Fans of classic British sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf will recognize these nifty micro creations by Elspeth De Montes as the titular mining vessel and it’s diminutive companion Starbug. Note: Any readers that complain about the absence of the Blue Midget risk being branded as a… smeeeeee-HEEEEED!
LEGO Doctor Who and Wall-E sets have just been announced! LEGO Ideas has just released the results of the 2nd half 2014 review. LEGO Ideas is a crowd-sourcing platform for fan-designed sets. If a set gains 10,000 votes, LEGO will examine the ideas to potentially create a set. LEGO has just announced that both Doctor Who and Wall-E have passed the approval process, and the designs will now be further refined by master set designers at LEGO before being sold as official LEGO sets.
Doctor Who, designed by Andrew Clark.
Wall-E, by Angus MacLane. Angus is a Pixar animator and is known in the LEGO community for originating “Cube Dudes.”
To boldly go to space – the final frontier – and prosper, my friend.
My mangled Star Trek quotes aside, this magnificent Enterprise model comes to us from Chris Melby. Chris has done a fantastic job with the circular disk of this iconic ship, managing to make it entirely studless. Don’t be deceived, though, this is actually a huge model at over 5 feet in length.
“Here’s your assignment, Inspector Gadget: Use your powers of Eighties cartoon awesomeness to help Dr Clites defeat the dastardly Mayo Twins in their plot to take over the Iron Builder contest. Use the seed part in any way you can to outdo them. Bring along a small child and a talking dog, for when you inevitably get into trouble. Regards, Chief Quimby. THIS MESSAGE WILL SELF DESTRUCT.”
[Updated] LEGO is officially picking up the Scooby-Doo license. First announced at the London Toy Fair, we’ve now got an official image of the most iconic Scooby-Doo set, 76902 Mystery Machine. The set will include 301 pieces, and retail for USD $29.99, and features a new mold for Scooby. The new line will hit stores this August, along with a 22-minute special cartoon in which Scooby and the gang will be LEGO-ized.
75900 Mummy Museum Mystery – $14.99
75901 Mystery Plane Adventures – TBA
75902 Mystery Machine – $29.99
75903 Haunted Lighthouse – TBA
75904 Mystery Mansion – $89.99
[via USA Today]
UPDATE: We’ve received the official press release from LEGO, which you can read after the jump.
Jim Henson’s beloved Muppets probably need no introduction, thanks to the international success both of the Sesame Street franchise, and a long series of excellent Muppet movies. But it’s a little harder to gauge how well-known The Muppet Show was. Airing over several seasons in the late seventies, the television show was produced and aired in the UK, as no US network would touch it.
After that, it’s less clear how widely syndicated the show became. But these excellent builds of show regulars Waldorf/Statler and the Swedish Chef by German builder Andreas Weissenburg (grubaluk) suggest to me that maybe the show did gain some international popularity after all!
Oh, and a word of warning: If you ever meet someone from Sweden, please please please do NOT ask them what they think of the Swedish Chef …it’s still kind of a sore point with them!
Say hello to Kamen Rider, from the successful 70’s Japanese TV franchise of the same name. This build is the work of Japanese pop-culture aficionado Moko. If it looks strangely familiar, that may be because Kamen Rider was the inspiration for a certain 90’s American knock-off called the Power Rangers (which, confusingly, spawned a spin-off called Masked Rider that aped the original show).
I love this piece not only because of its perfectly proportioned stud-less design, but because it’s just the latest in a long line of explorations of the masked rider by this builder, going back as far as 2006. Though with this latest interpretation, I think it’s fair to say he’s finally nailed it!
As Star Wars day draws to a close, and fans everywhere safely deactivate and stow away their light sabers until ComicCon, don’t forget that tonight at 8pm FOX will be airing Brick Like Me, the highly anticipated all-LEGO episode of The Simpsons. It’ll give you something to watch while you start poring over the 7000 pages of instructions that came with your new LEGO Sandcrawler.
You can watch the trailer for the Simpsons episode here. Oh, and if you’re East of me then you’ve probably already seen the episode by now. In which case *JEDI MIND TRICK* this isn’t the post you’re looking for …move along!
Image by Karl Westworth.
Presumably in response to this week’s unofficial release of images of the upcoming Simpsons House, LEGO has officially unveiled the set, which will be available in February. Below is the official press release.
Click on this image to see the full gallery of photos.
71006 The Simpsons™ House
Ages 12+ 2,523 pieces
US $199.99 – CA $229.99 – DE 199.99€ – UK £179.99 – DK 1,699.00 DKK
*Euro pricing varies by country. Please visit shop.LEGO.com for regional pricing.D’oh! The Simpsons™ House has been turned into LEGO® bricks!
Build The Simpsons™ House with detachable roof, modular design, car with dent, the famous family couch, 6 minifigures and so much more.
