In the October issue of the “Costco Connection”, I stumbled upon a fascinating article about Legos. We all remember them from when we had little kids, and I’m convinced I remember them from even farther back. I think I played with them as a young child, since they were originally launched in 1949.
The ones I played with had no name and no fanfare, but they kept me busy while Mom baked or prepared dinner. I have no idea when they arrived at our house. In fact, I thought they’d always been there, like the screened porch and the bathroom. Their original container, whenever it arrived, was long gone, so we kept the little bricks in an old shoe box.
According to the Costco article, the toy’s name, Lego, comes from the Danish words leg and godt, meaning play well. Their inventor, Ole Kirk Kristiansen, was a carpenter and toymaker, who patented the clever name for the toy in 1958. In fact, the article says that if I could reclaim those pieces from my childhood, they’d still fit with pieces I bought at any toy store today.
The Lego Group forged a licensing agreement in 1961 with Samsonite Luggage and a greenhorn advertising exec named Barney Schwartz, at his first job, was tasked with creating a market for the colorful toys here in America. He learned the bricks were already the rage in Europe and besides being popular with kids, were being used by architects to create scale models of various projects.
So the enterprising rookie convinced the prestigious Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to have their architectural students create a modern city using Legos. Within weeks, the students had built a massive Lego cityscape with roads, buildings, towers and bridges. The amazing creation was featured on a Today Show episode and demand for the bricks skyrocketed.
After the advertising genius had created a market for the colorful playthings here in America, the brand expanded their offerings to create Duplo blocks for younger children. That’s when our family’s annoying and sometimes painful experience with them began. If you ever stepped on one barefoot, you know why I say painful. I soon learned to wear study footwear within 50 feet of our toybox.
My other memory involves our sweet, very oral Golden Retriever named Sunny. She LOVED the bricks. (Apparently she’d read an ad.) Her love of them was only exceeded by her hunger for Barbie feet, but that’s another story. Our Duplos seemed just the right size and flexibility for the teething puppy.
I could always tell when she had one in her mouth by the guilty, “hangdog” look on her face. Once I suspected it, I’d say, “Sunnnnnny,” in the most accusatory, shaming tone I would find. Refusing to look me in the eye, she’d check out the rug pattern, the paint on the ceiling or the beautiful view out the window. Sometimes, she’d smile at me, and the corner of a red Duplo would peek from the side of her mouth. There it was—another doomed brick.
Maybe the Lego Group missed a clever marketing opportunity — “Great for adults, kids & teething puppies!” Besides the previous picture, which needs no introduction, here’s a picture of the destroyer. Her epitaph would have read: “Humans loved her; Duplos feared her.”
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