May 4, 2010 • 37 mins
Most people are familiar with the plastic, interconnecting bricks called LEGO bricks, but what's their story? In this episode, Josh and Chuck discuss the history, popularity and trajectory of LEGOS -- and throw out some serious stats along the way.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant
(00:20):
with his hair looking mighty fine. Today is a good
hair day. Yeah, oh, it's a great hair day. Thanks man. Yeah,
you're doing great. You're feeling good, pet people energy and happy.
My hair is happy, yeah, Chuck, Josh, Hey man, let's
before we get started, we should plug Facebook, Twitter and
(00:43):
your mom's cooking. Uh, my mom's cooking is great. Facebook.
You can find us at Stuff you Should Know in
the search bar, and we're personally interacting. Now. It's not
a ghost writer, it's not it's not a net bot.
And you'll be able to tell because it's clearly our
silly and a in voices. Yeah, and we chuck started
(01:05):
the trend that solved a big problem of saying, hey,
Chuck here because our profile pictures the album art for
our podcast. I don't want people to get what we're
saying confused, but me, my words are my words. I
don't want them to be like I didn't know Josh
was an old crotchety man. Yeah, he's just a young jerk.
I didn't know Chuck was in a fight club. Um.
(01:26):
So that's Facebook, and we already had a page, but
we consolidated him. If you were a fan of the
old page, they ain't around anymore. Joined the new one,
will you. Let's get with it and Twitter. We're tweeting
at s y s K. Podcast is the name of
our account and should be funny and fun and I'm
trying to follow Cocoa's lead. Oh yeah, well I was
(01:48):
anti Twitter until I saw Comen O'Brien's I think I
told you that, and they were just they were funny,
and I thought, you know what, I could do that? Yeah,
well of course you can. You're Chuck Bryant characters. I
can do that. Yeah, we're t he in sixty pal
that was it. I don't know and I will figure
it out alright when it cuts me off in the
middle of the sentence. Alright, So we're doing with plug
Fest two thousand ten, right, okay, Chuck, Josh, Mr Jake
(02:13):
Jillen Hall. He uh, he's finally arrived. Donnie Darko himself. Yeah,
h much to his chagrin. He was not a member
of the cast of the Fine Fine Picture Hot Tub
Time Machine, but he was cast in the starring role
for Prince of Persia the Sands of Time or something. Right, Yeah,
(02:34):
I saw the trailer for that the other day. As
a result, Mr Gillen Hall will now have his own
Lego Mini figure. Well, and as a result, he's very
buff now you see it. He got all the jacked
up for the for the role as the Prince of Persia. Yeah,
but again, what we're focusing on here is the Lego
Mini figure. Well, but is the Mini figure buff? It
(02:55):
has stubble and there's something of a resemblance to Hi,
which is that really kind of a new trend among
Legos really to look like the thing or to just
be branded like that. Well both they started branding or
working with licensed brands with Star Wars and they were like, oh,
(03:16):
we don't know, this kind of goes against our corporate
philosophy letting kids use their imagination. All of a sudden,
sales weren't through the roof. And they're like, yeah, okay,
so this is what this is the way we put
it now. Uh, we let kids imaginations run wild with
the added element of storytelling. So which is cool? Lego Lego,
the Lego Group is what they're called. From what I understand,
(03:38):
it is a pretty great company, to tell you the truth.
And we should say, well, this is a no way,
in no way our Chuck and I Wilfer Brimley esque
compensated endorsers. Yeah, when we do a brand name like this,
don't don't think that we're we're shilling because we just
have chosen some of these iconic brands to cover because
I think it's interesting. It's part of pop culture, it's
(03:58):
part of who we are, and people seem to dig it. Yeah.
So anyway, now we're not getting rich off the Legos unfortunately.
So to answer your question, Um, they started doing the branded,
the licensing, branding sets like Star Wars. I think that
there was their first big hit. Indiana Jones was another
big hit. Harry Potter obviously, but um, it wasn't until
(04:19):
they started, um and until they released the Lego basketball set.
They started messing with skin tone. Up until that point,
if you had a Lego character, even if it was
based on somebody, um, it was yellow. And they for
a while there, they were a sexual right, they were
neither male nor female. Right. In four when they released
(04:40):
the first figures, they had a neutral facial expression. They
were genderless and race less, but in a in a
kind of a backhanded nod to women. The female character
was the first gender specific character introduced, wait for it,
as a nurse, yeah, for their hospital play set. Right, Yeah,
(05:02):
because there's no such thing as male nurses. Right. Yeah? Interesting? Yeah,
well that was better than at least they made her
a working woman, and they didn't say the first one
is you know, Betty homemaker, right, or a homeless person. Yeah,
let's start at the at the begin we got plenty
of This is a stat heavy extravaganza. Yeah. Yeah, Chuck's
(05:25):
all excited. That's why your hair looks so good. It's
standing up in excitement. Uh. Legos, Josh, like you said,
the Lego group, they employed about five thousand people. They
got about a hundred and fifty designers of eighteen nationalities
on their team, and they began way back in nineteen
thirty two. And I love this guy's name, Old Kirk Christensen. Yeah,
(05:46):
and his first name is O. L. E. Yeah, but
we are we've decided to refer to him as Old
Kirk Christensen, Old Kirk Christensen, do you remember when we
went to Tamburg and we found out one of their
vice president's name was Odd John. We're like, this is
the most punk rock telecommunications firm. We never well, no,
it's that Odd is actually a very common name in
(06:08):
in uh Norwegian countries. Wait wait, let me just double
check my facts. Is Denmark Norwegian country? Yeah, we got
that wrong with another ones and we heard about it. Yeah,
we did. That's a in podcast correction. We don't usually
do that, so Old Kirk Christensen. Yes, he comes up
from Denmark, from bill and Denmark, which is where the
(06:30):
corporate headquarters still are. Yeah, the first Lego land is
still there, that's right. Um. He at first joshed me
things out of wood, wooden toys and things like that,
little ladders, and he did so until nineteen sixty when
the warehouse burned was destroyed in the fire. And I
thought it was then that he said. It would have
been a much better story if he would have said, oh,
(06:51):
I need to work with plastic now, but that's plastic inflammable. Yeah,
because he uh, he started working with plastic long before that. Um,
and I think nineteen seven plastic not coincidentally, that's the
year that his son took over. Yeah, and his son
started saying, we need to plastics, it's the way of
(07:13):
the future, and they started tinkering around with legos, right well, yeah,
the first one, the first thing they made in was
the automated binding brick and that was kind of like
the first modern Lego brick, but it didn't have the tubes.
We'll get to the construction in a minute, but it
didn't have the tubes, a little interior tube, so it
wasn't things weren't a stable, so it was sort of
(07:34):
like just the beta version, right, um, but what was
it Night? That's when they came up with the current design.
It's called studding tube coupling system, which, like you said,
we'll describe in a second. But the cool thing about
it is it hasn't changed since then. And so if
you have a brick that was made night and you
go buy a set today, they'll work together. That is
(07:57):
I think one of the cooler facts of this whole thing.
I got one for what's the term lego is actually
uh an abbreviation of two Danish words, right, leg and goot,
which put together means play well, So he combined the
two into Lego. What old Kirk Christensen didn't know was
(08:18):
that lego in Latin actually means I put together. Really,
he had no idea, and I bet people think that's
why he named it. That look at you, josh at
you so h like I said, or like you said,
was when they kind of finished the design of the
modern brick and the rest is history. In the in
(08:40):
the sixties and seventies, they started introducing other other facets
to the to the Legos besides just the brick. For instance,
the Lego technique technique but not technique. It's really technic,
you know what I'm saying. I'm reading between the lines.
(09:01):
It hit the market in seventy seven, and uh Mine
Storms Robots made their debut in ninety eight, and that
was actually a collaboration with m I T the Technology
Media Lab there. Yeah, in the eighties, right eighty four
or something. Uh no, late nineties. I think they got
together with a starting in like eighty four. Then maybe
it took that long. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah.
