I don’t remember my first LEGO set — it was probably from the Space or Castle lines — but in the two and half decades that followed, I’ve had an intense on-again, off-again relationship with the perfect plastic bricks. Some of my fondest memories of my youth involve building modular space ships with out of LEGO bricks with my then best friend Richard, outfitting our crew with the latest in LEGO weaponry, then taking the crafts on expeditions to alien worlds (alien worlds being found in abundance in the park behind Richard’s house). In sixth grade, when most of my peers wanted nothing to do with toys, all I wanted for Christmas (besides the NES I had been denied for two years running), was the Black Seas Barracuda, scourge of the LEGO Caribbean. It was the biggest and greatest LEGO set I’d built to date. It’s glorious hull would go on to serve as the foundation for my space pirate flagship and the base of Captain Nemo’s Nautilus (visual aid for a book report, no less). The next year I got the very same LEGO set for Christmas again (Mo- SANTA had a lousy memory), but, fool that I was, I traded it in for credit towards a Game Gear. Once I entered high school, my bricks went back into the closet for most of the year as I learned to appreciate “grown up” pursuits like collecting McFarlane action figures and Magic the Gathering cards, but upon graduation, when I found myself sticking around town at the community college when most of my friends went off to their far-flung universities, I rediscovered LEGO and fell for the bricks harder than ever.
Uninspired by school and uninterested in the social activities an 18-year-old was supposed to be into, I spent most of my free time playing obscure RPGS and watching old movies. Through the former activity I became good friends with Jack, a kid a grade behind me who been a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend since first grade, who for some reason I’d never talked to before. When I visited his house, he had on display various LEGO recreations of Robotech and Star Wars vehicles. His technical mastery of building inspired me to break out my bricks, and soon Jack and I were coordinating our building efforts, building bigger and better models than ever before. Across the street from the bookstore where I worked was Tom’s Toys,the same mom-and-pop toy store that I’d been visiting all my life. (Believe it or not, this local institution was originally called “Uncle Tom’s Toys” and remained that well into the 80s…). Since I knew the staff from years of patronage, I approached them with a proposition – if Jack and I built a custom LEGO display for their window, could we get a discount when buying LEGO? They graciously accepted the offer, and some three months and 30,000 bricks later, we had our first display – a fantasy diorama featuring floating castles, a dwarven mine (with a working mine car train on constant loop) and Jack’s highly articulated dragon. It was a pretty sparse display, barely filling half the window, but it became a local landmark, attracting gawkers of all ages on a regular basis. We even got coverage in the local paper!
Eventually we wanted our bricks back, and of course Tom’s Toys wanted a follow-up. Next we decided to take a more direct inspiration – Star Wars. This was a good three years before LEGO started doing licensed Star Wars kits, so every model we built was a custom creation. We decided on a half Endor, half Tatooine, with Jabba’s Palace, the Sail Barge and Sarlaac dominating one half, and the Imperial shield generator and Ewok village filling the other. The skies were filled with about a dozen spaceships dangling from fishing wire. Bringing the world to life were about 100 customzed minifig characters that Jack and I had painted and resculpted (again, this was before LEGO started making non-human minifig models). Our models were larger and more ambitious this time, and with that came a few added complications. During the drive from Jack’s house to the store, Jabba’s Sail Barge literally rolled over on top of some of the smaller vehicles, requiring a good six hours of reconstruction on-site. The results were pretty spectacular. This time we added Christmas lights into our models so that the diorama could be enjoyed at night as well. In addition to coverage in the local paper, we got an write up in Star Wars Insider magazine and an interview in the evening news (actual quote: “Go ahead and call them ‘block heads,’ they don’t mind.” Oh, but we did mind, Tony Cippola).
Our third and final display was a movie mash-up featuring everything from Ghostbusters to Godzilla to Clockwork Orange. The train was back, this time modified to be feature a Jurassic Park jeep being chased by velociraptors. Jack’s masterpiece this go-round was the hull of the sinking Titanic, complete with little lego men tumbling onto the propeller blades. It was actually to-scale with minifigs, so even though it was only about 20% of the ship, that piece alone had almost 10,000 bricks. (later, a Hollywood exec tried to buy it off Jack, but he turned them down). My star contribution was a 5-foot high model of the Empire State Building being scaled by King Kong. It wasn’t as detailed as many of the other models, but there it is quite awe-inspiring to stand next to a shoulder-high LEGO model of your own creation. As jack was by far the better customizer of LEGO minifigs to populate our world, I added a new innovation to this display – word balloons! We made taped little paper speech bubbles next to the figures heads so that they could quips from and inspired by their respective movies. All told, this display took about 100,000 bricks to build. After a 6 month run at Tom’s Toys original branch, we moved a modified version down to their new Beverly Hills branch where I worked part time while at Film School.
By that time, I was in Film School and living in student housing 200 miles away from Jack. While I did start in on a Star Wars Episode 1 diorama, it was never finished and Jack and I never built together again. No more LEGO building… until now!
Argh, the obsession calls, but I must try to resist. Last week, at Target, I saw the new Indiana Jones LEGO sets, and was oh-so close to buying them. I restrained myself, but that only served to launch me into a week of research into all the LEGO models currently on offering. I scanned every kit in the catalog comparing the price to brick ratios (LEGO fans, you know what I mean), identifying which new pieces offered exciting opportunities, and which were overly specific chunks that insulted the LEGO tradition. I scoured eBay and e-retailers looking for good deals. Eventually I broke down and decided to buy a set – not an Indiana Jones one (maybe later) but an enormous French motel/café
model. I hope that this taste of the old habit and the plethora of pieces will satiate my building urges until I can afford to have a room dedicated to the hobby (yes, my dream house has a LEGO room).
LEGO celebrated its 50th birthday last month, and it’s absolutely mind-boggling to think of how many LEGO bricks are out there (something like 60 bricks for every human being on earth). LEGO fandom is also growing in leaps and bounds – ten years ago, I thought my LEGO collection (around 75,000 bricks at its peak – now lost or stored) was as big as they come, but now the internet has brought together hundreds or thousands of far more impressive collections. LEGO has developed the same cool cache as 8-bit. I no longer feel like a member of the LEGO building community, but I do know that LEGO is, and always will be, a part of me.
Epilogue:
As much as I want to build my newly acquired LEGO café, it’s OFF LIMITS until I finish the script for Return to Labyrinth 3. I’m on the final stretch, with the outline for the final volume nearly done – this is no time to get distracted! Incidentally, the chapter I’m finishing up right now is also called “Obsession.”
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