I’m trying to decide if that’s the young Rob or the young Jackhammer Jill.
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The problem that Lego faces, is its’ product is too good, too versatile. If our imaginations filled the gaps, we would only need a small number of types brick to make everything, and we wouldn’t need to keep buying more. They were losing money hand over fist before the licensing deals came in. So now they can sell us one fantasy after another, as long as the licensed properties keep on coming.
I still love the product, don’t get me wrong. But the company has lost a lot of its soul. (or maybe I’ve grown up and lost mine, whatever…)
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I had that rocket set! Pretty sure some of the pieces are in the big plastic intergenerational Lego box in youngest’s room…
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It should either be doll(’)s house or dolls(’) house depending on whether the house is for a doll (singular) or many dolls (plural).
They’ve left the apostrophe off completely.
I don’t know. Rather a lot of Lego’s more recent products show very little understanding of either sociology or gender theory, and I really doubt the shots are being called by someone under 25.
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To be fair to them, I think they’ve improved again recently?
Ok ‘gender theory’ writ large - there’s plenty of competing arguments in there.
I like the talk about “Times New Roman” as if the exact font says anything about age – TNR was designed in 1931 according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_New_Roman.
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I made that post imagining 70s Denmark but now I’m wondering if they just made stuff with little regard to gender at all. Certainly in light of recent attempts.
But I still think the copy was written recently.
I remember from the 1980ies that there is no such thing as having enough Legos…
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At this point, it’s pretty conclusively proven to be legit. You can see how many versions were printed here. The complete text of the German edition is here. The last page of the German edition contains the words that are visible in the ‘x-rayed’ version, just in German “The Day the Lunch Burned” or something like that. It was a small pamphlet that came with a Lego kit that was aimed at girls, as you can tell by the cover.
But I’m curious how you think the quoted text is naive or unaware of sociology or gender theory?
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And they faked a whole catalog containing a translation and put it on a different site back in 2007? That’s quite the conspiracy.
There are lots of reasons to believe that it is real and I have yet to see a single specific reason to believe that it is not.
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Before the 1990s, TNR was one among many typefaces. Its inclusion in Microsoft Office, as the default font, turned it into the world’s most commonplace. Not everything old using it is fake, but faked old things may be more obviously so for its use.
However, the Lego typeface might not be a TNR; there are a myriad of Times-a-likes from over the years.
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Therefore, a good clue that something wasn’t faked is if its typography is close to, but detectably different from, the Microsoft version of TNR. As is the case here.
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Hello,
It is interesting that it says it was printed in Germany and not West Germany.
How prevalent was the distinction in Denmark between the two back then, though?
I mean, I’ve seen football footage from Italian broadcasters from the 70s that refers to Alemania
(Presumably meaning Germany and not something to do with drinking lots of beer.)
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It’s not pedantry if the assertion is that Lego would have had decent copyediting and wouldn’t have let the typo slip through.
I’m not making that claim personally, but it’s not unreasonable.
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Huh?
Can you explain this a little better? Even through a stereotyped “politically correct” lens, I really can’t find anything wrong with the assertion “dollhouses are more human, spaceships are more exciting.”
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Have you actually seriously sat down and played with Legos recently? One of the big, versatile sets, not just a $5 mini car or whatever.
There’s a wider variety of pieces, but they’re still just as fun and versatile as they were in our childhoods. (Or at least the '80s, in my case.) Every now and then they’ve resorted to a few overspecialized and big pieces, like large radar dishes or molded rock plates, and I agree that those are a misstep, but they’re not all that common, and even they have their uses. You can still make all kinds of neat stuff with, say, an X-Wing kit. No one’s holding a gun to your head and forcing you to make an X-Wing. Personally, I do the same thing I’ve done with Legos since I was seven: I build the kit in the instructions first, play with it until I get bored, then break it down and make my own stuff.
Don’t let the rose-colored glasses of childhood fool you. Different doesn’t mean worse.
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Having played with the sets of the mid to late 70’s then & being constantly on the lookout for secondhand sets via thrift & resale stores in the years since my first child came along I agree wholeheartedly.
I’ve managed to nab a half dozen or more of the mini-sets, a good sized starwars ship, a citylego or whatever towtruck/car set, the fighter jet 3 n 1 with the flashing led bits & a few hundred random pcs. All for about $20. (fighter jet was marked $1.50 but it was Wednesday so I got it for 75 cents! Guy told me it had been on the shelf for about 20 minutes) So I’ve been tearing them down completely & putting them all in one big bag which means I must inadvertently play with them each time I add to the pile. The variety is great & doesn’t hamper at all, sorting through so many is fun too.
A few months ago the difference was driven home to me when I discovered my partners 300 pc set from the 70s that her mom held onto for her. Primary coloured blocks in the shapes I remembered, fun, but damn, the new stuff is better. She thinks so too, we both remember longing for the space & pirate & castle stuff which neither of us had. Those 300 are going in the pile tho, for when he turns 5 & I’m confident his lil sibling one won’t eat them.
Simplicity is grand but variety is the spice of life. They won’t get directions/instructions or boxes with built examples with this set I’m building for them, so they’ll have to settle for building whatever they want/can from the few thousand pcs they’ll get. Just a few hundred pcs more to go to reach 2000 but I can’t imagine turning off the radar until they grow out of them if ever. Duplo has been fun but I’m looking forward to building w/them w/ real legos.
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