Built With Lego



If there's one children's toy that is far more iconic than others, it would be LEGO. They may go by different brands, but building blocks are pretty much always associated with the name LEGO. They're easy to use. They let our imaginations run rampant. They let us act out horrific acts of violence without consequences (Besides breaking them, but the base parts are pretty damn indestructible, sans the ones smaller than one-fourth a cubic centimeter). And there's also something just plain cool about seeing iconic characters in the LEGO-man look. Not to mention how adorable little LEGO stormtroopers are.

Therefore many people have started using LEGO as the literal building blocks of their medium so that everything gets built of LEGO. This ranges from webcomics with LEGO being photographed rather than drawings, through LEGO stop motion to people design video game worlds specifically to mimic the appearance of LEGO. They are taking the fun, characterful and innocent character of LEGO and building it right into their works.

The positive light LEGO blocks have been getting recently seems to indicate that LEGO may very well be the heir to the penguin throne. One of its clear advantages is its accessibility to amateurs- all you need is a bucket of LEGO blocks (although that may need a bucket of cash) and imagination to create full sets and characters.

Also, don't step on them while barefoot. It hurts like hell.

Not to be confused with Lego Genetics. For examples of LEGO just popping up in fiction, see LEGO.

Compare Gem-Encrusted (everything's covered with jewelry).

Advertising

 * One ad for the Honda Element featured the car being built from the ground up using LEGOs. (Well, Mega Bloks technically, but the effect is the same.)

Live Action TV

 * James May (of Top Gear fame) wrote and presented a series in Autumn/Winter 2009 called Toy Stories, in which he makes the toys of his youth full-sized and awesome, to get today's kids involved in old-style entertainment. Among other things, this included making a full-sized, fully functional two-story house -- including toilet, shower and (uncomfortable) bed -- almost entirely out of LEGO. Sadly, it was on borrowed land in a vineyard, no buyer stepped forward and it was demolished. The bricks were on loan from LEGO and were returned, with the intent of putting them to use in a yearly charity build. Its name liveth forevermore.
 * An episode of Ultimate Cake Off had the teams building cakes for LEGOLAND California's 10th anniversary (in their usual Cooking Duel way, of course).
 * Myth Busters tested the veracity of a viral video in which some guys built an eight-foot diameter ball out of LEGO and successfully rolled it down a street in San Francisco.  So that means it must've been glued together or the same sequence was repeated in the video.
 * Also it couldn't have just been glued together for the video as the Mythbusters had to clear out the LEGO Group's North American supply and also borrow some from a private collector to have enough bricks to finish the build. Completely impossible for most people to have the required number of LEGO bricks for that video to be real.
 * The narration of the episode hypothesized that all they built was a hollow shell with the inside being made of something much lighter (possibly polystyrene).

Film

 * Although it's easy to miss if you're not paying attention, in the movie Time Bandits, Evil's castle is made of giant LEGO blocks.

Music

 * The White Stripes' video for "Fell in Love with a Girl".
 * This fan video for "He's Turned Emo" by The Lancashire Hotpots.

Tabletop Games

 * Brikwars, although it doesn't mention LEGO itself due to copyright issues.

Video Games

 * A slew of LEGO-themed video games have been released over the years, most recently as tie-ins with other franchises, like Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, or even LEGO Batman and LEGO Harry Potter. Even stranger, these games are actually fun. It may be worth pointing out that The LEGO Group produces tie-in building sets for all these franchises - the video games are an extension of the license.
 * Lego Universe, a short-lived MMORPG set in the LEGO world. The trailer alone is a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
 * LEGO BATTLES is also The Game to Play as a Knight, a Evil Wizard, a Pirate, a Ninja, Space Man, and an Alien.
 * And now there's LEGO Rock Band, where you can demolish buildings using The Power of Rock. With the added bonus of playing as LEGO Iggy Pop, LEGO David Bowie, and LEGO Queen.
 * Before the recent bombardment of licensed games, there were many other games based off of LEGO's own ideas. Examples include games like LEGO Racers and its sequel, where the player could build their own cars to race with (sorta), and the Lego Island trilogy.
 * Some games didn't quite do this: Lego Rock Raiders involved building, yes, but the world and creatures living in it were not plastic. LEGO Stunt Rally had no actual building of LEGO models at all.
 * Taken to an extreme with the LEGO Creator series and LEGO Digital Designer, where you basically create your own world.
 * Voxelstein. The entire game is made out of LEGO-like voxels that are completely destructible. This means that you can shank your way through walls if you have enough patience.
 * Minecraft is more like it's made out of DUPLOs. The entire map is built out of large blocks that you can mine and craft into more blocks.
 * And now Mojang is working with the LEGO group to make Minecraft-themed LEGO sets.
 * Roblox is a free (well... sorta) MMO where almost every single bit of content is user-made, there is almost unlimited customizability, and uses bricks, meshes, and GUIs (Guided User Interface). It also features the scripting language of Lua, which can be used to create almost anything within the user's scripting capability.
 * While not actual LEGO, the "dot" graphics in Three D Dot Game Heroes certainly give off this effect.
 * Kingdom Hearts: Gummy Blocks and the ships made from them were more or less this.
 * The boss stages in the Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. 2 for some reason all appear to be made from red, green, and blue blocks resembling LEGO bricks.

