'Golden Girls,' 'Doctor Who,' 'The Big Bang Theory': Inside the Lego TV Fandom

If you build it… well, maybe Lego will produce it. That’s the idea behind the Lego Ideas project, which made a big media splash last month when TV fans everywhere learned a fan-designed Lego Golden Girls set might become a real toy they could actually buy and play with to their Blanche Devereaux-loving hearts’ content.

Lego Ideas works like this: You design and construct a Lego project paying homage to nearly anything — your favorite TV series, a scene from your favorite movie, a favorite animal, or even your favorite profession of the natural science world (such a fan-created set was already produced and sold out). You take great photos of the set, submit them with your description of the project at the Lego Ideas Website, and gather as much support as you can, via fan blogs, social media, begging your friends and family to vote for your idea, etc.

If the project gets 10,000 votes within a two-year period, the proposal goes into the Lego Review process, in which the Lego Review Board — made up of the company’s designers, product managers, and marketing representatives — evaluates the potential toy. If the set gets a thumbs up, the fan designer consults with professional Lego designers to help design the final version of the set, which then goes into production with the fan designer featured in the set’s materials and receiving a royalty on all sales.

We know, you’ve got more questions, and we’ve got more answers, thanks to Lego Brand Relations Manager Amanda Santoro’s chat with Yahoo TV about all things Lego Ideas related. First, though there’s no guarantee getting those 10,000 supporters will land your proposed Lego set on store shelves, nine sets submitted via the platform (which was formerly known as Lego CUUSOO) have reached the “for sale” stage, including a Ghostbusters set featuring the Ecto-1 and four minifigures, and Minecraft and Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine sets that have sold out.

Three more projects have been approved and will soon be produced and sold by Lego, including a Doctor Who and Companions set, a Lego WALL-E, and a set featuring the gang from The Big Bang Theory, while nearly two dozen proposed projects are under review, including Lego versions of the Titanic, Jurassic Park, Daft Punk, Elsa’s ice palace from Frozen, and the aforementioned Golden Girls set that put Lego Ideas on a lot of radars.

The criteria for earning the Review Board’s approval, Santoro says, isn’t exact. There are licensing issues if it’s not a property already in the Lego stable (Star Wars and The Simpsons are currently among the most popular Lego licensed sets), customer cost concerns ($30-90 is the ideal range for a set, and Santoro says “We’re not looking at things in the $400-500 price range”), as well as the “build experience” potential.

“Nothing too flimsy; we want the set to stay together. And something that’s challenging, but not something with thousands and thousands of pieces,” she says. “There’s no specific set of criteria where we have to check a certain amount of boxes, but there’s a lot of things that they take into consideration. Obviously, we have to see if it’s something that would have a mass appeal and that we think would speak well to our consumers.”

On the other hand, though mass appeal is a plus, so is a project’s charm to a very devoted group of fans (and potential buyers, many of whom are attracted to Lego for the first time since childhood via the Lego pop culture sets).

“Everything we make through Lego Ideas is a limited-edition run,” Santoro says. “They’re not things that are widely available for a long period of time. We make them for a smaller distribution and a smaller quantity. It’s definitely for people that are huge Lego fans and want to ensure they have everything in the Lego world, but also people that are huge fans of the different properties, especially for our licensed lines. I think for sure, it definitely helps [draw] new people into the Lego experience.”

Like the diverse group of fans we’re picturing using Lego minifigures to re-create a certain Miami ranch house full of cool, mature women who liked to gather to discuss their love lives over cheesecake, should that Golden Girls set come to fruition.

“I think we’re always surprised by the popularity of the Lego Ideas platform, and the enthusiasm that people have… it’s really unique in that a lot of things that are out there in Lego Ideas have such a cult following,” Santoro says. “They’re things that you would never have seen from the Lego company otherwise. I think that’s why a lot of things take off, and take off very quickly, because obviously, you’ve never seen a Lego Golden Girls set in the toy store. So I wouldn’t say we were shocked [by how quickly the Golden Girls set reached 10,000 votes] these sets do really speak to such a specific audience.”

As for the royalties, those Ideas creators whose projects reach consumers get a one percent share of the profits; given the limited edition productions of those sets, that probably isn’t allowing for even the most successful creators to quit a day job.

But that’s kinda also not the point. As Brent Waller, the creator of the Ghostbusters Ecto-1 Lego Ideas set says, “I can’t discuss specifics, but it has been good… it means more money to spend on Lego!”

Waller, whose day job as an Environment Artist (he creates 3-D art for video games) sounds almost as fun as creating Ghostbusters autos with Legos, was a fan of the building blocks as a kid, and became a fan again as an adult after playing the Lego Star Wars video games. He spent about six months making the Ghostbusters characters, and then about 40 hours in one month fashioning the Ecto-1, and he has some valuable advice for those thinking of posting their own Ideas projects.

“Your number one priority is to make it as good as possible… that’s half of the battle,” says the Australian dad of two who’s currently building a Lego tribute to The X-Files. “If you have a vested interest in and love for the thing you’re creating, I think that goes a long way. I create things first and foremost for myself; if I think it’s good enough, then I’ll post it online. I highly recommend creating a promotional video showing off your creation if you have the skills to do so. It goes a long way [towards] getting your project shared and spread quickly.”

And towards being able to one day walk into a toy store and purchase a Lego set you’ve designed.

“It was exciting… I must have looked pretty sad though asking for a store attendant to take my photo next to Lego boxes,” Waller says of seeing his Ghostbusters package on sale for the first time. “But once I explained myself, they thought it was pretty cool.”