T is for That Was My Idea, That Was!

Except it was Vic Reeves! And these aren't his at all! Something a little different tonight, these are my Lego improvement ideas, and they fall into two groups, those I sent to Lego back in the 1990's (before I knew they were the Evil Empire!), and those I probably didn't!

 

Sent to Lego

 

I can't now remember if it was before or after they had released their own footballer sets, I have a feeling it was after, they weren't very good in my opinion, and while I'm not saying mine were better, I was aiming for something more in line with the rest of the range, i.e. a carpet-play thing, more compatible with all the other Lego 'elements', as we are supposed to call a pile of Lego these days!

 

The most obvious difference was the attempt to make them look more like footballers in shorts & shirt-sleeves! And once I was looking at their sets and giving the whole thing some thought, the ball was obvious, as was a simple goal, using their own element rules, with the ball having their click-holes, so it could be used with other things in other colours, space sets, or ships mast radar-domes, while the goal is a glorified development of the fence/crash-barrier or roll-bar, both elements which had been around for years.

 

Further musings! I also thought a normal green baseboard (obviously in scaled-down pitch dimensions), overprinted with white lines, would be far better than the strange green chunks of their system (so it must have been after?), and while I provided alternate cross-sections for the bare arms/legs, the intention was to have them as the standard Lego 'rod' thickness, so they could grab each other in the goalmouth for a foul!

No, I'm joking, I was already, as with the ball, thinking ahead to circus clowns or acrobats, who would be able to grab each other's arms or legs, with their Lego hands (already set for the standard rod dimension), to build human pyramids or do tricks or something . . . they've never done Circus? They've never done a marching band?

 

My second idea, was so obvious I don't know why they've never done it, especially in the larger Primo or Duplo sizes. Alphabet or early-leading blocks, I mean, why the hell hadn't they done something so obvious? I sent these to them 25/30 years ago? And yet, as far as I know, they STILL haven't done them, or anything like them, despite the old printed bricks being among the better sellers in the vintage sets, we had it; HOTEL, GARAGE, TAXI . . . I can't remember the other two, you could light them from behind!

 

While my third suggestion was more of an exercise in getting studs onto the Insectoid wings, so more stuff could be attached to them. The actual range had transparent aqua-blue wings with few or no studs and a sort of printed-circuit design, and I just thought if they were studded, they could be given more robot 'stuff', like modern jets, or Stukas!

Probably not sent to Lego

I always thought the medieval range/Robin Hood sets could benefit from better detailing, and these are a few ideas along those lines. Mega Bloks already had sculpted-side elements in their range (as I was working on these), and the louvred-side 2x1 brick was eventually copied by Lego (slightly differently), but think how much better the current awful-AFOL architecture sets would be, or the Harry Potter sets, with better stone-mouldings?

 

I think they've done a hat like that now, the number of blind bag figures over the last decade and a half has produced all sorts of clothing and accessory elements, while the scarf was basically a variation of their own life-jacket, but the main idea was a single ski, and it's applications, they only do a sort of double thing which is unrealistically short?

 

Almost certainly not sent to Lego

 

A few more bits of medieval architecture, but I glued in an idea I literally had on the back of an envelope! Up until the 1990's, propellers in Legoland were pretty basic, there was a 2x3 tile with spigot for helicopters, or a 2x2 tile with a blunt-squared pointy bit at 90-degrees, and spigot for aeroplane wings, and a later, third version with an actual, small, grey propeller, rather than the studded-planks which had always been attached to the older two.

 

Now, at the time I was buying a lot of Lego from Car Boot sales, and damaged elements, after cleaning, would be cut, trimmed, shaved or melted back to a usefully usable 'new' or unique element, and this started life - I think - as the upper torso of an early Duplo figure.

I was trying to get it so that it would make a perfect, if generic, propeller for single seat planes like Spitfires or Cessnas! Or you could have four of them for a Fortress or Lancaster! Now - of course - they probably have much better propellers, and companies like Cobi and Airfix (Quickbuild) are making better Lego-compatible 'planes!

The bulk of the Lego went to 'Timpo' Dave in 2006/7? While the rest went to Johnny G's kids over a number of Christmases, all scrupulously split equally! And somewhere I have a nice "Thank you, but no-thanks' letter from some woman in Bilund . . . but they never sent the drawings back . . . dun, dun, DUN!