(09:23):
And also their designers. You would think that all of
their designers have art school backgrounds or some sort of
engineering design backgrounds, not necessarily true, my friend. While most
of their designers do have that, the company says that
all designers are hired based on their hands on work
and a face to face interview, And you don't necessarily
have to have an art background. If you are a
(09:45):
natural Lego place at designer, that's what you are. Yeah,
that means you and I could go and try and
do that. Let's let's give it a shot. We may
have to, so, Chuck. Over the years, you just spanned
a few decades. You know, Legos were named Toy of
the twentieth Century by Fortune magazine in two thousand. Yah,
I saw that. Yeah, good for them too. Did you
have Legos? Oh? Yeah, of course I didn't. What I know.
(10:09):
You know what's funny is I noticed that they're only
sold in the hundred and thirty countries. I did a
little background check, Chuck, right, Um, it's not unequal access
to sanitary drinking water that keeps underdeveloped countries underdeveloped. Turns
out it's lack of an access to legos. Is that
(10:29):
what it is? Yeah? Well, they teach you how to
build and construct things and play together. That's all you're
all thumbs today, isn't it. Yeah? I mean I was
into Lincoln logs and because you know, I was born
in the nineteen thirties and log cabins were how we
had to do things back in my day. And then
I had an erector set, which was pretty awesome. Yeah.
(10:50):
I never get into a directors set. Yeah, that was fun.
I was kind of been. I was like, look at
all those Gears employees, what is this? And hot wheels.
I just want to snap box together hot wheel model cars.
I was into model cars. Yeah. I would get them
and I would then destroy them at some point later
on with firecrackers and stuff. We're not recommending that you
do that, No, we're not. It's very dangerous. So I
(11:12):
was saying you you spanned several decades when you gave
those stats, and in the meantime people have come up with, um,
some pretty cool uses of Legos have done some pretty
cool things with them. There is if you go onto YouTube,
there is a thriller done in Legos, all fourteen minutes
shot for shot, and it was clearly done in like
(11:32):
an old like sixteen millimeter camera and it hasn't made
the jump to digital all that well, but still it's
pretty impressive. There's some Star Wars stuff on there I've
seen recreated definitely. Did you know there's a Boba fette
Lego character. I didn't know that, but it didn't dude
and Chewbacca, Well there should be icons um in I
(11:55):
think two thousand eight, Lego and Kellogg's combined shared the
Blindingly Obvious Danger Award from Consumers International for producing the
Lego fund snacks, which are gummy fruit choose that look
exactly like Lego black. Yeah, that's that's like the bag
of glass from the old right, Yeah, or the super
(12:17):
Happy fun Ball Yeah yeah, um, and so of course
those were discontinued in two thousand and eight. Yeah, that's
not a very good idea. And there was a guy
out there who's actually in the article and there's a
cool picture of it in the article. Who created the
um a life size replica of Han Solo frozen in carbonite. Yeah.
I got info on that guy, do you really? Yeah,
(12:37):
he's he's a real artist. Yeah he is, you can tell. Yeah,
we'll get to him later too. That okay. Um. And
then lastly, Chuck mc escher relativity. Yeah, you know, the
steps going different, the startas that he did it in
Legos It is amazing see. That's impressive to me. What
(12:58):
come on, hand, strong hands? Please? Can you disappoint me today?
That's all right, I'm just over it. How many times
can I see that stair thing? You know what? Each
time you gaze upon it, you're still like riveted, aren't you? Do?
You know the incredibly disordered or highly ordered brain structure
(13:22):
requires to see things in that kind of perspective. That's amazing.
It's not I'm not saying he's a dummy. I'm just
tired of looking at it. I think we should talk
about how lego bricks are made. It's a good idea,
Uh josh. They start out with plastic granules as a
little plastic, yeah, plastic. It is Acra Loni trial Beautadine
(13:47):
styrene or ABS. We'll call it a BS, and a
b S comes to the factory, well, we'll call it factory.
It's a manufacturing facility um in in drows. I have
fourteen silos that it are. These things are vacuumed into
these silos and all in all a factory has a
close to a million pounds of this granulated plastic, right,
(14:09):
and all the plastic has already died, so they've got
fifty two different colors. Yeah, they don't need to worry
about all that. You wouldn't want to have to color
it there too. I wonder where that's made initially interesting.
I don't know, but I did a little background check
and a B S is actually a very safe plastic.
It doesn't contain thouts or bispin als. Well. Yeah, because kids,
(14:32):
despite everything you tell them, are probably gonna put a
lego in their mouth at one point or not, whether
it's a lego or a lego fruit too. Right, I
could see that meeting though. I sort of see it like, boy,
it's really unsafe to eat these, but they want to
eat them, so let's just give them when they can eat.
And then after they're like, oh, Jerry put in like
a sound effect of somebody slapping their own forehead. So
(14:54):
what happens from here, buddy, is they take these granules
and they use a process called injection molding and some
it's all this is machinery pretty much, of course, and
they melt the stuff down fifty degrees. Yeah, they're not
made by hand. Is that a surprise? Right? The four
degrees it melts the plastic, it injects it into the
(15:17):
molds and applies between twenty and a d fifty tons
of pressure. Right. The cool thing is it's these the
dyes that they use to the injection molds that they use.
The machining process is so precise. The most it's off
is zero point zero zero two millimeters, which is relatively
insignificant for the kind of um the kind of coupling
(15:40):
system that Lego has used. But first, let's talk about robots.
I thought you were good about to drop the knowledge
there on that oats do it. You're talking about the
interference fit. Yeah, that's what it's called, Josh. It is
a tube that sticks. I'm sorry that the stud sticks
into the tube, but it's slightly bigger, which is key
because that means that presses it apart and allows it
(16:01):
to stay together using friction. Right. And the the key
to this chuck is you don't need any kind of fastener.
It's all friction. It's all resistance. Uh. And that was
that change in design that they achieved in nine eight.
Before it was it lacked the tubes, I think, so
that things would fall apart pretty easy. Now it's like
once a Lego stuck, brother, it's stuck, well until you
(16:24):
take it apart exactly. But I mean, think of how
many pounds of pressure you have to use to overcome
that friction fit. Yeah, that's true. It's a lot, like
at least two that's true. So where were we pressure?
They apply all that pressure, makes it into the little mold,
takes only seven seconds and they spit it out. Cool.
It goes into a conveyor, into a ben, goes from
(16:45):
a bin into the packaging. We could get specific there,
but it's not the most interesting thing in the world.
I think the cool thing is is um they have
robots that way the packages. The reason when you get
a Lego set, you get different bags, right, because these
designers have said, we need X number of these blocks
and next number of these blocks, and they put them
in different bags so that you can just throw these
(17:08):
um this prescribed assortment of of bags in a box
and there's your place set. Right. And then they have
robots that way the bags before packaging to make sure
they weigh the precise amount. Pretty cool. And if they don't,
that's when humans come in. Yeah, humans come in and
do a little q A along with machines. Machines perform
the drop torque, tension compression bite and impact tests and humans.
(17:31):
The Bye test is my favorite. Humans. He's a little beaker.
I guess the size of a child's epiglottis maybe to
make sure that it can't um a piece, can't, you know,
choke a kid to death, because that's a really important
step in this whole process. Definitely, And the tests, and
one of my favorite stats, Josh is, out of every
million Lego pieces made, only about eighteen failed these tests.
(17:56):
That is point zero zero zero two. No, yes, point
zero zero zero two. I see four zeros. Yeah, you
said three and I said four. No, you said three
zero zero zero zero two. And the castle walls are counterclockwise. Uh.
(18:20):
And this, like you said, Josh, takes place in bill
and Denmark. But they have they moved a lot of
their manufacturing to the Czech Republic because they were kind
of losing money there and laying people off and after
the mid nineties, and so they had to make a
little cheaper and I guess labor whatever is cheaper over
there in in the Czech Republic must be I guess.
