LEGO Town

A Brief History of Crossing the Themes Part 2: Introducing Max Timebuster

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The Characters in LEGO DREAMZZz travel from Brooklyn, to Fantasy worlds, to Villages to castle, to worlds made entirely out of Candy. But this is not the first time that being able to travel between different LEGO Themes has been used as a framing device for a LEGO narrative. Last time, we looked at the 6000 IDEAs book and followed the adventures of Mary and Bill as they traveled from Town to Space to Castle.

Today, we meet Max Timebuster, a miscreant who jumps between pages of the LEGO Catalog, gathering bits and pieces as he goes.

Joins us for a healthy bit of 90s nostalgia as we continue our survey of ways that LEGO Media have encouraged creative play by having characters Cross the Themes

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A Brief History of Crossing the Themes: Part 1 The Adventures of Bill and Mary/6000 Ideas

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In the run-up to the latest installment of the LEGO DREAMZZz animated series dropping on September 6 2024, I thought we might start a small survey of other ways that books, comics and other media have been used to encourage builders to ‘Cross the Themes’

The Storytelling behind LEGO DREAMZZz provides an interesting mechanic that allows fantasy creations to exist in the otherwise mundane world of LEGO City. Many of the sets in the theme exploit this excuse to mash up fantastical ideas with the mundane. The choices provided for each model also make it a little easier for kids to come up with a different final toy in the set.

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Fire finds its future: History and 60414 Fire Station Review

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Regular readers would be aware that I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at the LEGO City Space sets this year – and they have brought just about everything you could ask for from a LEGO Space theme, with the possible exception of a revival of vintage colour schemes and monochromatic spacemen. I recently discovered some more LEGO CITY sets in the bottom of that shipping box – those from the Fire Brigade. It has been a few years since I looked at this CITY Subtheme. However, since LEGO City has undergone a design renaissance over the last couple of years, I was keen to see how things might have changed and approached it with an open mind. However, at the end of the day, my inner space fan has found myself wondering if it is hinting at something else…

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Whatever Happened To Classic Town IV: Welcome to LEGO City

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When Minifigures arrived on the scene in 1978, we were presented with three settings: Castle, Town and Space – The Past, The Present and The Future. Through the 1980s, these themes developed in their own ways, fairly independent of each other. During the 1990s, we saw the themes diversify in different ways: Space brought us a new hyperfluorescent faction each year; Castle changed a little less frequently, but introduced an increasing amount of magic. In the meantime, Town diversified: no longer the sole home of contemporary lifestyles, we saw different themes split off, containing subject material based on the contemporary real world: Divers, Paradisa, Outback, Race, Space Port, ResQ, Team Extreme, and Sports. The ‘core material’ – which we first saw back in 1978 – police, fire and construction – became increasingly juniorized. Having been further dumbed down for younger builders with the introduction of Jack Stone, and other 4Juniors sets, we saw a return to more mature material with LEGO World City.

However, both the 4Juniors and World City themes featured alleged models of modern vehicles that bore minimal resemblance to the real-world equivalent. After the LEGO Group’s financial crisis, a number of themes were discontinued, and the company set out to return to its core business. A revitalised town theme was introduced – but things were on their way to being a bit bigger; expectations were greater: Town just wasn’t going to cut it anymore: we were presented with LEGO City.

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Whatever Happened to Classic Town Part III: Into The Dark Ages

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Welcome back to our exploration of classic themes. When we last visited LEGO Town, it was in the process of becoming juniorized. The Classic Town that many had grown up with was becoming an almost cartoonlike parody of itself. From 1978 through to the early ’90s, Town had a certain degree of simplicity, but with style. It was always striving to be its best, held back by the limits of the system, rather than the ability of the builder.

During the ’90s we saw the diversification of design: elements were used across many themes, we saw a broadened colour palette, and as time went by, we saw more themes/subthemes depicting aspects of contemporary life: Paradisa, Divers, Race, Outback, Arctic, Spaceport, Extreme Team and Res-Q. Towards the end of this era, the traditional town sets – fire, police, construction – were labelled ‘city’ and we saw a juniorization of some of the sets; a reduction in complexity, and perhaps a slight step away from attempting a realistic appearance.

