Episode 22: LEGO

it's been uh you know, it's it's been. It's been wild. How's your week going, Um, it's going a lot better than the founder of Lego who has passed, So his week is fine. But like when it was still we'recovering legos, and when I was researching this topic and like put this together, I found he had a very rough life where so many bad things happened. You would think that it was like God telling you not to make legos.

Like if you believed in God, any normal sane person would be like cool, So I my factory burned down again, Um, I probably shouldn't be making legos. But now he stuck with it. You know, some people were like, these are just my haters and mother Nature looking my dj they don't want you to build Lego. Yeah, all I do is win. I love the idea that like nature is your hater, by the nature my biggest universe, the universe trying to stop me. It won't biggest hater, it won't. Yeah.

So let's talk a little bit about the history of Legos. All right. So so you're saying he had a rough start, right, okay, Yeah, So the Lego group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christon, who was a carpenter from Billain, Denmark, and he began making wooden toys in nineteen thirty two to make a living after having lost his job during the Great Depression. Man. Yeah, that's that's how you kick it

off with a start. YEA. That is definitely checking all the boxes on every everything that might say you might have a rough start the Great Depression. Man, that was rough, you know, grapes rough, great book. Not going to do a deep dive on that. So don't have are we gonna do Warren Peace or nope? Perfect. We might read his short story The Chrysanthemums, But that's where that's where I draw the line. We should actually we need to. We need to. You don't want to do the Pearl?

Which one was that it was the one with the pearl? Alright, then I guess I don't know that one. And then the Blue Dolphins. Okay, yeah, I mean that's the O G triple O G. Yeah. We should actually explore more books. We will. I believe we have a Harry Potter one that's on the docket. But we're of mind some men. The one thing that is cool about it we're going to do this quick tander is just the effect that it did indeed have because that archetype lived for so long.

Just the short smart guy and the big dumb guy that's pinky in the brain. That's uh, you know, two stupid dogs, two stupid dogs. Yeah, like that's just went uh asteroids rinnen Stimpy Yep, it's just a certified classic. But there we're talking about legos and back to the Great Depression, which the Grapes of Wrath is based off of it. If you're wondering how we got from the Great Depression to John Steinbeck or not based off it

takes place during it. It's the setic whatever. Let's talk about okay, yeah, yeah, So he he was a respected carpenter with his own company, but you know, times were super hard and he didn't have a lot of money, so he had to dismiss all of his workers, and soon after his wife, Christine died, leaving him to raise four sons. I have something to say here is that you can actually look up. We'll put in our footnotes.

Lego made a cute, cute, adorable little animated short of Olay's like history, but in it when so when he had to layoff all of his workers, his wife is like, well, well, at least things couldn't get worse, and the narrator was like, but things did get worse and then she died. And I'm like, this is like a kid short animated on the Lego site. Um just talked about his horrific life,

which wasn't horrific, but I guess things. You know, things were different back then, and you had things like factories burning down and people dying of measles or whatever. Um, And so he dealt with a lot of hardship that would have knocked anyone else down, but not ol A dude that felt like a ron Our narrator like, things did get worse, And they did, they did, yes, oh man. But then from there, things, you know, moved on. Yeah. So soon after his wife Christine died, leaving him and

raised his four sons. That's rough. He made a small wooden duck toy for his children, and when they loved it so much, he decided to put the ducks into production. Using his leftover wood from his old business, he started making wooden toys. One day, a wholesaler came in and placed a huge order, so he had to rehire his workers and used the highest quality wood for his handmade toys. Can you imagine being like fired or laid off and you're like, oh, man, screw this guy out. Never worked

for him again. He's like, I got more work. I guess I'm working for him again. Yeah. In fact, this was that they wanted to have a bunch of his toys to sell before Christmas, so they wanted to have him in the windows and stuff. So he worked over time essentially to make all of these toys. And if he yeah, if he, this is where and again it

happened again to our man. Oh he received a letter saying the wholesaler filed for bankruptcy and couldn't buy the toys, like it's almost this is what I mean where and it continues like this in his life like where. If you were a writer, you would be like, this is too much. You know, if you were writing the screenplay of his life, you would be like, slow down a second. But he that didn't stop him. He decided to drive around himself and sell the toys, and he succeeded in

selling all of his toys. He wasn't able to get as much money as he wanted, and a lot of farmers in his area traded him for food instead, which, like he in the Little Lego short and said, you know, he would have preferred money. I mean everyone would, but he took the food so that he could feed him in his place. I mean kids got to eat, so you know either way, Like I will say that as someone with the child, I'm like, man, I would like to roll out in the bins, but I guess my

daughter doesn't. Yeah, you're right, you right? Uh? But then in four his company came to be called Lego, derived from the Danish phrase ligat, which means play well. In Latin, lego can mean I put together or I assemble, which is wild. Yeah, he didn't actually know the Latin part. He only know the Danish part. Was picking it out. Yeah, look, this is this seems when you connect all those dots, just the constant failure, but keeping pushing forward and then