So that's why it's there now. So check they're making
(18:43):
a thirty seven thousand Lego sets every hour. Sets sets,
not bricks and UM, I believe I saw a statistic that, um,
every seven seconds, another Lego set is sold. Yeah, we
have some of those fun stats will save the end
all that time. Sorry for jumping ahead though, That's okay. So, Josh,
Let's say you wanted to build a Lego project, but
(19:04):
not a you know, not a little tiny thing to
put in your pocket, a pocket model. Let. So you
want to build something kind of big and cool. The
first thing you need to do is, well, it depends
what kind of guy you are. I'm a kind of
guy just dives in and starts building. But that's why
I'm not an architect or a builder. What you should
do is plan it out a little bit and decide
how large you want it, because then you're gonna you know,
(19:25):
that'll tell you how many bricks you need, how long
it's gonna take, and that determines your scale, and from
there you can just kind of move on and be creative.
You can sketch it out if you want, if you're
into that, or you could use computer software. You can
it's pretty awesome. Actually, UM, there's three different types of
software as far as I know. There's Lego Digital Designer
(19:47):
UM and that's actually available for for use for free
on the website. Pretty cool. You can either download it
or I believe you can go to Lego dot com
and use it. UM. There's also l draw, which is
based really a type of CAD computer aided design software UM.
And then there is brick Smith that's it on brickman
(20:09):
man UM and people use these to do things like, oh,
I don't know, create the statue of Liberty with UM
a lightsaber, Yeah, that's a fun one, or a scale
replica of the Brooklyn Bridge or right, you know, yes,
Lego Land had pictures of that. Actually, I'll show you. UM.
(20:29):
The thing I thought was cool is when they some
tracy for this article interviewed this the one guy that
you're talking about, Nathan Sawaya Sawaya, and he he's you know,
it's sort of like real architecture and real building techniques,
like you should stagger your your bricks for a wall
(20:49):
because it's sturdier, and you can put for hollow things,
you can put interior columns, and it sort of follows
the same rules of standard architecture, which I thought was
kind of neat. Right, and this isn't lost on Lego
was UM they've recently released the Lego Architecture series. Did
you check these out? No, dude, they have, Um, they
have a couple so far. They have the Googgenheim Okay, UM,
(21:12):
my favorite. They have falling Water. Very nice. Yeah, it's
pretty sweet. Um. And they have some uh iconic landmarks.
I think the space needles one of them. But it
looks pretty slick. What if I was like Frank Woyd, right,
I'd come across this table square houses please. Yeah. And
we've been trying to figure out how to do a
(21:33):
Frank Lloyd Wright podcast and we got i'd say, pretty
far into the research process to do it, and I
figured out, like, we we can't do this. It's just
too visual us sitting around describing falling water like somebody
should slap us in the face. Yeah. It'd basically just
be like, it's so awesome. No, really, it's awesome, and
there's a river that runs underneath. Its awesome. I'm done that, okay. Um.
(21:58):
If you're If you're interested, there is a book called
the Unofficial Lego Builder's Guide from Alan Bedford and um
and a publication online called Brick Journal, and you can
get like tips on building big things. There because if
you never tried, either you're you know, a genius and
your innately able to do so, or you're gonna fail miserably. Well.
(22:19):
One guy who was interviewed for the article who did
the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Yeah, yeah, as
part of like his whole town he was building. No,
it wasn't it was. I think it's like Chris Doyle. Yeah,
Chris Doyle. He said, he just starts like he he
has a rough idea of what he wants to do,
but you know, he just goes to town. Basically, That's
(22:39):
what I would do. Yeah, it can be done, yeah,
but mine probably wouldn't succeed. And then if you are
into robotics, electronics that kind of stuff, you can use
Legos too. Yeah, they've got new robot versions have like
microprocessors and motors and gears. There's a guy who used
who used Legos to create an automatic book scanner. Wow.
(23:01):
I know, especially if you love books and you love Legos,
then uh. There's also a seed launcher that somebody made
using Legos that that was pretty awesome to us. Um.
And then one of the other cool things I saw
it combines Legos with dominoes it's in a mechanical and
automated domino stacker legs. Yeah, it looks at the important part. Yeah,
(23:27):
I was trying to picture that. I gotta no. I'm like, no, no,
it's a playmobile, but it has water running underneath. It's
so awesome. So I mentioned Nathan Sawaya. He is one
of the pre eminent lego artists out of New York,
of course, and he has a traveling exhibit called The
Art of the Brick and a website too, and he
tours the real museums. And the dude is got some
(23:50):
serious talent. I mean, look at that. He did Starry
Starry Night mosaic, he Didima statue. Ye oh, he did
this one. That one is the favorite one I ran across,
and we should probably describe it. Yeah. It is a
yellow man looking upward and he's tearing apart his chest
and inside his chest he's full of legos that are
(24:10):
spilling out, and he's made of legos. You keep leaving
that all of this is made of legos. Okay, all right?
And then there's this other dude, Sean Kenny, and he
is New York based two and I get the feeling
that they kind of battle a little bit force well,
New York Lego supremacy at least because both of their
websites say our studio has more than one point five
(24:33):
million Legos. Both of them have one point five million Legos.
But I mean how many I could have one point
five million Legos and do nothing with them and slap
a website together. It's what you do with the legos,
not how many you own. Well, let me show you
what Shaun's done. He's done um work for companies like
Google and Nintendo and JP Morgan and Samsung. And he's
(24:54):
been featured on I mean everything, you name it, he's
been featured. Has it been featured on Timmy Kim Well?
Ah no, But look at this. He did a Yankee stadium.
Check that out. And I hate the Yankees. I was
gonna say, if I like the Yankees, I'd be really impressed.
And he's pretty talented guy too. And he is a
member of the what are called the Certified Professionals, and
(25:18):
I think there's eleven of them. Now, Yeah, that Lego
was actually certified these people as professional artists or whatever. Yeah.
I got the impression that um, as he became better
and better, he stopped paying for Legos along the way,
and this is like ring ring, I need more Legos now,
I would think, so I need grain And Old Kirk
Christensen is like, okay, all right, Old Kirk, should we
(25:41):
go off some of these fun facts? Yeah, Lego fun
facts aren't all facts associated with Legos fun? Yeah? I
think so. Okay. I like this whole around the world
stuff though, because every company has one of these. Wait, first,
have you been on Lego dot com recently? Did you
go on for this? Yeah? Yeah, it was pretty awesome,
wasn't it, like all the little movies associated with each one.
(26:02):
I haven't been to Lego Land though, You've ever been there?
One of their theme parks that they actually sold. You
had a Merlin Entertainment or something like that to Merlin
Olsen his ghost made a deal with Old Kirk Christiansen's
passed away recently, didn't he very sad? Uh? Yeah? They
sold those because they became unprofitable, so they kind of
restructured and move some things around. Now they're in the
(26:26):
in the red, in the black, in the Black fun facts. Josh,
here we go. More than four hundred million children and
adults will play with Legos this year. Yes, and I
don't know what year they said that was, but it's
probably every year. I saw the two thousand nine Investor
Catalog or Um Perspectus, I guess, and it said that
(26:48):
same stats. So you can put all your money in Legos.
I'm gonna put a substantial amount of it actually privately owns.
I don't think that's possible. M hm uh. If you
built a column, Josh of forty billion Lego bricks, it
would reach the moon. Had to count those zeros. I've
(27:08):
got one, go ahead. Lego is the largest tire manufacturer
in the world. Yeah, little teeny tires, pretty pretty cool. Sat.
How many do they make a year? Oh? I don't know.
Do you have that stat Yeah? I do, three six million.
That's what I get to. Somebody else is in the
two thousand nine Investor perspective on average, Josh, they are
(27:29):
this is the one. This is my favorite one. There
are sixty two Lego bricks for every single person on Earth. Yeah.
