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Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday, an AFOL lived in California all by himself under the username of Oky, which means that he had the username over the door in gold letters and lived under it. One day, his friend Winnie-the-Pooh came over from Disneyland where he lived. "Good morning, Oky," he said. "Good morning, Winnie-ther-Pooh," said Oky. "I wonder if you've got such a thing as a camera about you?" "A camera?" "Yes, I just said to myself coming along: 'I wonder if Oky has such a thing as a camera about him?'” "What do you want a camera for?" Oky said. Winnie-the-Pooh looked round to see that nobody was listening, put his paw to his mouth, and said in a deep whisper: "Honey!" "But you don't get honey with a camera!" said Oky. "I do," said Pooh. “How?” "It's like this, " he said. "When you go after honey, the great thing is not to let the bees see you. Now, if they had an interesting review to read, they would be distracted and wouldn’t see me take their honey, so I figured I’d make a review of my house for the bees to read." "Wouldn't they look up from the review and notice you?" Oky asked. "They might or they might not," said Winnie-the-Pooh. "You never can tell with bees." "Then you had better make sure it’s a really good review," Oky said. “Yes,” said Pooh. He thought for a moment and said: "The thing is, I don’t really know how to take pictures… or write for that matter. Will you help me take pictures of my house and write a review about it, Oky?” "Silly old Bear!" Oky laughed to himself. “Sure, I will help you.” And so he did. Set Number: 21326 Name: Winnie the Pooh Theme: Ideas Year of Release: 2021 Ages: 18+ Pieces: 1265 Price: £89.99 / $99.99 / 99.99€ The Box As you may know, I’m about as enthusiastic about the boring black boxes that LEGO uses for 18+ sets as Eeyore is about anything. They look depressing and usually don’t suit the subject matter, and this set is no exception. It just doesn’t fit the bright and colorful world of Winnie the Pooh, although I’m glad that in this case they at least hinted at a more fitting background by having some illustrations of flowers, fences, and bees showing from behind the set. If only the whole box looked more like that. Oh bother. The back side of the box looks a bit more interesting as it features a large picture of the interior of Pooh’s house, a couple of close-up scenes, and a blueprint drawing of the set with dimensions, along with a brief explanation of how the LEGO Ideas process works. The top of the box shows a nice lineup of the minifigs along with the 100 Acre Wood sign, a few logos, and a “Hunny” pot fittingly serving as the size reference. The bottom only has some info about the packaging and trademarks. As always with these “Adults Welcome” boxes, there is a strip of various LEGO pieces going around the whole bottom part of the box and all over the bottom. The strip is colored honey-yellow in this case which does fit the set very well. There are several pieces in there that have not been released in yellow yet. Could this be a hint of things to come? Probably not, but one can hope. The right side of the box has a lovely illustration of Pooh Bear holding on to a balloon as he is known to do drawn in the style of E. H. Shepard’s art from the original book. The other side has some more legal jargon along with the French version of the Winnie the Pooh logo. It reads “Winnie l’ourson” which translates to Winnie the teddy bear. Not very imaginative, and I’m not sure why they felt the need to change the name in France, but c’est la vie. Like many Ideas sets, this one has an opening lid. I really like this type of boxes as they can be reused for storage. The bags are stacked neatly inside and are even almost in chronological order. The instructions and stickers lay freely in the box, with the stickers placed between the bags, but fortunately none of them were damaged. Contents Inside the box there are seven numbered bags, two sticker sheets (one reflective, one not), and one instruction booklet. The cover of the instructions features the same picture of the minifigs walking in a line, but this one has nice watercolor background like you would see in a Winne the Pooh book. This is exactly what the boxart should have looked like in my opinion, but I digress. Instructions The instructions book is full of nice illustrations of Pooh and his friends like the one that is on the side of the box as well as a map of the 100 Acre Wood. The first few pages of the booklet feature background info on the characters, stories, and fan designer Ben Alder, along with a few words from Ben and the LEGO designers about the