Let's reminisce about Lego

[DeeBye]

My son made a Megabloks creation today. He says it's a castle.

Front view


Top view (ignore my ugly bare feet)


I'm no expert, but I do believe that this is the greatest castle model I have ever seen. I might be a wee bit biased however.

[Mithrandir]

My brother and I had our fair share of Legos, but I was never that big a fan of them. We had a huge tub of them, but that was mostly because they seemed to be the default gifts given to children in my extended family during major holidays (for whatever reason). When they were finally sold en masse at a garage sale when I was 10 or so, they were not missed that much.

I certainly did indeed enjoy creating and building stuff of course, but the medium through which that desire flowed changed often. Rocks, dirt, sand, water, trees, snow, etc. are all cheap whereas Legos are quite expensive. As I am browsing through lego.com right now I have to ask myself - "Who the heck is paying $30-$100 for a set of molded plastic blocks with grooves?" The prices seem to have only gone up since I was a kid. Of course back then I didn't understand the various pricing dynamics, but I certainly *did* understand when my parents said that I could have either this one Lego set or two to three of those toys over there. The price for these Legos seriously absolutely boggles my mind.


On a slight tangent, I'd like to flesh out the topic of childhod toys in general. Looking back on my own childhood, I am just kicking myself for some of the horrendous, horrendous money sinks to which I subjected my parents. Are these expensive toys that seem to be perpetuated throughout our society really so necessary to a child's social and psychological development that they become worth the cost? Although having children of my own is still far off in the future (hopefully), I can't help but think that I would basically refuse to buy any sort of toy that seemed as though it could not withstand the test of time (whether it was a fad, or fragile, or whatever). Then again, a large aspect of the toy-giving aspect from my parents poont of view was that it made them happy to see us happy, so I'm sure my perspective on this matter will change once I am no longer an arrogant college student and have become a parent myself. But nonetheless, it boggles my mind to think of what a tremendous waste of money some of that crap was and what could have been done with the money instead (we were/are hardly bad off, but wasting money is still wasting money as far as I'm concerned).

[Chaerophon]

HOLY CRAP!!  That is exactly it!  And my brother had the red "flying saucer" in the post directly below it!  Heh, damn the thing is still cool as all hell ^_^
[right][snapback]71345[/snapback][/right]

Believe it or not, my brother had that one, too. :D

[Griselda]

I don't know. I think that in many cases toys have become so cheap that they're pretty much disposable. People can buy their kids huge mounds of toys at low prices, and many kids have so many cheap bits of plastic lying around that there really is no need for them to take care of any one toy particularly well (or explore the toys to the point where there's any degree of depth in their play).

When today's kids grows up, for example, I don't think that nearly as many of them will remember which particular model of anything they played with. My memory of toys from my childhood is biased (of course), but I'm pretty sure that today there's a greater variety of toys available, but a smaller degree of real differences. Even the "nostalgia" toys that have been re-released (My little pony, care bears, strawberry shortcake) have been expanded into huge product lines these days. Who cares what model you have any more? Just get it all, mom, and by the way can I have a bigger room to keep it all in?

Legos at least provide some degree of problem solving, creativity, and thinking skills. We buy plenty of legos here, although I'll admit that Mr. Gris probably enjoys them the most (we have the same Vader and R2D2, btw, but they were taken apart when we moved and haven't been put together again just yet). I am also a big supporter of more "rocks and dirt" play myself, although I'll admit that we do have huge piles of molded plastic around as well, and not all of it has nearly as many redeeming qualities as the legos do.

I'm probably not helping any with "my" collection of stuffed cthulhus, though! :whistling:

PS- Dee, it looks like the pinkie toe has recovered nicely! :)

[Chaerophon]

Meccano was pretty cool too.
[right][snapback]71335[/snapback][/right]

'Construx' was pretty cool. Check this one out!