I like that one too. Uh. Four billion hours. That's
the amount of five billion, five billion hours. That's how
much people will spend playing with Legos in a year
on average, not one person, not per person, by everybody
(27:51):
playing with Lego you had a fun fact. I'm not
a fun fact. I mean there were more, but I've
got one for you. Remember we talked about I'm fascinated
with the mini figures, the mini figs as they call them.
If you're in the know, if you're one of the
eleven certified artists. Um we uh. We talked about how
they're they were originally gender neutral, um, race neutral. They
(28:15):
were also emotion neutral too, And it wasn't until nine
when Lego released their oil started releasing their Pirates set
that they realized, hey man, we might need some facial
expressions on these people. And they came up with a
good figure and a bad figure and an I patched
figure and I think scowl and smile to differentiate between
(28:39):
the good guys and the bad guys. I'm sure from
that point on they started having facial expressions for them. Uh.
And I think I have one an other Yeah, I
was Fisher Price. We should do a podcast on Fisher Price.
That was my bag. I was way into that. I
liked Playmobile, but I did love Legos as well. Um
and then Chuck the Mini figs four billion of them
(29:01):
on the planet. There's only six point five billion people um,
four billion on the planet technically makes them the largest
population group in the world because they're so tiny. That's
so cute. And I think that's it, buddy, I think so.
I mean, there's a lot more. We didn't cover all
of it. No, there is something else. All the press
(29:22):
you were talking about them selling Lego Land. They did
this huge restructuring in I think two thousand four because
they peaked in with their Star Wars sets and after
that they actually started losing money, and you said they
were back in the black. Part of it is because
of their selling Lego Land restructuring the company. But um,
(29:45):
one of the reasons, actually, probably the main reason why
Legos took such a hit was because of Mega blocks
no electronics. Oh, I thought their patent ran out too.
That's something to do that. That was definitely part of it.
But they think that the you know, Legos are having
trouble competing with MP three players or video games are
all that. So Lego remains optimistic, Buddy. I have a
(30:08):
little tidbit of nice Danish optimism in broken English for you,
courtesy of the Lego Group. You ready, yes, I quote,
but the Lego group is in no doubt that the
Lego brick will continue in future to be relevant to
children of all ages period. A world of imagination and
total absorption. Period. That sounds like they literally said that
(30:31):
and their native language and then just typed it into baby. Well.
You know they have the my nephew, uh know what
plays with the the PlayStation game they have but Indiana
Jones Lego game. Yeah, so they're trying to get a
piece of that market too. I think they got a
good piece of it. They have a Star Wars game too.
I think they have more than the trilogy in Lego. Yeah,
(30:54):
they'll be around. They're fine, I think so. Yeah. So
that's it, man. If you want to see really honestly,
I know we say this every time, like go read
the article on the site. Sometimes we've covered the article
gone beyond the article. This is not one of those cases.
If you want to see just a series of super
cool Lego pictures, um, a Lego brick field guide, complete
(31:16):
with precise measurements, uh and just a bunch of other
information that we didn't even touch on, type how Lego
bricks work, because technically there isn't a word called legos,
it's Lego bricks. But you know, hey, we named ours
how legos work? Right, type how lego bricks work in
the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com
(31:37):
and it will yield that article right indeed, listener Milk,
I wanted to give a little shout out. I had
met a couple of fans this weekend. Finally it never happens.
What about the Henry Clay people. Well, yeah, but I mean, yeah, sure,
you're right, Okay, I'm gonna plug your album. Actually it's
coming out in June. They got a new album coming out.
(31:57):
But I'll wait on that plug when it's when. Interest Uh.
Jerry and I over the weekend went to a play sorts.
I think it's so cute you to your dating wildlife
theater We're not dating, uh, called looking Glass Alice based
on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and Doug and
Lindsay or in the show Lindsay's Alice. And actually there's
(32:19):
only five people in the show, so literally one whatever
whatever percentage of the cast that is, are fans of
the show. And so Jerry and I went with Emily
with my wife and I met up with them afterwards
in the green room, which was really green, and they
were super cool and we're gonna take him out for
barbecue while they're here, and uh, I just wanted to
(32:41):
thank them. Are they still here? Yeah, they're there. It's
like a six week run where you going for barbecue. Well,
I was gonna say, like Daddy D's, but that's my
friend little Dingy let me yeah, but it's really great barbecue.
Daddy d Is is listening your barbecue rocks. I would
recommend that. Or Fox Brothers. Well, Fox Brothers is a
(33:01):
little more the kind of place you would want to
take someone from out of town. But they're kind of
into fat mats. They want to get fat mats. Okay,
you know that made an appearance in Up in the Air.
Yeah indeed. Yeah. Okay, Well that's it for the Atlanta
barbecue scene, right, And I also wanted to shout out
to uh. Emily had a craft show last weekend and
one of her fellow crafters her name was Julie. Oh
(33:22):
is it Julia? Now I feel like a jerk. It's
just to say both. It's either Julie or Julia. She
was really nice and what she does she has bought
some of these and I've seen other people that do
this now. And I'm mentioning it because it's just so
cool those old print printing presses from like the eighteen hundreds. Yeah, no,
(33:43):
you don't. She's resurrected these things and they're huge and
she does like real printing on cards. Just no computers involved.
It's just because those DAGNEVITC computers, I know. But that
showed pictures are in front this huge machine and you
crank it with your foot and it turns all these
gears and just like the punk and she was, yeah,
it is very steampunk. But her she has a website
(34:04):
called red Bird Inc. Dot com. And I don't know,
I think you should support people that like resurrect She said.
Machines have been used in like seventy years. Why don't
she got ahold of them? People used to have to
walk uphill both ways in the snow to use those
machines to print. All right, Josh, this is a listener
mail in honor of Mother's Day that should come out
(34:25):
sometime near Mother's Day. Hold on, we haven't even laid
a part where we can do the music, Chuck, is
it time now for listener mail? Yes, Josh said in
JERRYO so, like I said, hopefully this will come out
sometime around Mother's Day because is from Nora, signed Nora
a mama from Missouri. Hello fellas. While driving my oldest
(34:47):
son to start a freshman year of college this fall,
I was trying to be cool. She put cool in
quotes and ignore all the mommy emotions bubbling up so
she was getting sad. Thank you for translating. For the
hour and a half drive, my son out his radio
iPod gizmo and entertained his brother and me with your podcast,
starting with the one on a pumpty schemes. Uh, you
(35:09):
know how to say it, clearly. We were totally involved,
thought provoked, and sparked a great conversation for two. After
handling the separation without too much embarrassment, and upon arriving home,
I decided to go for a run to help shake
off my mommy blues. The inspiration came to look up
the podcast and load some on the iPod gizmo, thinking
while running and listening, I headed that part. While running
(35:31):
and listening, I was struck by the whole circle of
my baby teaching me a trick or two as he
heads off into the world. Now I get warm fuzzies
each time I had out for a run and choose
my topic. Didn't it And I look forward to running
more than a half for a while, So extra bonus.
Now my son, my youngest son, looks for podcast he
wants to listen to with us on car trips. She's
(35:53):
excited about. Yeah, we're bringing the intergenerational gap together. She says,
hooray for more family time with the teenagers. Who knew
every time you encourage emails At the end of podcast,
I think about sharing our little story. The kids would
roll their eyes if they knew, I wrote in, But
they love what you do to and we hope you
keep up the good work. And Nora mommy for Missouri,
(36:14):
help your kids in college. Rolling his eyes at you
right now, Yeah, that's what we hope. But there's a
tear coming down from his eye as well. He's if
he wasn't homesick before, he isn't now. Believe me. Well,
if you work out or run or do any physical
exertion while you listen to Chucking Me, we want a
sample of your sweat. Put it in an email and
(36:35):
send it to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff works dot Com. Want more how
stuff works, check out our blogs on the house. Stuff
works dot Com home page brought to you by the
(36:56):
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant
(00:20):
with his hair looking mighty fine. Today is a good
hair day. Yeah, oh, it's a great hair day. Thanks man. Yeah,
you're doing great. You're feeling good, pet people energy and happy.