creation the set. The instructions themselves are pretty clear and easy to follow. The colorful build really pops against the light gray background. There is another lovely illustration of Pooh with Christopher Robin heading off into the sunset which is a perfect image to end the build on. It is accompanied by that oddly ordinary French title. Notable Parts As is the norm for Ideas sets, there are now new molds in this set (besides those on the minifigs), but here are still a few notable parts. This set sees the debut of the large macaroni part in medium nougat, the coral piece in bright green, that Technic piece with 4 clips in reddish brown, and an unprinted minifig head in dark orange. Santa’s sack also appears for the first time in an official set in white. Another piece that is new to me even though it has appeared in a few sets already is the 2x4 double jumper plate. There are a few other parts in rare colors that have only appeared in one or two other sets which you can see here, and several more which have only appeared in four other sets which aren’t included in this picture. Also, while most of the graphics are stickered in this set, some of the parts are printed. Aside from the large and small tree stump tiles and ladybug tile which have been in several sets before, there is a new bee tile, the Mr. Sanders sign, and the honeypot with the “Hunny” label. It’s hard to see in these pictures, but there is a slight metallic gold shine to the “MR SANDERS” letters. Minifigs While Ben’s original submission was comprised of a mix of minifigs with preexisting headpieces and brick-built characters, LEGO apparently decided to go all out on this set and created minifigs with new molds for all the characters, something that is unprecedented in an Ideas set and is much appreciated. Unfortunately they omitted Owl and Christopher Robin from the lineup, but they kind of out of scale, so I can see why they did it. Kanga and Roo are missing as well, but they were not in the original submission either, so that’s fair. We do get 5 excellent figs of the most important characters from the 100 Acre Woods though. Let’s take a closer look at them, Starting with Pooh himself, his BFF Piglet, and Rabbit. Pooh bear’s belly and part of his chin are printed onto his torso which looks a tad odd, especially since the yellow on the print looks darker than that of his head and limbs, so I wish they would have put a bit more quality into the printing, but otherwise he looks great, especially his dual-molded arms. Piglet also looks spot-on and just as adorable as he should, but he is way too large in my opinion. He is nearly as tall as all the other characters and therefore feels out of scale with the rest of the set. Being a small animal who is afraid of anything bigger than him is, like, his whole thing, so I think he should have been a trophy-sized microfig, but Piglet fans will probably be happy to get a full minifig of him. Rabbit looks nearly perfect. His torso printing features dark hip curves that are usually reserved for female minifigs. I guess having Pooh constantly eat all his honey and living off his vegetable garden helps him maintain a girlish figure. The only thing that looks a bit off are his somewhat derpy eyes. This rabbit looks like he has seen some stuff. If I’m not mistaken, he is the first minifig to come with light yellow arms, legs, and hands, so between him and the dark orange minifig heads, this set should make monochrome fig collectors happy. All three have back printing which in Pooh’s case is just as off-color as his front unfortunately. Next, we have the two long-tailed characters, Tigger and Eeyore. Both look outstanding, especially Tigger whose body suits the minifig proportions perfectly. It seems that being a minifig is what Tiggers do best! His top isn’t made out of rubber and his bottom isn’t made out of spring, but he is just as bouncey-trouncey-ouncey-pouncey-fun-fun-fun-fun-fun as the real thing! But the most wonderful thing about Tigger is, he’s the only one with arm and leg printing, heeee’s the only one! (Let me know if you read all that in his voice) Tigger has the same feline tail as other cat-like minifigs and back printing, both with scribbly tiger stripes on them. Eeyore’s tail is sadly not detachable, although the bow on it is. Which is probably a good thing since he is quite “attached” to his tail. Winnie the Pooh and accessories too! Each character comes with a fitting item: Pooh has a red balloon for getting honey, Piglet comes with a scarf and an umbrella for cold, rainy autumn days, Tigger has a cleverly built bindle for when the gang goes on one of their “expotitions”, and Rabbit has one of his beloved