these connecting, it's almost like a little fate story. I have another thing coming up for you. I have another thing after yeah. So he so he named it Lego and then in a fire broke out in his factory. What's going on? Now? What is going on? We know he has a successful story. That's the only reason I'm laughing. I'm sorry, like r I P O a um a fire bro this did not kill him? Then nothing would

kill him. In fact, nothing stopped him. I'm sorry. In ninety two fire, he's like the Charlie Brown of his life. He's definitely had a curse. Yeah, you know, he's like the descendant relative arrest mutant or something. No, he was listened in Beauty and the Beast. He turned away the witch and he was all right. She was like, I'm all out of these beast spells. I'm gonna hit you

with this failed toymaker spell. In two a fire broke out in his factory in his workshop, destroying all of his drawings and models, completely burning them to the ground. It forced him to rebuild and he started working again

as a carpenter. And then World War Two happened, and following World War Two, plastics became available in Denmark and Lego purchased a plastic injection molding machine in seven And like I foreshadowed during the The Transformers episodes, molds are going to be a very big thing when it comes to toys. I have a huge toy episode planned out with like just kind of the toy kind of subculture. I have a friend Rocom who is who works at Razor, and his friend Quong. There's a whole there's every time

I talk to them, they blow my mind. There's a whole toy subculture and it really molds are a big part of it. And like they talk about how sometimes if you don't know the factory that you're sending your mold too, and you may never get your toys made for like almost a decade because you're in line with all these stuff and in line with all these different

toy makers. And if the toy makers their homie, then they're gonna make those first and then when you have the vinyl toys, and we're talking about vinyl toys like the you know, the Dunnies and your original Fake which is uh one of my favorite artists cause made the companions. Uh. Then you have Mr Bunny, you have Squire and the skull Bud. The list goes on, you know, Ugly Doll, which I think is a really popular one that most

people know. Uh kid Robot. Uh. Just it's just so such a long list of like designer toys, and there's like a subculture within that of like people because they'll sell blanks of them, and like you have to be only certain people can like paint and resell them because if the maker finds out there, like no, you can't do that. I wanted to blank for a reason. So anyway,

we'll go deep into that on another episode. But this every time mold gets mentioned, I have to go on that quick tanner because it's so exciting and I can't

wait to set them down and talk about it. But they did get those molds, and uh so they got the molds in and Lego expanded to begin producing plastic toys and the nine Lego began producing among other new products and early version of the now familiar interlocking blricks, calling them automatic binding bread Well, well, yeah, if he did not tell you to pick up your automatic binding bricks although technically their abs, then not tell you to pick up your abs and step in all of your abs.

You know they're rock hard there they hurt. Want to step on them? Uh? Rock hard abs uh? And then the uh but we call them Lego bricks uh. Then, manufactured from cellulose acetate, were developed in the spirit of traditional wooden blocks that could be stacked upon one another, but it could be locked together. They had several round studs on the top in the hollow rectangular bottom that we know and love, and they would stick together, but not so tightly that they cannot be pulled apart. Yeah.

The basic eight stud red Lego brick was first sold in Denmark in nineteen nine. And the bricks produced today have the same bumps and holes and can still interlock with those produced back in Yeah, and that's a big thing for Lego. They want there. They go through so like stringent lengths to make sure that the all the Legos can still lock up, so that no matter what error you buy Legos in if if if I gave my legos to my great great great great great great

great grandson. He would still be able to play with his new legos with my old ones, and vice versa if I were to go to my great great great great grand father's legos, is what I'm meaning to say. But then, these bricks were based on the Kitty Craft self locking bricks, which had been patented in the United Kingdom, and Lego had received a sample of the Kitty caraff bricks from the supplier of the injection molding machine that

it had purchased. The bricks originally manufactured from Selo's estate. We're a development of the traditional stack of the wooden blocks at the time. This is really fascinating because copyright is going to come into play or patent I mean, cottons are going to come into play year um in a little bit. But the Lego groups model is I can't say that. Yeah, the Lego groups model is essentially only the best is the best, or more literally, the

best is never too good. This was something that actually had for a while, like as a carpenter and when he was making his wooden toys. The reason why they were seen as so magnificent is because of the care that he put into them, and he was obsessed with continuing that when he started making legos, like he just wanted the highest quality possible. Yeah. I heard he opted to have that on the wall instead of a no smoking sign and that Yeah, first factory got caught on fire. Um,

but yeah, it was. It was a huge, huge, important deal for him for Christiansen and then by plastic toys accounted for half of the Lego company's output. So they're almost pushing out they're almost going to start to push out the their wooden toys. Ninety eight, the modern brick design was developed, the one that you can use up until today. It took five years to find the right material forward a B s acronaitural beauty dyne starry polymer

could have just said a BS polymer. I don't need to know the full facts, but just for some people, some people were like, yep, thanks. The modern Lego brick was designed and patented in January nineteen Yeah, and also in ninety eight, the bricks were improved with hollow tubes and the underside of the brick. This added support in the base, enabling much better locking ability and improve versatility.