My hair is happy, yeah, Chuck, Josh, Hey man, let's
before we get started, we should plug Facebook, Twitter and
(00:43):
your mom's cooking. Uh, my mom's cooking is great. Facebook.
You can find us at Stuff you Should Know in
the search bar, and we're personally interacting. Now. It's not
a ghost writer, it's not it's not a net bot.
And you'll be able to tell because it's clearly our
silly and a in voices. Yeah, and we chuck started
(01:05):
the trend that solved a big problem of saying, hey,
Chuck here because our profile pictures the album art for
our podcast. I don't want people to get what we're
saying confused, but me, my words are my words. I
don't want them to be like I didn't know Josh
was an old crotchety man. Yeah, he's just a young jerk.
I didn't know Chuck was in a fight club. Um.
(01:26):
So that's Facebook, and we already had a page, but
we consolidated him. If you were a fan of the
old page, they ain't around anymore. Joined the new one,
will you. Let's get with it and Twitter. We're tweeting
at s y s K. Podcast is the name of
our account and should be funny and fun and I'm
trying to follow Cocoa's lead. Oh yeah, well I was
(01:48):
anti Twitter until I saw Comen O'Brien's I think I
told you that, and they were just they were funny,
and I thought, you know what, I could do that? Yeah,
well of course you can. You're Chuck Bryant characters. I
can do that. Yeah, we're t he in sixty pal
that was it. I don't know and I will figure
it out alright when it cuts me off in the
middle of the sentence. Alright, So we're doing with plug
Fest two thousand ten, right, okay, Chuck, Josh, Mr Jake
(02:13):
Jillen Hall. He uh, he's finally arrived. Donnie Darko himself. Yeah,
h much to his chagrin. He was not a member
of the cast of the Fine Fine Picture Hot Tub
Time Machine, but he was cast in the starring role
for Prince of Persia the Sands of Time or something. Right, Yeah,
(02:34):
I saw the trailer for that the other day. As
a result, Mr Gillen Hall will now have his own
Lego Mini figure. Well, and as a result, he's very
buff now you see it. He got all the jacked
up for the for the role as the Prince of Persia. Yeah,
but again, what we're focusing on here is the Lego
Mini figure. Well, but is the Mini figure buff? It
(02:55):
has stubble and there's something of a resemblance to Hi,
which is that really kind of a new trend among
Legos really to look like the thing or to just
be branded like that. Well both they started branding or
working with licensed brands with Star Wars and they were like, oh,
(03:16):
we don't know, this kind of goes against our corporate
philosophy letting kids use their imagination. All of a sudden,
sales weren't through the roof. And they're like, yeah, okay,
so this is what this is the way we put
it now. Uh, we let kids imaginations run wild with
the added element of storytelling. So which is cool? Lego Lego,
the Lego Group is what they're called. From what I understand,
(03:38):
it is a pretty great company, to tell you the truth.
And we should say, well, this is a no way,
in no way our Chuck and I Wilfer Brimley esque
compensated endorsers. Yeah, when we do a brand name like this,
don't don't think that we're we're shilling because we just
have chosen some of these iconic brands to cover because
I think it's interesting. It's part of pop culture, it's
(03:58):
part of who we are, and people seem to dig it. Yeah.
So anyway, now we're not getting rich off the Legos unfortunately.
So to answer your question, Um, they started doing the branded,
the licensing, branding sets like Star Wars. I think that
there was their first big hit. Indiana Jones was another
big hit. Harry Potter obviously, but um, it wasn't until
(04:19):
they started, um and until they released the Lego basketball set.
They started messing with skin tone. Up until that point,
if you had a Lego character, even if it was
based on somebody, um, it was yellow. And they for
a while there, they were a sexual right, they were
neither male nor female. Right. In four when they released
(04:40):
the first figures, they had a neutral facial expression. They
were genderless and race less, but in a in a
kind of a backhanded nod to women. The female character
was the first gender specific character introduced, wait for it,
as a nurse, yeah, for their hospital play set. Right, Yeah,
(05:02):
because there's no such thing as male nurses. Right. Yeah? Interesting? Yeah,
well that was better than at least they made her
a working woman, and they didn't say the first one
is you know, Betty homemaker, right, or a homeless person. Yeah,
let's start at the at the begin we got plenty
of This is a stat heavy extravaganza. Yeah. Yeah, Chuck's
(05:25):
all excited. That's why your hair looks so good. It's
standing up in excitement. Uh. Legos, Josh, like you said,
the Lego group, they employed about five thousand people. They
got about a hundred and fifty designers of eighteen nationalities
on their team, and they began way back in nineteen
thirty two. And I love this guy's name, Old Kirk Christensen. Yeah,
(05:46):
and his first name is O. L. E. Yeah, but
we are we've decided to refer to him as Old
Kirk Christensen, Old Kirk Christensen, do you remember when we
went to Tamburg and we found out one of their
vice president's name was Odd John. We're like, this is
the most punk rock telecommunications firm. We never well, no,
it's that Odd is actually a very common name in
(06:08):
in uh Norwegian countries. Wait wait, let me just double
check my facts. Is Denmark Norwegian country? Yeah, we got
that wrong with another ones and we heard about it. Yeah,
we did. That's a in podcast correction. We don't usually
do that, so Old Kirk Christensen. Yes, he comes up
from Denmark, from bill and Denmark, which is where the
(06:30):
corporate headquarters still are. Yeah, the first Lego land is
still there, that's right. Um. He at first joshed me
things out of wood, wooden toys and things like that,
little ladders, and he did so until nineteen sixty when
the warehouse burned was destroyed in the fire. And I
thought it was then that he said. It would have
been a much better story if he would have said, oh,
(06:51):
I need to work with plastic now, but that's plastic inflammable. Yeah,
because he uh, he started working with plastic long before that. Um,
and I think nineteen seven plastic not coincidentally, that's the
year that his son took over. Yeah, and his son
started saying, we need to plastics, it's the way of
(07:13):
the future, and they started tinkering around with legos, right well, yeah,
the first one, the first thing they made in was
the automated binding brick and that was kind of like
the first modern Lego brick, but it didn't have the tubes.
We'll get to the construction in a minute, but it
didn't have the tubes, a little interior tube, so it
wasn't things weren't a stable, so it was sort of
(07:34):
like just the beta version, right, um, but what was
it Night? That's when they came up with the current design.
It's called studding tube coupling system, which, like you said,
we'll describe in a second. But the cool thing about
it is it hasn't changed since then. And so if
you have a brick that was made night and you
go buy a set today, they'll work together. That is
(07:57):
I think one of the cooler facts of this whole thing.
I got one for what's the term lego is actually
uh an abbreviation of two Danish words, right, leg and goot,
which put together means play well, So he combined the
two into Lego. What old Kirk Christensen didn't know was
(08:18):
that lego in Latin actually means I put together. Really,
he had no idea, and I bet people think that's
why he named it. That look at you, josh at
you so h like I said, or like you said,
was when they kind of finished the design of the
modern brick and the rest is history. In the in
(08:40):
the sixties and seventies, they started introducing other other facets
to the to the Legos besides just the brick. For instance,
the Lego technique technique but not technique. It's really technic,
you know what I'm saying. I'm reading between the lines.
(09:01):
It hit the market in seventy seven, and uh Mine
Storms Robots made their debut in ninety eight, and that
was actually a collaboration with m I T the Technology
Media Lab there. Yeah, in the eighties, right eighty four
or something. Uh no, late nineties. I think they got
together with a starting in like eighty four. Then maybe
it took that long. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah.
