, but plenty of differences too.

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3660 LEGO Fabuland Fisherman’s Wharf [Retro Review]

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If you have been following the Rambling Brick for a while, you might know I have a penchant for nostalgia. If you have seen my Instagram stories looking at market finds, perhaps it becomes more obvious that 80s and 90s LEGO fascinates me now more than it did at the time. Perhaps I am seeking something more than a nostalgia fuelled dopamine kick: also looking for a feeling of relaxed contemplation while living in an increasingly complicated world. During that period of LEGO History, the typical LEGO sets maintained a degree of simplicity while still being able to produce some substantial models with relatively few elements.

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Classic Themes Build Challenge: Summary

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If you have been following us on instagram lately you may have encountered the 90th Aniversary Habitat/MOPs Classic Themes challenge that we have been running in conjunction with Jen @brickfambuilds. The challenge closed this week, and I’d encourage you to checkout the submissions over there following the tags #lego90habitats and #rambling90years in closer detail.

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Brickheadz Pets: Ginger Tabby, Cockatiel and Hamster: Hands-On Review

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There is something about Brickheadz. While they started off as a way to brick-build characters from popular culture, the theme had been showing signs of slowing down in recent years. This year, we have seen the format reborn with the introduction of the Pets sub-theme. We have seen some awesome animal format Brickheadz this year, and this latest wave has me quite excited with an overdose of cuteness. This wave consists of 3 sets: 40480 Ginger Tabby; 40481 Cockatiel and 40482 Hamster

Each of these sets comes with 2 figures: Adult and offspring. As well as a basket or nest for them to hang out in.

The sets are fairly similar in structure, but each feature various techniques that set them apart from the others. As such, we will wander through each set in turn, and then look at other directions that Brickheadz could potentially turn, away from ‘non human’ character representation.

So, read on for my review, and an idea of what might happen if you cross a nostalgic childhood theme with this character format.

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Rambling Brick Turns Four

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On January 30, 2016, the Rambling Brick was born. Four years ago, give or take a couple of hours. Please pardon a little indulgence as I take a quick look through some highlights of the last 12 months.

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Steamboat Willie Resilience Build; Nostalgia+ Program announced

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Today, we see the latest Ideas set 21317 Steamboat Willie hit the shelves. The LEGO® Ideas team have done a great job in preparing this set for release in just under six weeks since the set was announced to be entering the development phase – a new record for the crowd sourced platform. It turns out, however, that they have been hiding something from us…

Introducing the New Nostalgia+ Resilience Builds.

21317R: Steamboat Willie Resilience Build: designed to help developing builders to be satisfied with what they have achieved, and then pull the model apart and try something new – further fostering resilience through play.
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Ricky Raccoon reduced to his Elements: Feeling Fragmented in Fabuland

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In which Ricky raccoon goes to pieces, and we realise that these figures are a little more flexible than initially suspected…

Meet Ricky Raccoon. Like all Fabuland figures, Ricky has a few years behind him. He first appeared in 324 Ricky Raccoon and his Scooter way back in 1979 – forty years ago. The world population of Fabuland figures is not increasing (unless there is a super secret birthday treat coming our way).

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Feeling Forty and Fabulous in Fabuland [Review 341/132 Catherine Cat’s House and Morty Mouse]

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Let me tell you a story.

This year, amongst other things, we celebrate forty years since the release of the first wave of Fabuland sets. Directed towards children making the transition from DUPLO® to regular system bricks, Fabuland represented the company’s first foray into story telling, and multimedia marketing.

Fabuland started simply in the form of sets: a town, with anthropomorphic animal headed figures, living their lives together. We had the essential services represented: police, fire and hospital, and ice cream. In time it expanded to include school, cafe, local government, transportation and paparazzi.

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A Post About Aspiring Altered Alliterative Anthropomorphised Animal Annotation [Fabuland Names: Advertising Archive]

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Let me take you back to Fabuland.  First released in 1979, this was one of the first themes for which story telling was central. Fabuland was the first theme to be released in parallel with a series of books and was supported later by an animated television series.  Designed to fit into the range somewhere between Duplo and ‘normal’ LEGO Bricks,  Fabuland sets continued to be available until 1989.

With around one hundred sets produced over this time, there were over eighty different figures produced. The sets were designed to be able to be assembled by children as young as three, and as such developed larger elements compared standard building bricks during the course of their run.

 

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