[Brother Laz]

@Mith: I'd say Lego, except the very new sets, is one of the most money-efficient gifts for a kid. They can build new things out of them depending on their mood [Jurassic Park 4 out? Turn that spaceship into a dinosaur robot...], and new boxes combine with old boxes for more than the sum of their parts. [you don't just get the garage set, you also get the pillar bricks you need for your three-story starbase...]

With things like Transformers, the kid can't quite play with all of them at once, so they get bored and need more of them to keep their interest. And more. Many of them end up collecting dust. There is also the risk of buying garbage. I don't recall the name, the transformers that couldn't actually transform but had vehicles that could transform into war bases and stuff. Huge waste of money. Or that giant green fighter plane. Costs a fortune, and in the end you only get one robot.

If I had my childhood back, I'd have saved my parents the money for those and spent it on those Lego sets I always wanted but never got until it was too late. Most of the first Blacktron series, for example.

No single Transformer managed to have a significant impact on my early childhood, but a large number of Lego and Technic sets did.
:wub:

[Bolty]

[right][snapback]71339[/snapback][/right]

Oh my...the Monorail. I got that for Christmas back in the day.

Thanks for the memory spark...

Legos are one of the best gifts you can get for kids.

-Bolty

[Jeunemaitre]

Call me childish, but I loves me some Lego.  A couple of beers and a new Lego set will keep me entertained for hours  B)

I knew the lurkers were my kind of people. Finally, I have evidence that I'm not the only one over that age of 25 who enjoys a stroll around the Lego store (there's one in the mall just up the road from home). My wife humors me every now and again, but I can tell she's not really into it. Every now and again I pull out some of the bricks I have stuffed in boxes here and there and put something together, but with no display space, it rarely lasts longer than a few days before being reduced to its parts again.

I miss the time spent discovering how much support was needed to keep a platform together, and how much mass was needed in the nose to balance against the engine bank of my next design for a starfighter.

[Zippyy]

My early-mid-late childhood was made of Legos. The nostalgia is almost too much to bear.

Technics were the best. Steering systems, shocks, rubber wheels of all sizes. I even had a small motor I rigged onto the rear wheels of some of my creations. Unfortunately, without me alongside to steer it, Fate the driver made all the wrong decisions. :)

My mom still swears she hears me raking through my drawers (my dresser was full of Legos) of Legos even when I'm not there and haven't played with my Legos in years.

[Rinnhart]

HOLY CRAP!!  That is exactly it!  And my brother had the red "flying saucer" in the post directly below it!  Heh, damn the thing is still cool as all hell ^_^
[right][snapback]71345[/snapback][/right]

Space Police were losers! BLACKTRON FOREVER.

[Sir_Die_alot]

My mom still swears she hears me raking through my drawers (my dresser was full of Legos) of Legos even when I'm not there and haven't played with my Legos in years.
[right][snapback]71500[/snapback][/right]

Ahh the old pawing through gallons of legos. That reminds me. Pre and early teens I was an early riser, a very early riser. 5:00 was sleeping in. I know I pissed off my step sister on more than one occasion (all of the sudden there would be a *thump* from the wall) with early morning lego building, and I'll bet I woke up the less bitchy members of the family more than once as well. I at least tried to be quiet. :whistling:

[TaiDaishar]

Whoa, Lego... that brings up memories from a time long gone...

I never had an actual set of Lego, I just had a drawer full of Lego that I have no idea how it got there.

I remember making EVERYTHING with it, from space motors to castles to cars equipped with the latest in the Particle Beams fashion, Lego was probably the only toy I actually played with for a prolonged amount of time and in fact, back then I didn't need nor want any other thing.