(09:23):
And also their designers. You would think that all of
their designers have art school backgrounds or some sort of
engineering design backgrounds, not necessarily true, my friend. While most
of their designers do have that, the company says that
all designers are hired based on their hands on work
and a face to face interview, And you don't necessarily
have to have an art background. If you are a
(09:45):
natural Lego place at designer, that's what you are. Yeah,
that means you and I could go and try and
do that. Let's let's give it a shot. We may
have to, so, Chuck. Over the years, you just spanned
a few decades. You know, Legos were named Toy of
the twentieth Century by Fortune magazine in two thousand. Yah,
I saw that. Yeah, good for them too. Did you
have Legos? Oh? Yeah, of course I didn't. What I know.
(10:09):
You know what's funny is I noticed that they're only
sold in the hundred and thirty countries. I did a
little background check, Chuck, right, Um, it's not unequal access
to sanitary drinking water that keeps underdeveloped countries underdeveloped. Turns
out it's lack of an access to legos. Is that
(10:29):
what it is? Yeah? Well, they teach you how to
build and construct things and play together. That's all you're
all thumbs today, isn't it. Yeah? I mean I was
into Lincoln logs and because you know, I was born
in the nineteen thirties and log cabins were how we
had to do things back in my day. And then
I had an erector set, which was pretty awesome. Yeah.
(10:50):
I never get into a directors set. Yeah, that was fun.
I was kind of been. I was like, look at
all those Gears employees, what is this? And hot wheels.
I just want to snap box together hot wheel model cars.
I was into model cars. Yeah. I would get them
and I would then destroy them at some point later
on with firecrackers and stuff. We're not recommending that you
do that, No, we're not. It's very dangerous. So I
(11:12):
was saying you you spanned several decades when you gave
those stats, and in the meantime people have come up with, um,
some pretty cool uses of Legos have done some pretty
cool things with them. There is if you go onto YouTube,
there is a thriller done in Legos, all fourteen minutes
shot for shot, and it was clearly done in like
(11:32):
an old like sixteen millimeter camera and it hasn't made
the jump to digital all that well, but still it's
pretty impressive. There's some Star Wars stuff on there I've
seen recreated definitely. Did you know there's a Boba fette
Lego character. I didn't know that, but it didn't dude
and Chewbacca, Well there should be icons um in I
(11:55):
think two thousand eight, Lego and Kellogg's combined shared the
Blindingly Obvious Danger Award from Consumers International for producing the
Lego fund snacks, which are gummy fruit choose that look
exactly like Lego black. Yeah, that's that's like the bag
of glass from the old right, Yeah, or the super
(12:17):
Happy fun Ball Yeah yeah, um, and so of course
those were discontinued in two thousand and eight. Yeah, that's
not a very good idea. And there was a guy
out there who's actually in the article and there's a
cool picture of it in the article. Who created the
um a life size replica of Han Solo frozen in carbonite. Yeah.
I got info on that guy, do you really? Yeah,
(12:37):
he's he's a real artist. Yeah he is, you can tell. Yeah,
we'll get to him later too. That okay. Um. And
then lastly, Chuck mc escher relativity. Yeah, you know, the
steps going different, the startas that he did it in
Legos It is amazing see. That's impressive to me. What
(12:58):
come on, hand, strong hands? Please? Can you disappoint me today?
That's all right, I'm just over it. How many times
can I see that stair thing? You know what? Each
time you gaze upon it, you're still like riveted, aren't you? Do?
You know the incredibly disordered or highly ordered brain structure
(13:22):
requires to see things in that kind of perspective. That's amazing.
It's not I'm not saying he's a dummy. I'm just
tired of looking at it. I think we should talk
about how lego bricks are made. It's a good idea,
Uh josh. They start out with plastic granules as a
little plastic, yeah, plastic. It is Acra Loni trial Beautadine
(13:47):
styrene or ABS. We'll call it a BS, and a
b S comes to the factory, well, we'll call it factory.
It's a manufacturing facility um in in drows. I have
fourteen silos that it are. These things are vacuumed into
these silos and all in all a factory has a
close to a million pounds of this granulated plastic, right,
(14:09):
and all the plastic has already died, so they've got
fifty two different colors. Yeah, they don't need to worry
about all that. You wouldn't want to have to color
it there too. I wonder where that's made initially interesting.
I don't know, but I did a little background check
and a B S is actually a very safe plastic.
It doesn't contain thouts or bispin als. Well. Yeah, because kids,
(14:32):
despite everything you tell them, are probably gonna put a
lego in their mouth at one point or not, whether
it's a lego or a lego fruit too. Right, I
could see that meeting though. I sort of see it like, boy,
it's really unsafe to eat these, but they want to
eat them, so let's just give them when they can eat.
And then after they're like, oh, Jerry put in like
a sound effect of somebody slapping their own forehead. So
(14:54):
what happens from here, buddy, is they take these granules
and they use a process called injection molding and some
it's all this is machinery pretty much, of course, and
they melt the stuff down fifty degrees. Yeah, they're not
made by hand. Is that a surprise? Right? The four
degrees it melts the plastic, it injects it into the
(15:17):
molds and applies between twenty and a d fifty tons
of pressure. Right. The cool thing is it's these the
dyes that they use to the injection molds that they use.
The machining process is so precise. The most it's off
is zero point zero zero two millimeters, which is relatively
insignificant for the kind of um the kind of coupling
(15:40):
system that Lego has used. But first, let's talk about robots.
I thought you were good about to drop the knowledge
there on that oats do it. You're talking about the
interference fit. Yeah, that's what it's called, Josh. It is
a tube that sticks. I'm sorry that the stud sticks
into the tube, but it's slightly bigger, which is key
because that means that presses it apart and allows it
(16:01):
to stay together using friction. Right. And the the key
to this chuck is you don't need any kind of fastener.
It's all friction. It's all resistance. Uh. And that was
that change in design that they achieved in nine eight.
Before it was it lacked the tubes, I think, so
that things would fall apart pretty easy. Now it's like
once a Lego stuck, brother, it's stuck, well until you
(16:24):
take it apart exactly. But I mean, think of how
many pounds of pressure you have to use to overcome
that friction fit. Yeah, that's true. It's a lot, like
at least two that's true. So where were we pressure?
They apply all that pressure, makes it into the little mold,
takes only seven seconds and they spit it out. Cool.
It goes into a conveyor, into a ben, goes from
(16:45):
a bin into the packaging. We could get specific there,
but it's not the most interesting thing in the world.
I think the cool thing is is um they have
robots that way the packages. The reason when you get
a Lego set, you get different bags, right, because these
designers have said, we need X number of these blocks
and next number of these blocks, and they put them
in different bags so that you can just throw these
(17:08):
um this prescribed assortment of of bags in a box
and there's your place set. Right. And then they have
robots that way the bags before packaging to make sure
they weigh the precise amount. Pretty cool. And if they don't,
that's when humans come in. Yeah, humans come in and
do a little q A along with machines. Machines perform
the drop torque, tension compression bite and impact tests and humans.
(17:31):
The Bye test is my favorite. Humans. He's a little beaker.
I guess the size of a child's epiglottis maybe to
make sure that it can't um a piece, can't, you know,
choke a kid to death, because that's a really important
step in this whole process. Definitely, And the tests, and
one of my favorite stats, Josh is, out of every
million Lego pieces made, only about eighteen failed these tests.
(17:56):
That is point zero zero zero two. No, yes, point
zero zero zero two. I see four zeros. Yeah, you
said three and I said four. No, you said three
zero zero zero zero two. And the castle walls are counterclockwise. Uh.
(18:20):
And this, like you said, Josh, takes place in bill
and Denmark. But they have they moved a lot of
their manufacturing to the Czech Republic because they were kind
of losing money there and laying people off and after
the mid nineties, and so they had to make a
little cheaper and I guess labor whatever is cheaper over
there in in the Czech Republic must be I guess.