The company patent the new design, as well as several similar designs to avoid competition, although, like I just said, they had copied it from the Kitty Craft. So um. But oh A actually died that same year, and his son, Godfried inherited leadership of the company and would come to rule it for many years to come. Yeah and uh, Lego executives observing how children played with their products realized the firm future realized the firm's future success was not

about the brick, but what the brick could create. Buildings, streets, cities all filled with people, vehicles, street signs, and bushes. You can go on and on, building and building. You never get tired of Lego. But one of its publicity campaign said, to see what's next on the list? Another warehouse fire. Listen, listen. I don't know what burial ground they built Lego on. Lego had another warehouse fire. They're doing fine. Lego is doing great. You know, they have

the Lego films. They're amazing. So I just but but back in the day it was difficult for them. They had another warehouse fire. This is what's fascinating. Okay, So they had a warehouse fire that struck the Lego group in nineteen sixty, consuming most of the company's inventory of wooden toys. This is the fascinating part. It almost forced them to completely abandon wooden toys, and Godfried his son,

decided to just move forward with their plastic line. So I was talking to Dan, our producer, about this, and I was telling him when I was researching this man's story of like, how many things went wrong. It kind of is fascinating though, because each time something went wrong, it forced him to rethink and restructure and get better

and make these decisions. And so it's like, you know, you and I it's like, oh, well, my script got rejected, and it's like this man freaking dealt with with so much death and and catastrophic like loss of his belongings and things like that that he was working on, and each time he got back up. It's just it's just

a remarkable, remarkable story. But this I find really fascinating that when their warehouse burned down, they completely scraped their wooden toys because it destroyed all their wooden toys and decided, hey, we're just going to move forward with plastic, which ended

up being the best decision that they made. Yeah, that's what I like and I feel like will be the moral of you know, Lego story is like when you do reach a roadblock, instead of just kind of stopping there and maybe even instead of trying to rebuild what you have, look at what you're left with and work from there. You know. It's that's that's that's what it feels like. It's like, you know, the classic life hands

you lemons make lemonade. Yeah. But so by the end of that year, the Lego group was employed now over four hundred and fifty people. And in the nineteen sixties, the companies Brick Smith actually invented the wheel which was around brick with a rubber tire for their legos um. The Lego wheel earned its own patent application. They're very big on these patents. Uh. And then a little known fact, Lego makes more than three hundred million tires per year,

which is more than good Year or Bridgestone. Yeah, they didn't launched do Blow. It's a line of bigger bricks for preschools in the sixties as well. In nineteen sixty eight they had the first Legoland theme park, which I didn't know that. We think Lego Land is something that came out this past decade. But now uh in night, the first Legoland theme park open in Belund, and h Lego was trying to be its own kind of everything

store or everything toy. And we'll actually get into the history of Lego Land right after this break and we're back, so we're going to dive into a little bit of the history of Lego Land. So yeah. So the Legoland Blund resort opening Belund, Denmark in nineteen sixty eight, followed by the Lego Land Windsor Resort in Windsor in nineteen and then further parks opened in Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Dubai, the United States, which we have in California and Florida,

and then parks in South Korea, New York. Oh, I don't know. They were getting a park in Shanghai are currently under construction. That's dope. Shout out to New York. You guys are getting a park. Yeah yeah, So I vividly remember when the San Diego Lego Land open and apparently it opened on March twenty and when it opened,

I just thought it was the first ever. I get so funny that there were so many before, and I was like, no, this is while Lego Land was just created for the first time, and no, it wasn't a little little that. No, I don't know. I haven't been to Lego Land, have you. Um I think I went once? Yeah, yeah, my families from so um yeah, I think I remember going once. But I mean when I had my pick,

I always picked Disneyland. So when I was because let's see nine to night, I was in middle school, so my family actually would let us on our birthday, we could either have a birthday party or we take one friend to Disneyland because tickets are expensive as hell, and so I always chose to take one friend to Disneyland. I did that like every year one one friend got hooked up. I mean I had brothers too, so they were paying for my brothers to go with me and

also my one friend. Yeah but your year, one friend got to drive all the way up to Anaheim and experience that fun day like that friend got hooked up. Yeah that's true. That's true. They probably don't realize how dope that world. No, Tiffany, do you realize it. We're not even Facebook friends. Let's see that, we'll see what

I mean. Definitely do not realize it. So all six of the parks include a Lego Mini Land, a model village which includes models of landmarks and scenes from all around the world made from made from millions of genuine Lego bricks. The parks rides are all Lego theme. Many are made to appear as if they're built out of Lego bricks. They tend to be based on one particular line of Lego For example, a popular ride at All Six Parks is the dry Wagon Coaster, which is loosely

based on the Night's Kingdom Lego sets. Another popular ride is Driving School, in which children can drive small electric cars made to look like Lego cars around a small road network, after which they gain a mock driving lesson a mock driving license. I wanted to say, so, I visited my brother in Phoenix recently and we went to there's a Lego Land Discovery Center in Phoenix. So i'm and it's like much smaller, It's like attached to one

of their malls. So I imagine that there are a lot of places if you listening don't have a Lego Land, but you have one of these Lego Land Discovery centers, let us know. So it's essentially like dinosaurs and astronauts and stuff made out all made out of Legos, like these huge builds of them. Um, and then they have two rides, ten Lego building play zones in a forty cinema there. So it's not like the full one with