Web Comics

 * Irregular Webcomic
 * Some of the parallel plotlines subvert this to some extent by using tabletop RPG miniatures for some characters (most often in the plotlines that are supposed to be ongoing roleplay campaigns, although recent events blur that line quite nicely).
 * David Morgan-Mar remains one of only a few people on Earth to have built a Lego figure of Cthulhu.
 * Maybe... maybe not...
 * Replacing the head of the first Makuta toy with an octopus and giving him wings makes a passable Cthulhu.
 * Brick Comic Network is Exactly What It Says on the Tin for the authors (and fans) of comics made with LEGO bricks. The comics of active members include:
 * Legostar Galactica
 * Reasonably Clever's Brick House webcomic.
 * Tranquility Base
 * Genuine Draft
 * Brickworld Saga
 * Glomshire Knights
 * Ye Olde Lego-Time Theatre
 * Block Tales
 * Bricks of the Dead
 * Cafe Gruesome
 * The aforementioned Irregular Webcomic
 * Other webcomics related to the project:
 * Lego Space the Comic
 * Majestic 7
 * The Brick Side
 * Adventures of the S-Team
 * Tabletown Online
 * Harry Potter Comics (which sets itself apart with heavy alteration of facial expressions)
 * Legoville
 * The Brick Testament
 * At least four strips in The Princess Planet were made with LEGO bricks.
 * Jenny Everywhere and the Golden Key
 * Fabuland Housewives is Desperate Housewives WITH ANTHROPOMORPHIC LEGO ANIMAL CHARACTERS!
 * Weesh had one strip where Tate wished for his house to be made of the titular blocks. It wasn't exactly the most interesting wish he's ever made.

Real Life

 * Legoland; theme parks featuring extensive LEGO sculptures and displays. Anything that isn't built out of LEGO bricks (such as rides) uses a LEGO design motif.
 * There is LEGO CANDY.
 * However, subverted in some places where LEGO products aren't made with the iconic bricks. The LEGO Technic line uses construction based on things like pins, axles, and ball-joints instead, and their "constraction" figure lines ("construction" + "action") like Bionicle and Hero Factory started out as a spin-off of Technic.
 * Also strangely averted with fast-food tie-ins. Many LEGO Happy Meal toys these days are your standard throwaways, with no interactivity with the LEGO system. (LEGO Club Magazine editor (and BIONICLE's "Real Daddy") Greg Farshtey has mentioned that fast-food chains have started to shy away from building toys because they want no assembly required.)

Web Original

 * At least one YouTube user has posted LEGO re-creations of classic game shows.
 * And another YouTube user has posted LEGO animations of Eddie Izzard jokes!
 * This trope has definitely gone retroactive. Classic 1964s Flanders and Swann song re-enacted in LEGO, anyone?
 * LEGO Rammstein
 * The Boleg Bros' films constitute a Lego Adaptation Distillation of The Apprentice (UK).
 * Grand Theft Auto: LEGO City
 * Two especially bizarre and outright disturbing examples are a LEGO World Trade Centre and a LEGO death camp.
 * George W. Bush demands to see 9/11 done with LEGO.
 * The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny!
 * Sweeney Todd!
 * Defying Gravity!
 * Bohemian Rhapsody!
 * LEGO cakes, including edible ones, anyone?
 * "Knights of the Round Table" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail in Lego!
 * Some LEGO fans have even made their own handgun models.
 * BrickGun models feature working slides, triggers, and slide locks, removable magazines and one model even shoots rubber bands!
 * And there is the Mossberg 590.
 * Now there's even a full fledged working printer!
 * And another guy made a 3d Printer.
 * Google built its first server racks out of Lego.

Western Animation

 * Robot Chicken has two LEGO-based sketches. One involves an attempt to build a pyramid, and another makes fun of the licensed lines with "LEGO Babel."
 * In 1980, LEGO commissioned the "LEGO Sports Champions" which included topics like Gymnastics and F1 Racing.
 * SUBVERTED! Rick and Steve use Play Mobil.
 * Blockoland from The Simpsons, which appears at the start of the episode where Homer deliberately starves himself to save Springfield's baseball team from being sold. Interestingly enough, an actual LEGO Land appears in another episode which mentioned Mr. Burns dumping toxic waste there.
 * Kre-O: Transformers is based around a same-named Hasbro toyline of plastic bricks and minifigures, which is definitely not a toyline with a name that starts with an L.
 * One of Ben's new aliens in Omniverse, Blox, is made of Lego.

Literature

 * Sophie's World calls LEGO "the most ingenious toy in the world," due to its ability to nigh-endlessly be built into something, destroyed, and then built again into something else much like the Greek philosopher Democritus thought with his version of atoms.