[Alrin]

I think you can safely say that Lego is/was one (if not The) most flexible toy I had when I grew up. It is indeed a sweet trip down memory lane. The big ol' Lego box. And how I managed to loose those elusive 1x1 blocks. Damn, I swear they are all in some parallell universe by now.
My father bought me some Technics as well, that stuff was ... way cool. Still is!
I am a little disappointed with the 'new' style that lego has taken.
Now it is not so much creative building with a random assortment of blocks that a constructor fashioned together and made a blueprint. Now.. the lego blocks (for the most part) are too special to be used for more than a very few select purposes. I guess you could still buy the basic blocks/sets but it's disappointing to see the kits they offer.

Or maybe I am just getting old and too cynical to appreciate Lego to its fullest. I'm 26 :)

Love it though. Thanks for the nostalgia ride.

[Gurnsey]

'Construx' was pretty cool.  Check this one out!
[right][snapback]71372[/snapback][/right]

I'd forgotten about Construx! I had as much fun with those as my Legos - you could build bretty darn big things with Construx. My dad has saved them in several large bins now, and he says they'll be 'toys for the grandkids when they come over.' Is he trying to hint at something? :blush:

One note though: A Construx helicopter will NOT fly when dropped off of your bunk bed, no matter how many of the big red propeller blades you put on it. It will indeed break parts :wacko:

[ima_nerd]

I'm of the younger LEGO generation (only 18) but I'm proud to say, after reading all of the Oldie's posts ;), that I played with 'em old style. Instruc-what? That paper that came in the box was for drawing out new designs, not for following the directions written on them. My parents would nearly tear their hair out when ever they bought me some new set and I proceeded to dump all the pieces in the large bin with the rest of the previously-known-as-sets. I'm very tempted to go get 'em down from the attic now...hell, the WoW servers are down anyways :)

K'Nex, a newer building set I believe, is also incredible. An amazing number of things can be built with that. I built a 6 wheeled tank-like vehicle with independent suspension and a motor to drive it...most fun I've ever had while being grounded to my room for a day.

LEGOs are always > anything as far as I'm concerned.

[Count Duckula]

I'm staying in Orlando for spring break (that's another post entirely) and there's a Lego outlet in Downtown Disney. While my houseguest squealed over the Pooh store and their Piglet apparel, I took a stroll down memory lane with the midieval and pirate sets--my favorites. I got gazillions of Legos as a child and remember recieving the same castle set three times from three different people and built it three different ways with no leftover parts.

Kasreyn is the lego purist. He'll never follow the directions. Instead, he'll put things together based off alternate build pictures on the box.

There's a Lego dragon atop my monitor at home, right next to Dad's sock monkey.

[Refrigerator]

Oh man. Where do I start? :)
I got almost all of my Lego from my dad's collection when he was a kid, which was mostly old school lego, with a few random bits thrown in. The rest was... a cylinder of normal, multicolored bricks and this one spaceship set that had a middle section that a robotic arm thing could come out of. We only built the spaceship a few times, then lost too many parts for it to work and instead I used them to make some really cool things in combinations.

For example...
APC's. That's right. I built armored personell carriers, and they were STURDY. I had a few red, and then one special blue one. It was the Leader. The coolest part about them is that they could fit six soldiers inside. And by soldiers, I mean

__Short__
Loooonnng
__Short__
Loooonnng

except more in proportion to the lego blocks. The Shorts were green and the Longs were blue, which I thought made them look very military/camoflauge like. Next I extended it to the point where black colored shoulders were a sign of higher rank, then I started mixing colors to create different divisions of my army... Then I created a counter army of ogres. You could tell they were ogres because they weren't wearing shirts (head and shoulders yellow, for skin color, with green pants). Obviously.

My next inspiration came from a mix of the computer animated series Starship Troopers: Roughnecks (which I was hugely addicted to), and Starcraft. I can't remember what they were called in Roughnecks, but it's basically the equivalent of Goliaths in that show. These looked like a bit bigger, a bit more powerful humans. Of course, I gave them incredible machine gun power, and the ability to walk up walls and jump super far. Oh, that reminds me. The APC's could fly. I didn't have enough wheels for them.