roller coasters, but yeah, still cool. There's a lot of Lego facts, So I'm gonna just hit you off with some quick facts that happened hashtag facts uh f A c K s uh. In nineteen seventy one, Lego began a target girls by introducing furniture pieces and dollhouses. Yeah, and then in nineteen seventy two, Lego added boat and

ship sets with floating whole pieces nineteen seventy four. Human figs Human figures with posble arms made an appearance in nineteen seventy four, and Lego Family sets, which went on to become the biggest sellers at the time. The next year, an early version of the mini figure a k A. Minifigs Minsture Lego person was introduced, but it was not posible and had no face printed on its head. What

was that nightmare escape of a toy? Well, I guess like knowing little kids you could draw like you, I would probably have drawn my own on there, which would not have looked good. It would have been like lopsided eyes. In nineteen seventy five, the Expert Series set was introduced and it was geared towards older, more experienced Lego builders, followed by the Expert Builder sets in nineteen In eight,

the Legos Mini fig was officially added. These small Lego people have posable arms and legs and smile no more of that creepy no face than going on. Essentially Lego citizens. Lego also expanded into space with the creation of Lego Space sets with astronaut mini figures, rockets, lunar rovers, spaceships, and in medieval territory with a castle theme. Yeah. And then in nineteen nine, Lego introduced the Scala series featuring jewelry elements marketed towards young girls. God if he we

also are astronauts. Can I tell you now, I'll just like furniture. You know, we're also into rockets and lunar rovers. We gotta add that furniture. What little girl wants a couch? Okay, I'm sorry. Continue. Until nine, Lego minifigs only came in yellow skin color with the standard smiling face. The early prototypes had a variety of skin colors and facial expressions,

very Simpsons of them. Uh. In the first Lego products featured licensed characters not designed in house, where Lego Star Wars still extremely popular, and Winnie the Pooh Duplow followed in two thousand by Lego Harry Potter characters and also figures from other Steven Spielberg movies. Yeah, it was, it

was crazy, It was huge. Uh. And Lucas Films was about to release the first prequel trilogy to the original Star Wars movies, and Lego was debating whether not to partner with the company to license a set of Star Wars tours that will come out at the same time as the film, and then astonishedly, Lego executives initially balked, partly as a result of the company's fierce independence, but Lego, whose executives took pride in the interestent nature of their toys,

also fretted about aligning itself with any violence, because you know, they got them lightsabers, you know, han shot first. So the company surveyed parents who didn't mind the partnership, and the positive poland gave Lego the comfort and needed to push ahead with Star Wars. This is so funny, like can you just imagine Star Wars coming to be like, hey, would you like us to help you sell your thing? And then be like, you know, I don't know, I

don't know. Well, this was after a huge like Star Wars drought, but it's so funny because this is the second time Star Wars has kind of jolted the toy industry because remember they basically created the modern action figure, and now they're coming and they're like, look, we got there. We're gonna do the original trilogy and it seems like it's going to be the best thing ever. Fans are gonna love it. It's gonna be a movie masterpiece. There's no way these three movies we're gonna come out with

could be bad. So anyway, this is what jar Jar binks looks like, let's go ahead and make it. I was gonna say there was another company. I can't remember what. Someone don't have to remind me, but it was a lunchbox. Um. I was listening to another great podcast, Just Mystery Show, which doesn't have any new episodes, but they should because I love it with Starling Kine and she did one on um a Welcome Back, caught her lunchbox, which was

like these famous set of lunch boxes. And I guess that company was supposed to partner with Star Wars but didn't like they passed up on it and then ended up being like the biggest thing that they lost out on. Sore and Holme, who was the head of Lego Concept Lab, said toy weapons had always been heavily debated, but that since the Lego Star Wars release, Lego has grown more comfortable with conflict. There are no Lego sets with a war or military theme, very unlike our friends at G

I Joe. This is because Lego creator ol A. Kirk Christensen didn't want to make war seem appealing to children make sense for someone who lived through World War Two. Yeah, But to go back to the hit movie The Phantom Menace and their partnership with Lego product line killed comprising more than of the company's sales, and the Star Wars arrangement ushered in similar profitable licensing agreements. It was long until Lego rolled out Harry Potter Lego sets because they're like,

all right, we get it. This is kind of crazy, though, So there were a couple of times they were on the brink of bankruptcy, and this was one of those times. Uh. In late two thousand three, the company's sales sank by thirty percent compared to the year before, and Lego was introducing too many product lines without putting enough attention on its original core business, which o a had always said quality over quantity essentially, so now they had Lego Dolls,