carrots. Yes, every character comes with an accessory. Well, all except poor Eeyore (unless you count his bow). The Build The first thing you build is a small patch of grass with some leaves, a honeypot, and a sign for the 100 Acre Wood on it. It’s a quick and simple build, but it makes a nice addition to the set and the use of the 3x3 heart plate as a base gives it a nice organic look. The build is pretty straight-forward, starting from the bottom of the tree and going up to the top, but it involves several interesting SNOT techniques, such as the hills with slopes pointing in all directions and leaves attached to their corners. The fact that the designers chose to make most of the filler bricks bright yellowish orange like honey is a nice touch. Here is the build after the first two bags. After bag 3, Pooh’s house starts to take shape. At this stage, you can get a good look at what the interior of the house looks like when it is closed. Once you finish the walls of the house, it’s on to the tree. The lower branches of the tree are sandwiched between the front and back of the trunk and angled slightly upward using an interesting Technic connection which also strengthens the stability of the tree. The top is built on a turntable which held in place at an angle by four offset studs under the round plate which is an interesting technique I didn’t know about until now. Bag 7 includes all the parts for the treetop, beehives and front yard details. Building the treetop involves building six of the same branch section which means that you need to attach 3 leaf pieces to each of the 24 green coral pieces in the set. Needless to say, this is a bit repetitive. Rabbit may enjoy such tedious plant work, but me not so much. The Complete Set Here it is all put together! It looks abso-posi-tutely terrific! It's unlike any other set and all the bright colors make it look very friendly. The house looks pretty accurate when compared to the source material, aside from maybe the missing hills around the back of the house. There are lots of nice details around the front door such as the door knocker and bell, the little mushrooms built out of red Porg heads, and the big log where Pooh can sit by the fire and think. However, my favorite detail has to be the tiny 3-piece snail on the side of the house that uses a swirl piece as the shell, even though red is an odd color for a snail. I also really like how the tree is made out of a mix of nougat and dark tan parts. It looks really nice and I hope to see more trees in this color in other sets. The use of corals for the tree branches is also NPU. The shingles on the roof of Pooh’s house are made of cheese slopes which is not a new technique, but always looks nice, especially with those leaves scattered over them. It’s clever how they built the chimney out of hinges, a BB-8 head, and an ice cream cone. The only thing that bugs me a bit is how there is a small gap between the roof and the dark red bars in the back of the house, although I’m not sure how that could have been avoided. Also, it’s interesting that they chose to use modified tiles instead of actual shutters on the windows. I think it would have been better if they would have used shutters that you can actually close instead, especially since we haven’t gotten them in dark red yet. The back of the tree and house is a bit bare. I think they could have added a bit more foliage to fix that. However, I like how they hid they gray parts that hold the house closed with a wooden board and plants. As you probably saw on the back of the box, Pooh’s house can split open in the back to allow you to play inside. The house is held together by a single clip that inserts into a click-hinge which works pretty well while also making it easy to open the two halves without much force. The interior is stuffed full of detail! On the left there is a furnace, a picture of honeybees, a comfy-looking chair, and a table with a teacup and a honeypot. Next to the front door, there is also a sideboard with another teacup and a teapot as well as a map of the 100 Acre Wood on the wall. I especially like how they made the brick-built curtains. The chair is only connected by one stud, so it can easily be removed to seat a minifig in it or move it elsewhere. On the right is Pooh’s bed which cleverly uses roller skates as detailing on the bed ends along with a small table with a candle. In the rafters above the bed are various honeypots just in case Pooh wakes up at night and is hungry for a smackerel of honey (i.e. the entire pot) which I imagine happens every night. On the wall next to the bed hangs his Pooh-coo clock which tells him when it’s time for his stoutness exercise. The