So that's why it's there now. So check they're making
(18:43):
a thirty seven thousand Lego sets every hour. Sets sets,
not bricks and UM, I believe I saw a statistic that, um,
every seven seconds, another Lego set is sold. Yeah, we
have some of those fun stats will save the end
all that time. Sorry for jumping ahead though, That's okay. So, Josh,
Let's say you wanted to build a Lego project, but
(19:04):
not a you know, not a little tiny thing to
put in your pocket, a pocket model. Let. So you
want to build something kind of big and cool. The
first thing you need to do is, well, it depends
what kind of guy you are. I'm a kind of
guy just dives in and starts building. But that's why
I'm not an architect or a builder. What you should
do is plan it out a little bit and decide
how large you want it, because then you're gonna you know,
(19:25):
that'll tell you how many bricks you need, how long
it's gonna take, and that determines your scale, and from
there you can just kind of move on and be creative.
You can sketch it out if you want, if you're
into that, or you could use computer software. You can
it's pretty awesome. Actually, UM, there's three different types of
software as far as I know. There's Lego Digital Designer
(19:47):
UM and that's actually available for for use for free
on the website. Pretty cool. You can either download it
or I believe you can go to Lego dot com
and use it. UM. There's also l draw, which is
based really a type of CAD computer aided design software UM.
And then there is brick Smith that's it on brickman
(20:09):
man UM and people use these to do things like, oh,
I don't know, create the statue of Liberty with UM
a lightsaber, Yeah, that's a fun one, or a scale
replica of the Brooklyn Bridge or right, you know, yes,
Lego Land had pictures of that. Actually, I'll show you. UM.
(20:29):
The thing I thought was cool is when they some
tracy for this article interviewed this the one guy that
you're talking about, Nathan Sawaya Sawaya, and he he's you know,
it's sort of like real architecture and real building techniques,
like you should stagger your your bricks for a wall
(20:49):
because it's sturdier, and you can put for hollow things,
you can put interior columns, and it sort of follows
the same rules of standard architecture, which I thought was
kind of neat. Right, and this isn't lost on Lego
was UM they've recently released the Lego Architecture series. Did
you check these out? No, dude, they have, Um, they
have a couple so far. They have the Googgenheim Okay, UM,
(21:12):
my favorite. They have falling Water. Very nice. Yeah, it's
pretty sweet. Um. And they have some uh iconic landmarks.
I think the space needles one of them. But it
looks pretty slick. What if I was like Frank Woyd, right,
I'd come across this table square houses please. Yeah. And
we've been trying to figure out how to do a
(21:33):
Frank Lloyd Wright podcast and we got i'd say, pretty
far into the research process to do it, and I
figured out, like, we we can't do this. It's just
too visual us sitting around describing falling water like somebody
should slap us in the face. Yeah. It'd basically just
be like, it's so awesome. No, really, it's awesome, and
there's a river that runs underneath. Its awesome. I'm done that, okay. Um.
(21:58):
If you're If you're interested, there is a book called
the Unofficial Lego Builder's Guide from Alan Bedford and um
and a publication online called Brick Journal, and you can
get like tips on building big things. There because if
you never tried, either you're you know, a genius and
your innately able to do so, or you're gonna fail miserably. Well.
(22:19):
One guy who was interviewed for the article who did
the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Yeah, yeah, as
part of like his whole town he was building. No,
it wasn't it was. I think it's like Chris Doyle. Yeah,
Chris Doyle. He said, he just starts like he he
has a rough idea of what he wants to do,
but you know, he just goes to town. Basically, That's
(22:39):
what I would do. Yeah, it can be done, yeah,
but mine probably wouldn't succeed. And then if you are
into robotics, electronics that kind of stuff, you can use
Legos too. Yeah, they've got new robot versions have like
microprocessors and motors and gears. There's a guy who used
who used Legos to create an automatic book scanner. Wow.
(23:01):
I know, especially if you love books and you love Legos,
then uh. There's also a seed launcher that somebody made
using Legos that that was pretty awesome to us. Um.
And then one of the other cool things I saw
it combines Legos with dominoes it's in a mechanical and
automated domino stacker legs. Yeah, it looks at the important part. Yeah,
(23:27):
I was trying to picture that. I gotta no. I'm like, no, no,
it's a playmobile, but it has water running underneath. It's
so awesome. So I mentioned Nathan Sawaya. He is one
of the pre eminent lego artists out of New York,
of course, and he has a traveling exhibit called The
Art of the Brick and a website too, and he
tours the real museums. And the dude is got some
(23:50):
serious talent. I mean, look at that. He did Starry
Starry Night mosaic, he Didima statue. Ye oh, he did
this one. That one is the favorite one I ran across,
and we should probably describe it. Yeah. It is a
yellow man looking upward and he's tearing apart his chest
and inside his chest he's full of legos that are
(24:10):
spilling out, and he's made of legos. You keep leaving
that all of this is made of legos. Okay, all right?
And then there's this other dude, Sean Kenny, and he
is New York based two and I get the feeling
that they kind of battle a little bit force well,
New York Lego supremacy at least because both of their
websites say our studio has more than one point five
(24:33):
million Legos. Both of them have one point five million Legos.
But I mean how many I could have one point
five million Legos and do nothing with them and slap
a website together. It's what you do with the legos,
not how many you own. Well, let me show you
what Shaun's done. He's done um work for companies like
Google and Nintendo and JP Morgan and Samsung. And he's
(24:54):
been featured on I mean everything, you name it, he's
been featured. Has it been featured on Timmy Kim Well?
Ah no, But look at this. He did a Yankee stadium.
Check that out. And I hate the Yankees. I was
gonna say, if I like the Yankees, I'd be really impressed.
And he's pretty talented guy too. And he is a
member of the what are called the Certified Professionals, and
(25:18):
I think there's eleven of them. Now, Yeah, that Lego
was actually certified these people as professional artists or whatever. Yeah.
I got the impression that um, as he became better
and better, he stopped paying for Legos along the way,
and this is like ring ring, I need more Legos now,
I would think, so I need grain And Old Kirk
Christensen is like, okay, all right, Old Kirk, should we
(25:41):
go off some of these fun facts? Yeah, Lego fun
facts aren't all facts associated with Legos fun? Yeah? I
think so. Okay. I like this whole around the world
stuff though, because every company has one of these. Wait, first,
have you been on Lego dot com recently? Did you
go on for this? Yeah? Yeah, it was pretty awesome,
wasn't it, like all the little movies associated with each one.
(26:02):
I haven't been to Lego Land though, You've ever been there?
One of their theme parks that they actually sold. You
had a Merlin Entertainment or something like that to Merlin
Olsen his ghost made a deal with Old Kirk Christiansen's
passed away recently, didn't he very sad? Uh? Yeah? They
sold those because they became unprofitable, so they kind of
restructured and move some things around. Now they're in the
(26:26):
in the red, in the black, in the Black fun facts. Josh,
here we go. More than four hundred million children and
adults will play with Legos this year. Yes, and I
don't know what year they said that was, but it's
probably every year. I saw the two thousand nine Investor
Catalog or Um Perspectus, I guess, and it said that
(26:48):
same stats. So you can put all your money in Legos.
I'm gonna put a substantial amount of it actually privately owns.
I don't think that's possible. M hm uh. If you
built a column, Josh of forty billion Lego bricks, it
would reach the moon. Had to count those zeros. I've
(27:08):
got one, go ahead. Lego is the largest tire manufacturer
in the world. Yeah, little teeny tires, pretty pretty cool. Sat.
How many do they make a year? Oh? I don't know.
Do you have that stat Yeah? I do, three six million.
That's what I get to. Somebody else is in the
two thousand nine Investor perspective on average, Josh, they are
(27:29):
this is the one. This is my favorite one. There
are sixty two Lego bricks for every single person on Earth. Yeah.