Lego Kids clothing line, like all these other products. Toy retailers began complaining to Lego that the firm didn't provide enough inventory of one of the few best selling items, the bionical Legos, which were set in a science fantasy world. So the company had become too reliant on Star Wars and Harry Potter movies. But the catch is that those

movies weren't released for a year. So during the years those for the during the years those films weren't released, Legos revenue dropped because it's like, well, that Harry Potter movie came out three years ago, I'm not into it. Should have been building up those bionicles. Bionicles, man, those

were hit. I remember when Bionicles came out. Those they were so tight that like this was they came out when I wasn't playing with toys and I looked at them, it was like, damn, I wish I was still playing with toys because these bionicles looked tight. Also, it's a fun name to say, bionicle. You thought that a bionical. Um we'll talk about that a little bit when we get into the media, like the TV shows and um

so so. Lego trimmed down. They shut down several of their theme parks unfortunately, and killed off some of their poor performing product lines. That isn't the only problem that had because now we got competitors. We got several competitors have attempted to take advantage of legos popularity by producing blocks of similar dimensions and advertising them as being compatible

with Lego Bricks. After the last of Legos patents for its interlocking bricks expired in the late nineteen eighties, the companies naturally faced a raft of upstarts seeking a cash in on the brick craze. Lego tried fighting back with lawsuits, but failed. Yeah So. In two thousand two, Lego sued the Coco Toy Company in Beijing for copyright infringement over its Coco Bricks product and Coco was ordered to cease manufacture of the products, publish a formal apology, and paid damages.

That's the most petty part of it, is like I want you to formally apologize to us for making anything similar, even though, like we said, I find this very interesting because Legos product was essentially copying the Kitty Craft self locking bricks, which were only patent in the UK, which were made by Hillary Page Um, this woman that founded them essentially, which is known for being the predecessor of Lego, like of these, and then in nine yeah, she she

applied for a patent for toy building blocks, which sounds a lot like Legos. Oh yeah, but you know that's that's what happened, is uh, you know, it was built off of completely other toy they jacked, and that was just another volume of Now that's what I call capitalism. Um.

But yeah, so something did happen. So in two thousand five, the Lego Company sued Canadian company Mega Blocks for trademark violation, but the Supreme Court of Canada actually upheld Mega Blocks rights to sell their product, and then in European Court of Justice ruled that the eight peg design of the original Lego brick merely performs a technical function and cannot be registered as a trademark. That's kind of fascinating. And now the Cocoa toy companies like remember them. Yeah, yeah,

that's basically uh, that's basically Legos. But we haven't gotten a touch yet on all of the media, the television shows, the movie to revisit Bionical and then we talked about Yeah, you got a Lego movie, you got Batman Legos. Let's not even talk about all the Lego video games. Oh boy, there's so much Lego. But we'll jump into that after these messages. Welcome back. It is near difficent. I'm still if you want to wait, Danny, I'm no longer Danny for Nancy. Oh you switched it up. I'm ol A.

Kurt Christiansen coming back. How's it going, l A. I've survived a lot. Oh is there anything you want to tell you? I've been reborn as a thirty year old Tina. Um No, let's talk about brick films. Brick films videos using Legos have existed since the nineteen seventies. Starting in two thousand three, Lego officially made their first film partnership to make films based on their toy property. I got something to talk about it with brick films, so I'd say, I want to say it had to be sometime in

the between two thousand two thousand five. There were these toys called Modifiers. Man did I love them? Everybody the same. They were made by the tech Deck Company, and then you would get a stock card, be a Civic or be an accurate Integra, and it would have a body kit and air intake, some bucket seats and you would you would basically upgrade your car with the aftermac market parts that it came with. And they were essentially like model cars that you could make pretty simply. Uh. And

I liked it so much. I was on the forums of course, child of the Internet. And so then people would be doing these wild builds where they were using Bondo and like drimml to like carve out like super custom wide body kits, adding custom spoilers, slicing the roof like I remember I knew I was in high school because I asked my wood shop teacher to cut the roof off because I wanted to do a custom convertible because that was the big craze. And when I handed

him the modifier. He just looked at me like, are you serious. I was like, yeah, I just and he did it because he had the wood shop tools and so he did it because I knew he wouldn't let me do it by myself. But I was like, can you please just chop this? And he did it because he was a dope teacher. Um. But anyway, the reason I bring all this up soon like we started doing

cool things I used. I had a thing called mod mag where I kind of based it off of import Tuner, where I interviewed other people who had really cool mods and featuring them and compiling it into a magazine that I would make a word doc that people can download from my tripod uh angel Fire And but another thing people were doing was they would make films with the cars, but everyone since the cars were so small, the only thing people would use are mini figs. And there was

one dude who made like a race and like edited to make his mini fig talking like you want to go, and it blew everyone's mind. We're like whoa what what? So that was a long way to say that was my first brick film that I saw. Yeah, brick films for people that don't know where. Essentially stop motion animation using Legos, and they were very popular back in the nineteen seventies and eighties and and still today people will

make them. But the first known brick film was called Journey to the Moon and it was created in nineteen seventy three by Large C. Haysen and Henry Casing. It was a six minute video featured both stop animation and live action, and was recorded on Super eight film. And this film was later shown to Godfrey Kirk Christensen, so that was on a son who had a personal copy made, though the film was never released to the public until May when the creator uploaded it to YouTube. We've come

a long time since then, We've come a long way. Yeah. But let's talk about some of their properties, because they have a lot, so they technically let's see one, two, three, four, five films. We have the Lego movie which came out, we have the Lego Batman movie, the Lego Ninjongo movie which came out in and upcoming they're currently in development, is the Lego Movie too, and the Billion Brick Race, and both of those will come out in twenty nineteen.