standing mirror in front of which he does said exercise is to the right of the front door along with a brown Technic pin connector that serves as an umbrella stand. It works surprisingly well as such, although the umbrella tends to get a little stuck in it. While I really like how the Pooh-coo clock is constructed, I think it could use a clock face, even if it was a sticker. Pooh’s house is filled with references and easter eggs! The rafters on the left side of the house carry a box of Poohsticks, the game that Pooh invented in one of the stories where two or more players drop a stick from one side of a water bridge and see whose stick comes out first on the other side of the bridge. The back of the box has the initials C.R. which presumably stands for Christopher Robin. Next to the box is a pearl-gold heart-shaped tile which represents the locket that Tigger found in The Tigger Movie and hoped to find his family with. The book on the bed is meant to represent a Winnie the Pooh book which is pretty meta. Inside the book, there is a nice Lego-fied silhouette of Pooh holding onto a red balloon. LEGO Graphic Designer Ashwin Visser added Ben Alder’s name on the inside of the cover which is a lovely shoutout to the fan designer of the set who enjoys reading these books to his children. Another detail that’s worth noting is that the honeypot on the kitchen table and the one above the bed have a stack of trans-yellow pieces to represent honey, a detail which Pooh much appreciates. There are some play features as well. Do you hear that noise? That buzzing-noise means something. You don't get a buzzing-noise like that without it meaning something. If there's a buzzing-noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee. That’s right, there are two identical beehives in the tree, each with four bees around it. The bees are mounted on a frictionless Technic pin, so you can make them fly around their hive like a mobile. Of course, a new bee mold would have been more realistic than printed tiles, but then again, maybe these really are just pictures of bees hanging from the hive. You never can tell with bees. Since each of the six treetop sections are mounted on ball joints and each of the branches is attached by a clip, the tree is surprisingly posable, so you can adjust it however you want or make it look like there is a lot of wind. Happy Winds-day everybody! Spare Parts Aside from the teal brick separator, there are many little parts left over after the build, including the small printed tiles, an extra Poohstick for a third player, an extra teacup in case clumsy Pooh breaks one, a pile of Pooh poo, and some extra trans-yellow honey pieces which should make Pooh bear very happy. Ratings Design: The tree and house look unique and colorful, and it’s faithful to the source material. Lots of great details. Build: An enjoyable build various interesting SNOT techniques, but with some repetition. Playability: There aren’t really many play features, but there are enough characters and accessories to play out many scenarios. Figures: All 5 look spot-on, feature new molds, and are new and exclusive to the set. Aside from Piglet’s scale, Rabbit’s derpy eyes and some quality issues on Pooh, they’re great. Parts: No new molds, but several parts in new or rare colors. Price: $100 for 1265 pieces including 5 new minifigs is a pretty good deal. Overall: Nine honeypots out of ten! This is a nearly flawless set. Disney/Pooh fans will love the minifigs and all the easter eggs while Lego fans will appreciate the unique, detailed, and fun-looking build and rare, useful parts. It's more of a display piece than a playset, but it has enough features to have plenty of fun with it too. While Winnie the Pooh was never my favorite Disney franchise, it was my sister’s and we both grew up watching The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh along with the other Disney Afternoon shows. Besides, I am a Disney fan in general and a huge fan of Jim Cummings who voices both Pooh and Tigger these days, so when I saw Ben’s excellent LEGO Ideas project, I supported it immediately, and I am very happy that it was turned into such a good set. Thanks for taking a look back at this 2021 set with me and thanks to LEGO for sending it to me for review. What do you think of the set? Let me know in the comments and the poll. And don't forget to check out some of the other Revember reviews! TTFN - Ta-ta for now! PS: You didn’t really think I would end the review without a Tuxedo Pooh meme, did you?

Here's a fun build I put together live on Twitch last night, Tigger from Winnie-the-Pooh! Built to celebrate the release of Christopher Robin this week! Hope you all like him!