A couple of years ago, I wrote a series of posts where I went through an old LEGO magazine that I kept from my childhood (from 1992 to be precise). That was a fun exercise and most definitely a fun trip down memory lane...so when I recently rediscovered the fact that I also kept a magazine from 1990 I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it!
Let's go through this magazine as well, page by page. As before, I'll split the magazine up into a series of posts so as not to have too many scans in a single blog post. In that way, we can also let each of the various themes have their own chance to shine!
The cover of the 1990 LEGO magazine is great with the glow-in-the-dark ghost getting top billing. I love the flying hats of the LEGO Town person and the LEGO Forestman. Notice that on the left there's an M-Tron astronaut running away along with Capt. Red Beard.
Flipping over to the first page, we find the table of contents for the magazine as well as our first introduction to each of the major themes.
On the left half of the spread, we see the themes for the youngest LEGO fans (Duplo) as well as LEGO Basic (now called Classic). Finally, we see a bit of both Town and Pirates including that airport set that I always lusted after as a kid but never owned.
One thing I found interesting here is that there is a little blurb on the bottom corner about washing LEGO bricks. According to the 1990 magazine, Duplo and LEGO bricks should not be washed in water exceeding 110 degrees Fahrenheit. However, by the time 1992 rolled around LEGO has a similar blurb in that magazine but the washing temperature was reduced to a maximum of 104 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm so very, very curious as to what prompted that seemingly small change in directions!
Leaving that mystery unsolved for the time being, we turn our attention to the second half of the checklist spread.
Here we find the rest of LEGOLAND represented (Castle and Space) as well as Boats, Trains, Model Team, and Technic. Out of all of those themes, only Technic still exists today (though I guess you could argue that Star Wars is basically a licensed version of Space however I'd disagree with that assessment).
Since I was a child of the 90s I'm going to refrain from commenting on the clothing choices of all the children in the magazine. That said, yikes!
Now for the good stuff - the pages for each theme individually beginning with Duplo.
In 1990, I would have either been 7 or 8 years old (depending on the month) and so I'm positive that I never gave the Duplo page a second glance during the hundreds of times I must have flipped through this magazine. However, now that I'm the father of a 16-month-old, Duplo is right up our alley and so it's worth it to me to see what LEGO was doing back in the day for the littlest kids.
Based on this image, it looks like the Duplo sets of 1990 are almost interchangeable with the Duplo sets of 2019. On the shelves of Wal-Mart and Target today you can find Duplo trains as well as Duplo boxes filled with basic building bricks. In fact, my son has a Duplo train right now that appears to have the exact same cab as the blue train in the photo (just in a color other than blue - and with no printing on the side now I might add).
And to end this particular foray into the magazine, let's look at the LEGO Basic which was all new in 1990 according to the magazine.
Today, LEGO calls their basic line "Classic" but for all intensive purposes it appears to be almost exactly the same concept as Basic was back in 1990. In essence, it's LEGO in its purest form - just a big box of pieces where you can set your imagination free.
Heck, I still buy random Classic boxes every now then (especially if I find them on sale) because the selection of pieces is usually quite useful for my custom builds that I like to do. Looking at the sets and pieces featured in the 1990 magazine, I'm definitely jealous of the abundance of LEGO trees in the photo - I used to love those things as a kid and I only ever owned one or two different LEGO trees.
That does it for the first five pages of the magazine. I'll be back in a future post to continue delving into the magazine beginning with some of the LEGOLAND sets next including a Space Shuttle set that I still own to this very day!
Let's go through this magazine as well, page by page. As before, I'll split the magazine up into a series of posts so as not to have too many scans in a single blog post. In that way, we can also let each of the various themes have their own chance to shine!
The cover of the 1990 LEGO magazine is great with the glow-in-the-dark ghost getting top billing. I love the flying hats of the LEGO Town person and the LEGO Forestman. Notice that on the left there's an M-Tron astronaut running away along with Capt. Red Beard.
Flipping over to the first page, we find the table of contents for the magazine as well as our first introduction to each of the major themes.
On the left half of the spread, we see the themes for the youngest LEGO fans (Duplo) as well as LEGO Basic (now called Classic). Finally, we see a bit of both Town and Pirates including that airport set that I always lusted after as a kid but never owned.
One thing I found interesting here is that there is a little blurb on the bottom corner about washing LEGO bricks. According to the 1990 magazine, Duplo and LEGO bricks should not be washed in water exceeding 110 degrees Fahrenheit. However, by the time 1992 rolled around LEGO has a similar blurb in that magazine but the washing temperature was reduced to a maximum of 104 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm so very, very curious as to what prompted that seemingly small change in directions!
Leaving that mystery unsolved for the time being, we turn our attention to the second half of the checklist spread.
Here we find the rest of LEGOLAND represented (Castle and Space) as well as Boats, Trains, Model Team, and Technic. Out of all of those themes, only Technic still exists today (though I guess you could argue that Star Wars is basically a licensed version of Space however I'd disagree with that assessment).
Since I was a child of the 90s I'm going to refrain from commenting on the clothing choices of all the children in the magazine. That said, yikes!
Now for the good stuff - the pages for each theme individually beginning with Duplo.
In 1990, I would have either been 7 or 8 years old (depending on the month) and so I'm positive that I never gave the Duplo page a second glance during the hundreds of times I must have flipped through this magazine. However, now that I'm the father of a 16-month-old, Duplo is right up our alley and so it's worth it to me to see what LEGO was doing back in the day for the littlest kids.
Based on this image, it looks like the Duplo sets of 1990 are almost interchangeable with the Duplo sets of 2019. On the shelves of Wal-Mart and Target today you can find Duplo trains as well as Duplo boxes filled with basic building bricks. In fact, my son has a Duplo train right now that appears to have the exact same cab as the blue train in the photo (just in a color other than blue - and with no printing on the side now I might add).
And to end this particular foray into the magazine, let's look at the LEGO Basic which was all new in 1990 according to the magazine.
Today, LEGO calls their basic line "Classic" but for all intensive purposes it appears to be almost exactly the same concept as Basic was back in 1990. In essence, it's LEGO in its purest form - just a big box of pieces where you can set your imagination free.
Heck, I still buy random Classic boxes every now then (especially if I find them on sale) because the selection of pieces is usually quite useful for my custom builds that I like to do. Looking at the sets and pieces featured in the 1990 magazine, I'm definitely jealous of the abundance of LEGO trees in the photo - I used to love those things as a kid and I only ever owned one or two different LEGO trees.
That does it for the first five pages of the magazine. I'll be back in a future post to continue delving into the magazine beginning with some of the LEGOLAND sets next including a Space Shuttle set that I still own to this very day!
Wow. That ghost figure is really cool. I just checked eBay and was surprised they're still very affordable for being almost thirty years old.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the ghosts were awesome to get as a kid! Just wait until I get to the "good stuff" in the magazine, ghosts galore!
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