Oh my gosh. Yeah, And that's just right. There like, um, just the movie, you know it is that any of like the TV stuff too. We're going to talk about that, iffy, But before we move on, I did want to say, because each of those movies could get their own episodes and and I love them. What I wanted to say is a couple of points, and one for the Lego movie is fascinating. It was the first time Batman and Superman appeared on screen as a duo, not Batman versus

Superman because this came before it. It was also the first time their Justice League companions Wonder Woman in the Flash, had ever appeared in a Hollywood film at all. Oh yeah, and Dan wanted to point out that Lego Batman has a score of n on Rotten Tomatoes and some people's favorite Batman films with yep, but you don't have to convince me, because Hector Navarro proudly states that that is his favorite Batman film, and he fights every time he

says it, every time he tweets it. People like better than the trilogy is like better than the Dark Night Trilogy, and then it proceeds to go the any any We're exactly where you expect. Yeah, it's so weird, like everyone has a different My favorite one is Michael Keaton's um, specifically The Batman, but like it's so who cares like that that's his favorite. He probably likes how upbeat and like funny and silly it is. Dan is pointing to me with thumbs up. So, so if we're gonna talk,

we like a lot of things. Cannot get into every single thing, And this is why I just want to go down real quick. There are nineteen direct to video Lego movies, nineteen Lego short films, thirteen Lego TV specials, and sixteen Lego TV shows. Yeah oh man. And and if we go into the video games. I just looked up the list of Lego video games. That list is even longer. I'm gonna try to go through some of

these as fast as I can. Lego fund To Build, Lego Is, Lego Loco, Lego Chess and Lego Creator, Lego Friends, Lego Racers, Lego Rock Raiders two thousand, Lego Land, Lego My Style Preschool, Lego My Style Kindergarten, Lego Alfhit Team, Lego Stunt Rally, Lego Creator Knights Kingdom two thousand and one. You had Lego Island to the Bristers, The Brixters Revenge.

Lego Island Too, But the Lego Racers Too, Lego Bionical Woo Whoo two thousand two, Football Mania, Wait Yeah Island, Extreme Stunts, Drone Racers, Bionical Matarin Adventures two thousands three, Bionical The Game, But You Are Okay? Two thousand four, Lego Knights Kingdom two thousand five, Bionical Maze of Shadows

two thousand six, Bionicle Heroes. If you hear how many times I'm saying Bionical, you might wonder why weren't they making Bionical Legos two thousand nine, Lego Battles two thousand ten, Lego Universe two thousand eleven, Lego Battles Ninjago two thousand thirteen, Lego City Undercover, Lego City Undercover, The Chase Begins, Lego Friends, Lego Legends, Chima Online, Lego Less and Chima Lavalles's Journey, Lego Legends, Cheama, The speed Oars two thousand fourteen, Lego

Mini Figs, Lego Ninjago Nindroids, Lego Legends, Achieve of Tribe Fighters, Lego Ninjago Travel Running In two thousand and seventeen Lego Worlds. Now there are people who are sitting on the edge of the trees like you miss something. Yeah, those are Lego sole owned games. If we're talking about licensed Lego games. Two thousand one, you had Lego Creative. I'm gonna stop you listen, I got and I got nineteen directive video Lego movies, nineteen Lego short films, thirteen Lego TV specials

in sixteen Lego TV shows. So let me just give you the gist. I'm just gonna give you the gist of some of these that you need to know. So so, out of the directive video Lego movies, they had several that were DC based and some that had Scooby Doo as well. I think two of them were Scooby Doo related, and many of them came with a Lego mini figure. That's what you need to know. If you want to check out more of them, I'm sure we'll get into it.

But also you can you can check out more. As far as the nineteen Lego short films, one of the biggest one was the Monty Python and the Holy Grail in Lego, which was included in The Monty Python and the Holy Grail DVD release as a bonus feature. Moving on to the thirteen Lego TV specials, some of the things you need to know first. The first one was Lego Atlantis, which premiered in on Cartoon Network. Also, another huge one was Lego Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back.

Very dope and brick Like Me, which was the Simpsons five and fifty episode. Super dope looking, especially if you're a Simpsons fan or just a Lego fan. So that was technically also a Lego TV special. Um, looks very cool. Maybe we can include a link to it because I loved it. Out of the sixteen Lego TV shows, so there was Lego Bionical, The Journey to One, which is the first series to be on Netflix. That was the first Lego series to be on Netflix. That's why it's important.

