MAB

They are fat in the sense of being wide, but they are not rotund. Side to side measurements are twice as large as front to back.

Many kids that watched the prequel trilogy first time around will be hitting 30 about now. I expect to see more PT sets once Ep IX is over.

That one has been available for ages. They didn't design a new head for Monica, they are just reusing the head from Sally Ride and Tina Goldstein.

Which one? The Office? Who knows how long they had been negotiating with NBC and designing the set. The Fat Mojo one looks much more similar to a previous failed one on IDEAS:

Has that ever happened though? If a license has a chance of partnering with LEGO, I'd imagine they'd wait for the review. If a clone company approached a brand I'd imagine they would look into why the approach has been made and soon find out about LEGO ideas, even if they didn't know about the project beforehand. If chosen, I wonder if they'd change the name or go with "The Pirate Bay".

Not always. If it is a print that makes the part unusable for MOCs, then I prefer stickers. Plus I don't know how much the extra costs are for all prints rather than stickers. I don't think anyone outside of LEGO does.

Collectors also want good boxes that can be displayed. What you you prefer to display - a perfect box that looks like it has just come out of the factory or one with a large tear or hole in the middle of the artwork or bashed up corners? Plus if someone has looked after the box and the instructions, chances are they have looked after the LEGO as well.

Unless you take the LEGO route and start doing two licensed themes for every one generic theme and you will keep going for another 10 years!

Yeah, but just a shame it is one day per year! :-)

Nice one. If I had ever tried to find that, I'd spend ages trying to find it in the technic section of BL.

It has been a problem in the past. Mars Rover sells out fast in the US and never comes back. Research Institute sells out fast, then comes back months later and sells quite well still. Exosuit sells out fast, comes back months later and sits on shelves even at quite heavy discounts, ending up in their "decommissioning campaign" adverts. LEGO doesn't always judge demand very well, especially for these somewhat niche sets. And if production numbers are written into contracts (which I believe was the case for Mars Rover) they cannot address it later if demand is higher than expected. (1) What if multiple sets have a good business case, or none, but there is only one free slot? Having set release dates means having to have a set released whether one is ready or not. Also different sets can have different parts requirements - some make require new prints / colours, while others can use existing produced bricks. (2) Why? The primary criterion (aside from licensing issues) is can LEGO make money from it. Does it matter how fast it got to 10000? (3) Removing projects will not help. Third parties could monitor anything that reaches 5000, for example. That way, if anything is removed on reaching 10000, they already have back-ups of what LEGO removed.

The interesting thing is that if you had asked a kid 10 years prior to that, they would have said houses, or simple vehicles. Asked of a new adult now, they would probably say Bionicle. Personally, I think that it is great that lego constantly evolves its product, albeit often revisting the same generic themes over and over just updating each time. If they were still doing classic castle and classic space as their major lines, they would be a very niche company.

No. There are still plenty of smaller sets that can be bought for kids. Kids get more Lego these days than when I was a kid.

I imagine most people know about the parts I use in most MOCs. I don't use these very often as I don't MOC cars much these days, but these are very useful especially if you use LEDs for headlights. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=x85#T=S&O={"rpp":"500","iconly":0} Expensive now, but well worth picking up a pair.

The same could have been said of many of the Disney characters plus lots of other CMFs (aliens, yetis, etc). Just make new headgear / hair pieces rather than use molded heads. I was never a fan of the way they did the heads in the LEGO TV episode, and think the molded ones look way better. Whereas the traditional torsos and legs are fine. I don't think they need to go "Angry Birds" for the Simpsons bodies.

I doubt much has really changed since the first game. We've had a lot of licensed series, which tend to get downvoted, plus S18 which was themed. The only new thing is S19 and they are still very new.

I don't think normal minifigure heads would have been as popular for the general public (as opposed to AFOLs wanting parts reusability), as they don't look very good compared to other Simpsons toys. It depends what you are into. I find that there are more reusable parts in Simpsons S1 than TLNM series, mainly because the designs printed on TLNM ones tend to make them unusable for me. The heads may be traditional minifigure ones, but if the prints on the heads/torsos/legs are too specific, then they become less useful.

Because more people liked it than TLNM series. Simpsons S1 was fairly ground breaking. Something people thought Lego would never do, both as a theme and as a licensed CMF, some great characters (esp compared to S2), lots of TV accurate head molds. Whereas TLMN was a waste of a CMF series for me. Loads of minifigures came in boxed sets, but still they did a CMF series. Whereas Simpsons S2 had lots of duplication from S1 and it was clear they weren't going to do the more interesting characters.

It isn't a fact. The DVDs, for example, are rated 15 (in UK). So if they made 16+ sets, then they would be age appropriate. We might assume it is inappropriate based on LEGO's values, but those are very flexible when it comes to opportunities of new markets. Many thought the same of The Simpsons, yet they did that. Go back just over a decade, and many thought they wouldn't make German or Russian soldiers based on their anti-modern warfare stance, but they did that.

We don't know that. There might still be production constraints that limits how may can be chosen, or based on projected demand / production run size, and so on.

I think they are based in the UK too. There is a direct dial number that is a UK one and if you phone it, they speak French to start with. I can think of one border that is not that far away now! LEGO could make prices uniform, but there are other hidden costs such as transportation, documentation in different languages and so on. Plus any EU citizen has the right to purchase from another EU country as if they were in that country if they arrange the transportation and so on.

It means someone has printed their own design on minifigure parts.

And brought back to life since then in the USA. https://www.toysrus.com/PressRelease.html

Another Shakespeare CMF. Takes me up to 8, and 12 of the actors.

It wouldn't need to be double walled, they'd just use artistic license and get the outside roughly right and not worry too much about the colour inside. A few stickers on the walls will soon make it look like Moe's. I don't see the problem with the windows - the diamond pattern would probably be printed on. The biggest issue, and why it will probably never be done, is the alcohol references.