The LEGO Company is offering a $25 gift card to whoever comes up with the most interesting facts about the LEGO minifigure.
Here are some specific questions, but don’t limit yourself to just answering these:
- How many different minifigure bodies, heads, legs have been produced? And how many different combinations of minifigures can be made?
- How many different accessories have been made for the minifigure?
- What minifigure has appeared in the most sets over the years?
Let the comment party begin!
Here’s my submission:
http://vignettebricks.blogspot.com/2005/03/evolution-of-minifig.html
:)
Great article, Bruce!
I think bruce just won :P
Your standard minifig (with legs) has just over 970 degrees of movement. I can’t get the exact number of degrees, as I don’t have a protractor small enough. But I’m not really eligible, so count this as an example. :)
“Why are there no LEGO woman in LEGO City?
Because the LEGO police force is sexist and all the women are in jail out of town.
Many people think that my “sigfig” is a plastic version of the real me…in fact the very opposite is true, the flesh and blood version of me was made by my plastic self from a kit that I bought in Woolworths.
Do I win anything?
Dr. S.
You people are hilarious. But do bear in mind that the prize will go to real, verifiable facts. :-D
Are you trying to imply that my story is made up?
Dr. S.
Are you accusing me of lying?! It’s the truth, all the woman besides one doctor…
http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?p=4936&cn=381&d=9
… are in jail!
But besides that we haven’t had a woman in a LEGO City set ever! Besides the Advent Calendar. There was only one with a LEGO Train set in World City. So I can prove it! :-p
Here’s my first round o’ stuff. Brain hurts. Too much math.
((Variations))
Over the years LEGO has created…
• almost 4,000 unique minifig designs
• over 450 minifig head designs
• over 180 types of headpieces
• almost 1,000 torso designs
• almost 100 types of torso accessories
((Factoids))
• It would take approximately one billion minifigs lined up in a single row to wrap around the Earth just once. Since the modern minifig’s current form was introduced in the late 1970s, LEGO has produced enough minifigs to circle the Earth at least four times.
• It would take approximately 250,000 minifigs piled together to equal the weight of an average 12-year-old child.
• If all the minifigs ever produced decided to get together and form their own country, their total population would make it the most populated nation in world— three times larger than China and almost a dozen times larger than the United States.
• All the minifigs produced since the late 1970s would equal about half the world’s total population.
• The total number of minifigs produced since the late 1970s could fill about 170 standard-sized swimming pools. (How would you like to swim through that?!)
• Taking a cue from the Smurfs, the number of unique male to female minifigs ever designed (where the fig is specifically identifiable as female) is about 18 to 1.
More to come later, too tired now. =P
My lego fact.
Were a human to be proportioned as a minifig the weight of our heads would break our necks.
Fact:
I can fit exactly 15 Slave Leia minifigs in my mouth without gagging.
Fact:
You can survive for approximately 33.5938654 hours after eating a bowl of minifig heads if you’re out of breakfast cereal.
Only two real people have had minifigs based on their distinct roles from two properties: Harrison Ford (Indiand Jones and Han Solo) and Alfred Molina (Doctor Octopus and Satipo).
Your first fact makes me gag, Rocko.
Peter,
If you check this thread:
http://www.fbtbforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=25613
there are a few others who might qualify, though less directly. Mark Hamill is the voice of Joker in the cartoon series, so you could argue he’s there twice. Another voice actor, Tom Kenny, does the voices of Spongebob, the Penguin and Biggs (this last in a video game). Warwick Davis was a Gringotts Goblin and also the ewok Wicket. Of course, it would be fair to argue that none of these count.
Another note on minifigs, James Stacey has a wealth of information on his site, minfig.co.uk. Here is an article from an internal LEGO newsletter:
http://www.minifig.co.uk/default.asp?id=10
including the original patent:
http://www.minifig.co.uk/picture.asp?pID=443
and a timeline:
http://www.minifig.co.uk/default.asp?id=17
Bruce
The first minifigures with faces different from the average eyes and grin were Pirates in 1989. They alo were the first with different body parts, such as hooks and peglegs. 2003 was when there were first fleshy minifigs and were in the Basketball sets. The first minifig head that wasn’t cyndrical was Jar Jar’s. Lego had sold 3,700,000,000 minifigs by 2003 and are still selling more by the year!
Here are some more!
– There are about 62 LEGO bricks for every one of the world’s 6 billion inhabitants.
– Children around the world spend 5 billion hours a year playing with LEGO bricks.
– More than 400 million people around the world have played with LEGO bricks.
– More than 400 billion LEGO bricks have been produced since 1949. Stacked on top of each other, this is enough to connect the Earth and the Moon ten times over.
– 7 LEGO sets are sold by retailers every second around the world.
– The LEGO bricks sold in one year would circle the world 5 times.
Forget the second one.(I just realized the facts had to be about minifigures!)
I did some rough calculations about 1.5 years ago and calculated that the total number of unique minifigs using legs, hips, hands, arms, torsos, and head was 8,181,068,395,500,000 or about 1.2 million per person on the planet. Of course, new torsos, heads, and legs patterns have increased this number greatly.
Don’t ask about headpieces (hair, hats, helmets) or shoulder pieces (capes, airtanks, etc.). I didn’t even consider footwear or hand held items.
This is worthy of a Brickfest (Fair, World) discussion.
Brue: I only went with minifigs that were definitively based on a specific actor. I considered many of the ones you mentioned, but the minifigs of the Joker and Penguin are not based on on either cartoon version (and in fact look very different from their respective cartoon designs). If voice acting was considered, even more would open up, like Jim Cummings, who provides the voices for both Tigger and Winnie the Pooh. Since the Ewoks are not specified, I didn’t count them. Counting them, Kenny Baker has two for R2-D2 and Paploo the Ewok.
Oh yeah: You know Ogel (Bad guy from Alpha Team) OGEL is LEGO spelt backwards!
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Samuel: In response to your comment about Ogel, Lego also calls him Evil Ogel which, spelled backwards,makes “Lego Live” and if you switch the words, spells “Live Lego”. Kinda creepy.
did you know that the first mini fig. was made in 1974 and it was only people. the set was called family.
and there coming out with a indiana jones set modeled after the temple of doom. and 11 more star wars sets coming out this year and 5 more indiana jones sets. dont believ me check it out at http://www.brickset.com.
This contest is long over, so I’m going to go ahead and close comments on this.