Why flesh heads (and hands) for minifigs?

[Triborough]

Just wondering why there was a switch to the flesh heads and hands. I personally find it annoying, especially when I see a head that I want, but it is in the wrong colour. My guess is that it had something to do with the licensed sets, but am wondering if anyone can shed some light on the why and why they don't make all heads in all colours.

[AndyC]

Yellow minifigs were originally supposed to be 'raceless', but this lead to a problem with Lando in Star Wars (and also the NBA sets). Initially Lando was brown and the other figs yellow, but this introduced something of a dilemma since it suggests that yellow figs were intended to represent white skin. To resolve the issue, TLG decided that all licensed themes would use appropriate colour flesh tones and non-licensed sets would retain the traditional, raceless yellow minifigs.

[davee123]

but this lead to a problem with Lando in Star Wars (and also the NBA sets).

From my understanding, the thing that pushed the issue was the NBA license, not Lando specifically. The NBA license just didn't look "right" with tons of yellow-headed minifigures. And since the majority of the NBA personalities they chose to model in LEGO happened to have darker skin tones, it threatened the entire license if they didn't do it. In contrast, Star Wars mostly had white-skinned characters, with only a couple exceptions (offhand just Lando and Mace Windu?). So Lando and Mace were sort of a side thing, and the NBA license really forced them into making the decision.

DaveE

[Aanchir]

From my understanding, the thing that pushed the issue was the NBA license, not Lando specifically. The NBA license just didn't look "right" with tons of yellow-headed minifigures. And since the majority of the NBA personalities they chose to model in LEGO happened to have darker skin tones, it threatened the entire license if they didn't do it. In contrast, Star Wars mostly had white-skinned characters, with only a couple exceptions (offhand just Lando and Mace Windu?). So Lando and Mace were sort of a side thing, and the NBA license really forced them into making the decision.

DaveE

That would make sense if not for the fact that the NBA sets all came before the switch in Star Wars and other licenses. NBA sets were 2002, whereas Cloud City was 2003. The way I see it, the NBA sets were when TLG decided that likenesses of real people would use realistic skin tones, but it wasn't until 2004 that they decided that they'd extend that to include other companies' characters as well as actual people.

[Brickdoctor]

I remember reading a sign at the LLC Factory tour, and it too mentions the NBA license as the primary reason for the switch.

[davee123]

but it wasn't until 2004 that they decided that they'd extend that to include other companies' characters as well as actual people.

Yeah, as I believe, they decided to do that on the precedent of the NBA license. I would guess that the immediately upcoming Star Wars characters for 2003 were already in production and slated to be yellow, so 2004 was when we started seeing Star Wars following suit.

As for why the "original" themes stayed yellow (and didn't switch to flesh tones), I'm not sure if we've ever gotten an in-depth answer, other than "we wanted to follow the precedent". I'm sure a lot of hobbyists would be outraged if they stopped making yellow-skinned minifigs altogether.

DaveE

Edited May 31, 2011 by davee123

[badboytje88]

Hey Triborough,

Might I suggest to search the forum first before you start a new topic? There already are a lot of topics about flesh toned minifigs. I'd bet you can find your answer in at least one of them:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?app=core&module=search&section=search&do=quick_search&search_app=core&fromsearch=1