Recreate hilarious scenes from the classic animated TV series with The Simpsons™ House. Taken right out of Springfield, this amazing model is crammed with tons of LEGO® brick detail. Lift off the roof and open up the house to discover Homer and Marge’s big family bedroom including bed and Maggie’s crib, Bart’s room with his skateboard and Krusty the Clown poster, Lisa’s room with her favorite books, jazz poster and more, and bathroom with shower, toilet, sink and mirror. Lift off the top floor to reveal the fully-fitted kitchen with dining table, chairs, yellow and light-blue tiled floor and lots of pots, pans and other accessories. Then it’s into the living room with couch and TV playing Itchy and Scratchy, purple piano and more. Next to the house is the detachable garage, complete with workbench, tool rack, vacuum cleaner, broom, toolbox, tools and the family car, complete with dent (because only in a LEGO world are dents a plus!), opening trunk and ‘radioactive’ bar from the nuclear power plant. Step outside onto the terrace and you’ll find loads of cool items, including a grill, wheelbarrow and air conditioning unit with ‘Property of Ned Flanders’ decoration, sausages, 2 garden loungers, flowerpots, a shovel, 2 fruit cocktail glasses, Lisa’s camera, Bart’s skateboard ramp with ‘El Barto’ graffiti and an antenna on the roof. The Simpsons™ House is the perfect collector’s item for fans of all ages. Includes 6 minifigures: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Ned Flanders.
• Includes 6 minifigures: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Ned Flanders
• First floor includes yellow and light-blue tiled floor, sink, oven and stove, drawers, cups, pot, pan, bowl, mixer, plates, cake tins, cutlery, dining table and 4 chairs
• Living room features TV playing Itchy and Scratchy, couch, boat painting, telephone, carpet, purple piano and staircase to the second floor with family photos
• Bart’s room features a bed, night lamp, desk with pin board, chair, Krusty the Clown poster, skateboard, shelves with books, radio and a cap
• Marge and Homer’s bedroom features a bed, 2 side tables, Maggie’s crib and Marge’s bag
• Lisa’s room features a vanity mirror with hairbrush, stool, bed, table with lamp and cup, shelves with books, magnifying glass, backpack and a jazz poster on the wall• Bathroom features a shower, toilet, sink and a mirror
• Detachable garage features the family car, tools, workbench, tool rack, vacuum cleaner, toolbox and a broom
• Family car with space for 4 minifigures features a dent in the front and an opening trunk to store Homer’s suitcase and a ‘radioactive’ bar from the nuclear power plant
• Outside area includes a grill, wheelbarrow and air conditioning unit with ‘Property of Ned Flanders’ decoration, sausages, 2 garden loungers, flowerpots, a shovel, 2 fruit cocktail glasses, Lisa’s camera, Bart’s skateboard ramp with ‘El Barto’ graffiti and an antenna on the roof
• Can you spot all the items Homer has “borrowed” from Ned Flanders?
• Remove the roof and top floor to access the different rooms inside
• House is hinged in the middle for easy access
• The perfect set for fans of LEGO® brick building and The Simpsons™!
• The Simpsons™ House measures over 9” (23cm) high, 16” (42cm) wide and 9” (24cm) deep
The first images have escaped into the wild of the flagship set for the upcoming official Simpsons line of LEGO sets.
UPDATE: Official information about 71006 The Simpsons House is now available.
71006 The Simpsons House is the cartoon family’s Springfield home, a sprawling suburban manor. The set includes the five Simpsons family members: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie, as well as their neighbor Ned Flanders, each with their awkward amalgamation of uniquely-molded head and classic minifig body. The house looks straight from the pages of the Creator theme of domiciles, though this one is a bit bigger, clocking in with an enormous 2523 pieces, which puts it easily in the $250 price range, although the price has not been confirmed yet. The residence hinges open to reveal a full interior, complete with tiled floors. It’s hardly an inspiring design for the LEGO aficionado, but it is, I suppose, fairly accurate to the Simpsons’ humdrum suburbanite existence, and fans of the show will likely find lots to love. Let us know in the comments what you think: Is this set a hit or a miss?
Frequent contributor Chris McVeigh (powerpig) stops by the TBB watchtower with his latest nostalgic model entitled “57 Channels and Nothing On“. I’m sure Springsteen would dig this model, as he no doubt had a similar set growing up in Jersey. The wallpaper is a nice touch, but as a few of the commentators on Flickr pointed out, the table should have been made out of Lego. The builder had some decidedly convenient artistic rhetoric about not wanting to keep the focus on the T.V. but many of us are just not buying it. Come on Chris, nit-picky AFOLs are watching, step up your game before it’s too late. When writing this entry I came across an old posting from 2008 that some of you may find interesting.
“We now return control of your television set to you.”
