Lego article in "The Onion"

[Joebot]

:-D The infographic in this week's issue of "The Onion" discusses the 50th anniversary of the Lego brick. They even get in a good jab at MegaBlocks.

[Stealth Hunter]

Interresting article! *y* Down with Megablocks. *sing*

[Dr. Brick]

Hihi, fun article.

Stupid :-X Mega Blocks :-X people.

Dr. Brick

[Mile85]

Oct. 19, 1974: The first Lego human minifigure journeys through the human digestive system.

He/she must be proud X-D

[Cardinal Brick]

That brought a smile to my face, though "March 10, 1962: After four years of lagging sales, one of the designers has the idea to add a second colour to the set." well not far wrong there were only 4 to begin with.

What was so contentious about the Legoland constitution?

[iamded]

Hehehe, very cool! I can just imagine the big cheese of Megabl0ks accidentally referring to their own product as Legos. :-D

~Peace

Edited February 6, 2008 by iamded

[Zarkan]

Ohhhh crud... here we go with another "bash Megabloks" topic. :-|

Seriously, I wonder if even half of you guys have ever owned a megabloks set. Regardless, though, you can't say it's wrong for Megabloks to exist because they made lego like products, because ol' TLC had a chance to renew that patent on the lego brick, but they didn't, so too bad for them. *sad*

Besides, if there is one thing that I know, it's that many Megabloks parts actually can be used in lego MOC's well with skill. I once saw a castle-like diorama made mostly out of legos but using Megabloks Dragons bases as the ground. Then, there's the Exo-Force mecha I made partly out of parts from a Blok Bot... 8-|

Oh, this topic was about a lego article in the Onion, right? Whoops, er... nevermind. It was pretty funny, though, despite it's shortness. X-D

[Joebot]

What was so contentious about the Legoland constitution?

My guess is voting rights for mini-figs with the short, stubby legs. Should they be considered a full mini-fig and thus get a full vote? Or do they only get a half-vote? It's a very devisive issue. X-D

[Cardinal Brick]

My guess is voting rights for mini-figs with the short, stubby legs. Should they be considered a full mini-fig and thus get a full vote? Or do they only get a half-vote? It's a very devisive issue. X-D

LOL! Or was it female representation in the legislature as there are so few of them should they have a set number of seats allocated to them?

[Dadster]

My fav (and most realistic) by far was the latest:

Dec. 9, 2007: The company estimates that there are more than 2 billion Lego on the floor of living rooms around the world that need to be picked up.

[Brickmaster]

Heh, I love the onions sence of humor - Somehow I missed this :-$ Thanks!

[JINZONINGEN73]

Seriously, I wonder if even half of you guys have ever owned a megabloks set.

Oh, I had a few... at the very start of my trip toward Legodom.

I'd built a pretty damn freaking sweet brick version of a Micronauts Hornetroid from a pile of space Megablocks and primarily a Sonic Stinger from Lego.

Needless to say, the Megablocks kept making it fall apart. How do I know it was them? Well, the loose points were where the Megablocks had turned white and cracked upon first insertion. Insult to injury, they were connecting into bricks of their very same brand! This goes without even mentioning that the connection points were misaligned horribly, with no 4 sides the exact same thickness in a 1x1 brick.

To Megablock's credit however, Lego still hasn't made a GIANT freakin' purple canopy that I need to try and recreate the Hornetroid with.

It's entirely possible their quality has gone up in the last 7 years, but I'm not about to waste money finding out.

Trust me, I hated Megablocks MONTHS before I had jumped on the net's myriad of Lego fan sites.

It was instantaneously clear that they had inferior plastic and quality control.

We're not talking blind, uninformed riot mentality here. Nor are we talking about the kind of blind allegiance one has for "their guys" when talking of sports teams.

The disgust people have for Megablocks is as innocent as choosing between a broken crate of eggs at the supermarket versus ones whose shells are still intact.

Granted, my personal data IS 7 years old, but...

[Kliq]

Haha that was a good (short and to the point) read. I loved the line about the Megabloks CEO saying 'legos'.

But that is kind of an insult that he would make the accidental comparison.

I have owned several of their sets, and big ones too. I had nearly every one of the original Dragons line, from the big ship, to that huge maroon castle. The pieces just do not fit sometimes, or they are too loose, or break upon insertion. Even the people crumble after a short while. And don't get me started on those hands. >:[

BUT back to the article, I found it interesting that so many media outlets picked up on the 50th anniversary, though not surprising. It makes it a lil easier for people like me to point out the legitimacy of LEGO to others when it is on GOOGLE and The Onion, and Yahoo and all these other places.

Just another example of how much LEGO rules!

[CP5670]

Nice article. The Onion never disappoints. :-D

As for the issue about Lego having superior part quality, that was definitely true in the past but things have changed a lot in the last year or so, seemingly ever since TLC started outsourcing the production of their bricks. Some of the pieces they're coming out with these days look indistinguishable from mega bloks in terms of the colors and opacity of the pieces, and they don't grip together as firmly as they should either. I posted some thoughts on the issue here some months ago.

They say that these issues were due to a manufacturing glitch and not something intentional, but I don't know when they are supposed to get it fixed or if they have done so already. I have actually held off buying a lot of sets I want during the last year because I haven't heard any updates on this issue and have still gotten some of these dud pieces in recent Bricklink orders.

[Zarkan]

Oh, I had a few... at the very start of my trip toward Legodom.

I'd built a pretty damn freaking sweet brick version of a Micronauts Hornetroid from a pile of space Megablocks and primarily a Sonic Stinger from Lego.

Needless to say, the Megablocks kept making it fall apart. How do I know it was them? Well, the loose points were where the Megablocks had turned white and cracked upon first insertion. Insult to injury, they were connecting into bricks of their very same brand! This goes without even mentioning that the connection points were misaligned horribly, with no 4 sides the exact same thickness in a 1x1 brick.

To Megablock's credit however, Lego still hasn't made a GIANT freakin' purple canopy that I need to try and recreate the Hornetroid with.

It's entirely possible their quality has gone up in the last 7 years, but I'm not about to waste money finding out.

Trust me, I hated Megablocks MONTHS before I had jumped on the net's myriad of Lego fan sites.

It was instantaneously clear that they had inferior plastic and quality control.

We're not talking blind, uninformed riot mentality here. Nor are we talking about the kind of blind allegiance one has for "their guys" when talking of sports teams.

The disgust people have for Megablocks is as innocent as choosing between a broken crate of eggs at the supermarket versus ones whose shells are still intact.

Granted, my personal data IS 7 years old, but...

Well, if that was how megabloks was seven years ago, than I can say that they've changed a lot. The pieces I used for my exo-force creation were of fairly good quality. I do remember that when I had some of the old Planetoids kits, that they did match your description of horrible quality, but they aren't like that any more, at least from my experiences. ;-)

And, actually, I can't agree that hating megabloks right at the start is totally innocent, because overal Megabloks has improved, and the box art is just as good as the box art on lego kits. I think more people need to give them at least a BIT chance, as Starwars4J did when he bought one of their POTC kits. :-)