Star Wars The Freemaker Adventure, which was the first full length Lego Star Wars television series, and Uni Chitty, which is currently on Cartoon Network is from the Lego movies. Unikitty from the Lego movie and my friend Roger Craig Smith is a character in that. So yeah, there's and I think Tara is strong. Is Tara strong Unikitty. That makes sense because she voices everybody. Yeah, so moving on

because we cannot list all of these. Um are you talking about stuff like Lego Star Wars the video game Lego Star Wars to the original trilis Lego Star Wars, fun facts Iffy to close out, to close out this episode. So in August your favorite year, thirty eight children from seventeen different countries took part in the first Lego World Cup building contest that was held in Blun, Denmark. That's tight. That was all my that was when I was born to They should have brought baby Iffy out there getting

in How about this? In May two thousand and eleven, Space Shuttle Endeavor Mission's STS thirty four brought thirteen Lego kids to the International Space Station where astronauts built models to see how they would react in micro gravity. And that was a part of something called the Lego Bricks in Space Program. I do love how educational this toy is as much as it's it's called a toy, It is very educational. Yeah, toys can be very educational. Some

toys can teach you about yourself. Is that like Tickle Me Elmo? Yeah? Okay? In May The largest model ever created was displayed in New York City and was made of over five million bricks. It was a one one scale model of an X wing fighter from more Star Wars nerds um. Other records include a one dred and twelve foot tower in A four and a two point five mile railway m hm, dang well. In February two fifteen, not too long ago, Lego place Ferrari as the world's

most powerful brand. Yeah seriously, why, I mean like I could understand the world's richest, but not the powerful and powerful man. That's that's probably like target now is targets like taking over everything everyone X. You know, like everyone likes toilet paper when you used you know, when people like give me a tissue, they say, give me a clean X like, but usually it could be any brand, but clean X is that strong. I hear you. Um,

you can combine this little fun factor. You can combine six of the eight studded Lego bricks in nine hundred fifteen million, one D three thousand, seven sixty five different ways of ways. Who figured that out? Likes math? One of those weird math fans, you know that person on Reddit who always does the math my brother is one of those. He's an actuary. He loves math. Oh man, my Weldon, my buddy. I should probably try and link

uh probably or whatever. Uh. He was thinking considering going to actuary school, so I's probably like, Yeah, it's very hard, that's what you're saying. You have to take a bunch of tests, and like if you don't pass, it's like you can't move on with your career. That's what you're saying. Even after he graduated, he has to continue to take tests. I don't think he. I don't know if he does anymore. But he had to continue to take tests. It was like ground wings. You want, you want to get past

a certain part. If you don't pass, you're just done. Like I'm like, that's wild, You're just done done. Yeah, you're done here, son, you failed, Yeah, take that stuff to second city. We're done with you anyway. The Lego duplo bricks, the large ones for the little kids, can connect with regular Lego bricks, even though they are eight times the size of regular bricks. The dupelo legos connect

perfectly with regular ones. Yeah. Something else is that someone built a real house made entirely of Lego in two thousand nine, a man named James May and Surrey, Great Britain constructed the world's first full size Lego house. I would be like, these people are playing, you know, I would be concerned. Yeah, I feel like that's a house you can't walk barefoot? Yeah well, I mean aside from that, I'm like, it's something going to crash through my rooftop.

I got he used three point three or just like a hot day like I mean Phoenix in in the summer's like what one twenty like that would melt right some of these plastic using three point three million bricks. The house contained a working toilet. What was that made out of bricks? I mean, now it's just getting it present, and shower and a bed you would not want to

sleep on that all made out of lego. Lego Land offered to take the house and put it in their Windsor theme park, but took back the deal after deciding it would be too expensive to move it. They also criticized May for not asking for their help when building the house. He wanted to do it on his own. Leg Oh you ain't gonna ask us, You ain't gonna ask all right, all right? Uh yeah? And then according to our friends at a Mental Floss, shout out to part time genius love the pod and shout out to me.

I'm a host at Mental Floss. Did you know that? Yeah, I remember that, But I'm really trying to I'm trying to get you already follow me on Twitter. Now it's time to get Mango on the train. Uh, but you're so I never talk. I actually never promote the fact that I am. I know you should. I know. Look, Mango is gonna block you. Now. You know there's two hosts of that show. But it's very clear that Mango

is my favorite. Uh. The five toughest lego sets are, according to Mental Floss, is the Eiffel Tower, which has three thousand, four hundred twenty eight pieces, The Ghostbusters Firehouse four thousand, six hundred and thirty four pieces, Ultimate Collectors Edition Millennium Falcon that has five thousand pieces. I think I know someone who really wanted that. I know someone that has it. Also, there's the the video of I

think was it Kimmel or Conan. Maybe it was kind of the one where Harrison Ford, like someone brings out their Millennium Falcon. He's like, oh, and he like looks at it and then like accidentally tosses it and it breaks everywhere. Oh no. Then you have the Tower Bridge, which is four thousand, two hundred and seven pieces. Yeah, that's London's iconic, iconic bridge, and the Superstar Destroyer, which is three thousand, one hundred and fifty two pieces. That's

a lot of piece. The kid that I nannied when I was in high school had one of those. Really okay, you got the cool kids, huh Yeah. Yeah. He took him a while to put it together. Yeah, but he did. That's what counts. So that's a Lego. Yeah, that's the history of Legos, all of it. Yeah, we'll have to go back and do things like Bionical. I definitely want to do some of these Vigia games, uh and everything.