I also had a giant black robot thing with a red visor (giant compared to the soldiers), three small, quirky, scout-type vehicles, a few mini-APC's that ranged over a wider variety of colors than the big ones, from black, to white, to light green and purple. Those were built a while later, when I acquired another oddly colored cylinder thinger of blocks.

What else....? Oh. Me and two of my friends were mostly the ones playing with the Lego stuff we built, but occasionally my sister would come join us with her city of faeries, made mostly out of small cylinder like pieces, with one bump. Rarely did both of my friends and I play together though, because at that point, Friend A really hated Friend B, because Friend B wouldn't stop bugging Friend A. You know people that can just say those little things that just push... that... button... and SNAP!

Anyways, we created many many epic stories together. I still remember Friend B's main character. He was an alien with a purple elongated head, white shoulders, yellow middle, and purple feet. We played with our characters as though it was an RPG, we gained spells and abilities, and the class of our character changed from one story to the next.

So much fun with Lego...

Oh, as if this post wasn't long enough...

Just in the last year or so... a... mood(?) came upon me while I was playing Lego with my cousin. We decided we would build robots and fight them to the death. My cousin was done his in five minutes, but it took me maybe twenty to finish mine, and after I did, I didn't want to fight it to the death. You know how it is, when all of a sudden you have a vision and know how it fits together, and afterwards you look at it and think "How the HELL did I build this?" It happened to me with all of the creations I listed above. With the robot, I ended up dropping it, I think, and tried to rebuild it, but it wasn't the same. It wasn't worse, but it wasn't better either. I couldn't remember how the head went at all, so instead I just built it with a slot for one of my soldiers, who would stick out from the top. Also from around that same session, I have a alien-looking type spacecraft and some sort of hoverbike.

I think this may be my longest post.... :huh: and it's about Lego.... figures... :blush: :D

EDIT: Hmmm.... maybe I should take some pictures of my creations... I still have them lying around somewhere...

[Zafarium]

Small nit that I've ALWAYS hated people doing.

Calling Lego, Legos. The plural of Lego IS Lego. Now that I've got that off my chest...

I've never actually built the sets. I've found it much more fun to just take that set and build something completely insane out of it. For example, taking a set that supposed to be a Star Wars Naboo fighter and making a tower or some such other craziness....

Ahh... those were the times... :ph34r:

[Rinnhart]

Small nit that I've ALWAYS hated people doing. 

Calling Lego, Legos.  The plural of Lego IS Lego.  Now that I've got that off my chest...

I've never actually built the sets.  I've found it much more fun to just take that set and build something completely insane out of it.  For example, taking a set that supposed to be a Star Wars Naboo fighter and making a tower or some such other craziness....

Ahh... those were the times... :ph34r:
[right][snapback]72823[/snapback][/right]

Build it once, bring it out to the folks, parade it around, get the oohs and the ahs, march back to lego bin, dismantle set- reserving the "good" pieces for other projects.

Repeat each Christmas until the demand for music and games and movies and bikes and various skates overwhelms the want for legos (I don't care- they are Legos).

[swirly]

'Construx' was pretty cool.  Check this one out!
[right][snapback]71372[/snapback][/right]

'Construx' was pretty much the default building toy for my friends and I. I remember having them thrown all over the front porch with us building things with them. Of course, the main things we built were demolition vehicles. We would each build our own vehicle that rolled. Then, when we were done, we would roll them at each other's vehicle until one of them couldn't go any longer. Thus the person with the surviving (I use the term loosely here) vehicle won. Because of this, the majority of the constructs I owned had cracks through them and many pieces were just unusuable. Near the end, we had to start dividing up certain kinds of pieces to make sure we both had the same number of them to work with. There just weren't enough of some kinds of pieces left in usable condition. I don't really know what happened to my 'Construx', but I doubt they were given away considering their condition when we were through with them.