I like that one too. Uh. Four billion hours. That's
the amount of five billion, five billion hours. That's how
much people will spend playing with Legos in a year
on average, not one person, not per person, by everybody
(27:51):
playing with Lego you had a fun fact. I'm not
a fun fact. I mean there were more, but I've
got one for you. Remember we talked about I'm fascinated
with the mini figures, the mini figs as they call them.
If you're in the know, if you're one of the
eleven certified artists. Um we uh. We talked about how
they're they were originally gender neutral, um, race neutral. They
(28:15):
were also emotion neutral too, And it wasn't until nine
when Lego released their oil started releasing their Pirates set
that they realized, hey man, we might need some facial
expressions on these people. And they came up with a
good figure and a bad figure and an I patched
figure and I think scowl and smile to differentiate between
(28:39):
the good guys and the bad guys. I'm sure from
that point on they started having facial expressions for them. Uh.
And I think I have one an other Yeah, I
was Fisher Price. We should do a podcast on Fisher Price.
That was my bag. I was way into that. I
liked Playmobile, but I did love Legos as well. Um
and then Chuck the Mini figs four billion of them
(29:01):
on the planet. There's only six point five billion people um,
four billion on the planet technically makes them the largest
population group in the world because they're so tiny. That's
so cute. And I think that's it, buddy, I think so.
I mean, there's a lot more. We didn't cover all
of it. No, there is something else. All the press
(29:22):
you were talking about them selling Lego Land. They did
this huge restructuring in I think two thousand four because
they peaked in with their Star Wars sets and after
that they actually started losing money, and you said they
were back in the black. Part of it is because
of their selling Lego Land restructuring the company. But um,
(29:45):
one of the reasons, actually, probably the main reason why
Legos took such a hit was because of Mega blocks
no electronics. Oh, I thought their patent ran out too.
That's something to do that. That was definitely part of it.
But they think that the you know, Legos are having
trouble competing with MP three players or video games are
all that. So Lego remains optimistic, Buddy. I have a
(30:08):
little tidbit of nice Danish optimism in broken English for you,
courtesy of the Lego Group. You ready, yes, I quote,
but the Lego group is in no doubt that the
Lego brick will continue in future to be relevant to
children of all ages period. A world of imagination and
total absorption. Period. That sounds like they literally said that
(30:31):
and their native language and then just typed it into baby. Well.
You know they have the my nephew, uh know what
plays with the the PlayStation game they have but Indiana
Jones Lego game. Yeah, so they're trying to get a
piece of that market too. I think they got a
good piece of it. They have a Star Wars game too.
I think they have more than the trilogy in Lego. Yeah,
(30:54):
they'll be around. They're fine, I think so. Yeah. So
that's it, man. If you want to see really honestly,
I know we say this every time, like go read
the article on the site. Sometimes we've covered the article
gone beyond the article. This is not one of those cases.
If you want to see just a series of super
cool Lego pictures, um, a Lego brick field guide, complete
(31:16):
with precise measurements, uh and just a bunch of other
information that we didn't even touch on, type how Lego
bricks work, because technically there isn't a word called legos,
it's Lego bricks. But you know, hey, we named ours
how legos work? Right, type how lego bricks work in
the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com
(31:37):
and it will yield that article right indeed, listener Milk,
I wanted to give a little shout out. I had
met a couple of fans this weekend. Finally it never happens.
What about the Henry Clay people. Well, yeah, but I mean, yeah, sure,
you're right, Okay, I'm gonna plug your album. Actually it's
coming out in June. They got a new album coming out.
(31:57):
But I'll wait on that plug when it's when. Interest Uh.
Jerry and I over the weekend went to a play sorts.
I think it's so cute you to your dating wildlife
theater We're not dating, uh, called looking Glass Alice based
on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and Doug and
Lindsay or in the show Lindsay's Alice. And actually there's
(32:19):
only five people in the show, so literally one whatever
whatever percentage of the cast that is, are fans of
the show. And so Jerry and I went with Emily
with my wife and I met up with them afterwards
in the green room, which was really green, and they
were super cool and we're gonna take him out for
barbecue while they're here, and uh, I just wanted to
(32:41):
thank them. Are they still here? Yeah, they're there. It's
like a six week run where you going for barbecue. Well,
I was gonna say, like Daddy D's, but that's my
friend little Dingy let me yeah, but it's really great barbecue.
Daddy d Is is listening your barbecue rocks. I would
recommend that. Or Fox Brothers. Well, Fox Brothers is a
(33:01):
little more the kind of place you would want to
take someone from out of town. But they're kind of
into fat mats. They want to get fat mats. Okay,
you know that made an appearance in Up in the Air.
Yeah indeed. Yeah. Okay, Well that's it for the Atlanta
barbecue scene, right, And I also wanted to shout out
to uh. Emily had a craft show last weekend and
one of her fellow crafters her name was Julie. Oh
(33:22):
is it Julia? Now I feel like a jerk. It's
just to say both. It's either Julie or Julia. She
was really nice and what she does she has bought
some of these and I've seen other people that do
this now. And I'm mentioning it because it's just so
cool those old print printing presses from like the eighteen hundreds. Yeah, no,
(33:43):
you don't. She's resurrected these things and they're huge and
she does like real printing on cards. Just no computers involved.
It's just because those DAGNEVITC computers, I know. But that
showed pictures are in front this huge machine and you
crank it with your foot and it turns all these
gears and just like the punk and she was, yeah,
it is very steampunk. But her she has a website
(34:04):
called red Bird Inc. Dot com. And I don't know,
I think you should support people that like resurrect She said.
Machines have been used in like seventy years. Why don't
she got ahold of them? People used to have to
walk uphill both ways in the snow to use those
machines to print. All right, Josh, this is a listener
mail in honor of Mother's Day that should come out
(34:25):
sometime near Mother's Day. Hold on, we haven't even laid
a part where we can do the music, Chuck, is
it time now for listener mail? Yes, Josh said in
JERRYO so, like I said, hopefully this will come out
sometime around Mother's Day because is from Nora, signed Nora
a mama from Missouri. Hello fellas. While driving my oldest
(34:47):
son to start a freshman year of college this fall,
I was trying to be cool. She put cool in
quotes and ignore all the mommy emotions bubbling up so
she was getting sad. Thank you for translating. For the
hour and a half drive, my son out his radio
iPod gizmo and entertained his brother and me with your podcast,
starting with the one on a pumpty schemes. Uh, you
(35:09):
know how to say it, clearly. We were totally involved,
thought provoked, and sparked a great conversation for two. After
handling the separation without too much embarrassment, and upon arriving home,
I decided to go for a run to help shake
off my mommy blues. The inspiration came to look up
the podcast and load some on the iPod gizmo, thinking
while running and listening, I headed that part. While running
(35:31):
and listening, I was struck by the whole circle of
my baby teaching me a trick or two as he
heads off into the world. Now I get warm fuzzies
each time I had out for a run and choose
my topic. Didn't it And I look forward to running
more than a half for a while, So extra bonus.
Now my son, my youngest son, looks for podcast he
wants to listen to with us on car trips. She's
(35:53):
excited about. Yeah, we're bringing the intergenerational gap together. She says,
hooray for more family time with the teenagers. Who knew
every time you encourage emails At the end of podcast,
I think about sharing our little story. The kids would
roll their eyes if they knew, I wrote in, But
they love what you do to and we hope you
keep up the good work. And Nora mommy for Missouri,
(36:14):
help your kids in college. Rolling his eyes at you
right now, Yeah, that's what we hope. But there's a
tear coming down from his eye as well. He's if
he wasn't homesick before, he isn't now. Believe me. Well,
if you work out or run or do any physical
exertion while you listen to Chucking Me, we want a
sample of your sweat. Put it in an email and
(36:35):
send it to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff works dot Com. Want more how
stuff works, check out our blogs on the house. Stuff
works dot Com home page brought to you by the
(36:56):
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are you
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