Lego has so many facets and parts, man, and it's it's one of the many things that we recorded and we're like, we're gonna have to do it. I mean, rumor has it that we just got that research for Dragon Ball Z and uh, we're talking about it before we recorded it, and we're gonna have to really just do the intro first and then visit each series piece

by piece because that lower is thick. But um, if you're already excited about the time you at the end of the episode, you must be super excited because I can't even wait for you to wait. I'm gonna tell you now, next week we're doing Dragon ball Z. You wanted it. Everyone knew who's coming. So I'm announcer right now. Forget the plugs, forget the sign off. Get ready to rock the Dragon, Dragon Dragon, Rock the Dragon Dragon ball Z. Ah. Okay, are you okay? Yeah, I'm just really excited. We're gonna

have a guest. But I'm I'm gonna save I gotta save you some dessert. I gotta save you some dessert. It's gonna be exciting. Um, But it's here you go. Where can people find you, Danny? People can find me at Miss Danny Fernandez. If you don't know, I have to Dragon ball Z tattoos on my body for anyone

that doesn't follow me. So, despite how I sound right now, I am also very excited as far as arguing about like, I don't know, when I think of Dragon ball Z, I know people argue a lot about like who's stronger in this and in the sagas, And I'm like, I don't even want to. I just want to talk about how did it get started, what is it and where is it going? So that is something that I'm looking forward to. Iffy, what did I answer? I met Miss Danny Fern send me me. I don't know. That's what

I keep telling people, and I enjoy them. Yeah, I learned now that I have to pretend like I haven't seen them before, because, just like you, because I feel everybody our friends are close personal friends. Will anything Dragon ball Z related that drops, like the new rebox shoes or um, I don't know, like the Super Saying restaurant or whatever. We get tagged a billion times, which is

sweet and adorable. I love that people are thinking of me, and now I just need to pretend like I haven't seen it a hundred times because I heard that that's not to be like, oh yeah, I already saw that. When a friend sends you a meme or a post or something, I'm going to be like, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I know. I do that lots, especially for things like these DVZ shoes. Do you these are literally the cross

between the two things I care the most about. All the DBS news I have I'm on it, but some some people, I will say, some people will hit me with some new stuff before I got to it. So don't stop, get to get it, don't stop. Let's get these shoes, all right, y'all. I'm if you I have y n W A D I two W on Twitter and Instagram. If he's on Twitch, thank you nerd fam y'all have been coming through so strong with them Twitch

Prime subs, and I can't thank you enough. It really keeps me going, It really keeps the stream dream alive. Just remember, you got to re up that sub monthly doesn't automatically renew, so come through at least you know, and and I'd like to know that there's a time once a month that we get to hang out while I'm playing maybe Overwatch. I'm back in a Wow Oh my gosh. I was just thinking that I have to go.

We gotta do a Wow episode and that is deep. Uh, but just come through, re up that sub or if you haven't hit me with a sub yet, hit me if you're If you don't know what I'm talking about. Twitch dot tv as a platform on the internet where you can watch other people play video games, and if you happen to have Amazon Prime, which if you don't have Amazon Prime yet, look, I get it. It can be kind of pricey, but when you break it down, it's about five bucks a month. And there ain't nothing

like free to day shipping. Nothing's ever gonna beat that. I don't buy. If I can't get it with two days shipping, then I'm driving to the store. But if you have that and you don't know what twitches, just loggingto Twitch, connect your Amazon you will have a free sub and you get to vincit me once a month. Or if you'd like watch people play video games every time I stream, make sure you hit that notification too.

That's you know, that's how you know I'm streaming. Um well, I did want to say we actually have a very good episode on Twitch. If you don't know what it is, you can listen to our episode on Twitch with Zach you Bank. You's the CEO of hyper APG. He's very informative and funny and great as always, but like talks about how to start your own Twitch channel, or how to get involved in Twitch or what twitches. So definitely check it out. Definitely come through with that. It's gonna

be a fun time. It's been fun seeing that hashtag NERD fan in my chat. It gets me hype every time. Thank you, thank you to everyone. Uh every month, I'm going to do one of these super hard pushes just to remind y'all, and then I'll shut up about it and just say if he's after so, this is your monthly push and also your monthly huge thank you. I don't even understand how much I enjoy getting to get paid to play video games Twitch Prime. You can do that for free. I love y'all. I appreciate y'all. I

love all the feedbacks. Tell us your favorite thing about Legos. If you're one of those crazy Lego heads with dope sets, definitely make sure you send them to us so we can retweet it. Put it on the Insta please. I am always blown away by Lego sets because I just don't have the just patience to do. Our friend Christopher Smith Bryant, who's going to be on a future episode, he has a ton of Lego sets. He has a lot of the DC ones here is a big fan of wonder Woman in such which I have a wonder

Woman Lego. She has ther Invisible Plane. Yeah yet, and also that's a big thing. It's mini fit key chain, so even if it's just your mini fit key chain, show me that. I'm curious that. I think the most popular one is Darth Vader. I've seen that more SOH hit us up. We like talking. We do all right, Joe, stay neary