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Whatever Happened to Classic Town? Part 2: 1992-2000

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Welcome back to our occasional series examining ‘Whatever Happened to Classic LEGO Themes?’ Previously, we took a look at the Classic town sets from 1978-1990.

We examined the way that the theme was defined by certain colours, shapes, and how a gradually expanding parts palette resulted in an evolution in the design of sets during this period. In 1978, when the LEGOLAND branded sets were first released, along with LEGO Minifigure, this was the theme set in the present, the real world, containing subject matter that kids could relate to: LEGO Town was set in the contemporary world, bringing kids experiences they could understand.

In this article, we shall trace the development of these ’Real World’ LEGO sets during the ‘System Era.’ The ‘System’ label, with the red 2×4 in place of the arm on the letter ‘T,’ was used to distinguish the other brick systems used in LEGO construction toys at this time: DUPLO and TECHNIC. The mark appeared in the upper left corner of the front of LEGO Boxes, to the right of the LEGO logo. This label appeared on LEGO Sets released from 1992 to 1999.

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Builder’s Journeys: Take A Deep Dive with Jay [6559 Deep Sea Bounty]

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Welcome to another of our Builder’s Journeys, where members of the AFOL community present a set that has been influencial in them becoming the LEGO fan they are today. Today, Jay from Jay’s Brick Blog brings us the story of a special present from his childhood. Jay is also my co-host on the Extra Pieces podcast – He is a little younger than I am, growing up with a different era of sets to myself. As such, I love to hear his perspective on this sort of material.

Don’t forget, If you would like to share a story of a set that is special to you, drop me a line, or reach out on Facebook or Instagram.

But now, over to Jay…

One of the most influential LEGO sets I’ve owned as a child was 6559 Deep Sea Bounty – a classic Town set from 1997 that was part of the Divers sub-theme. 

Unlike some of the more classic and Vintage-era LEGO sets featured in previous Builder’s Journey entries, mine is particularly “young” but still very special for a boy that was 8 or 9 years old.

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Whatever happened to Classic Town? Part I: 1978-1990

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This year, I am looking at how LEGO Themes developed from those early days in 1978. Castle, Town and Space all developed in their own way, and they certainly don’t look the same today as they did back then! So as we take a ramble down Memory Lane, let’s look at how things were and how they have changed: scale, elements, colours and more.

For our first theme to track through time, I am looking at the theme that set out to represent the world around us: Classic Town. Over the years, this theme has evolved, with the LEGO City theme of today looking very different, yet incorporating similar subject matter. This investigation covers material released over more than 40 years. So it might take a little while. In this post, I shall cover LEGO Town from its origins in 1978 to 1990. Next time, we shall look at the System era (1992-1999). Finally, in the future, we will examine LEGO City and see how that theme compares with those in the early days. 

Along the way, we will examine the scale, building techniques, elements and more. There will be lots of pictures, sure to provoke a degree of nostalgia. I’d love to know which sets you feel fondly about and what you enjoyed about these themes.

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The Search For Bill and Mary I

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Long Term Character Development in LEGO Town and City.

In which we begin our ongoing search for Bill and Mary, by looking through LEGO Town and LEGO City for evidence of long form story telling, beyond the confines of a single set. If we can find it, then we are one step closer to demonstrating whether or not the protagonists of the 6000 Ideas Book could still exist in LEGO City today…

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Minifigure 40: LEGO® Town [Advertisement Archive]

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Untitled 7Forty years ago, we saw the change in LEGO® sets: the arrival of the minifigure.  Now we had articulated figures to bring our models to life: no need to remove the torso for our figures to sit down. As part of #minfigure40 I received access to a large number of media assets: today, I would like to look at some of the features of the advertisements in the LEGO Town/City series, one of the few themes to have been continuously available in some form or another for forty years!  The majority of these advertisements were placed in comics, or magazines featuring comic strip anthologies, and puzzles and kid’s news. They have been published in multiple markets – ands languages.  I have attempted to translate them as well as an online translation engine will allow.

The art style is typically similar to that seen in contemporary catalogs: certainly I suspect the early advertisements were shot at a similar time to the catalogs for that year.

1978: The Minifigure Arrives in Classic Town

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