The Toys That Made Us (2017) s02e03 Episode Script
LEGO
1 [crow cawing.]
- [both panting.]
- [in Danish.]
Let's do this.
Yes.
[whistles.]
[Tine Froberg Mortensen.]
Up until the 1980s, obsolete molds were buried in concrete in the foundations of the factories.
We did it to make sure that the old molds didn't fall into the wrong hands.
[man in Danish.]
There will be no unauthorized infringement on this intellectual property.
[narrator in English.]
Despite their best efforts, LEGO has been copied ever since.
But nothing beats that original LEGO brick.
Four glorious walls of pure plastic pleasure, engineered to the highest precision.
LEGO has made its mark on the world, - and parents' feet, for generations.
- [man groans.]
[narrator.]
From humble beginnings, this family-run company for over 80 years has become an unshakable empire.
It was this foreign, strange thing from Scandinavia.
[narrator.]
It's a company that completely relies on one simple system.
The system.
[narrator.]
LEGO lives and dies by the brick.
The risk was super high.
[narrator.]
And adapts to the changing decades.
- Hello.
- [narrator.]
Sometimes too early.
- We lose a lot of money.
- [narrator.]
Sometimes too late.
LEGO almost went bankrupt.
[narrator.]
But LEGO's foundations are strong.
And the world's children unite in their love of the brick.
He's Zack the LEGO maniac I can build it how I want to build it.
[narrator.]
Hashtag, LEGOLIFE.
It's such a global phenomenon.
[narrator.]
From the Danish countryside to the world's biggest toy company, these are The Toys that Made Us.
It's an eight-part documentary series About the toys that we all know Plastic creations That last for generations And we still cannot let go Little molded figures That gave us big dreams We'll go back in time And behind the scenes - It's The Toys that Made Us - Toys that Made Us The Toys that Made Us is here [narrator.]
It starts with a single LEGO brick.
The potential that's contained in this little box of magic is almost limitless.
But it's not just what it can become that makes LEGO bricks so special.
It's what built the LEGO brick that's truly an amazing story.
And like the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, this story begins in Denmark.
Frequently listed among the world's happiest countries.
It's famous for beer, furniture, and pigs.
- Like, lots of pigs.
- [pigs squealing.]
In Denmark, we have five-and-a-half million Danes.
You know how many pigs we kill every year for the slaughterhouse? Twenty-five million.
[pigs squealing.]
[narrator.]
As well as swelling with pork products, the Danes also commonly swell with pride for arguably their greatest achievement.
And if you follow the red, blue, and yellow brick road west from the Danish capital, you'll find its origins here, deep in the Danish countryside, in a tiny town called Billund, aka LEGO world headquarters.
LEGO is a part of everybody's life in Billund.
[bicycle bell rings.]
Either their grandma worked at LEGO 50 years ago.
Everybody in Billund has some link to LEGO.
It starts with a local carpenter, Ole Kirk Kristiansen, who produced a lot of houses for the local farmers.
[Jan Christensen.]
We're actually inside this house that he built in 1924.
It housed both the company as well as his family.
[narrator.]
As the local farming industry grew, so too did Ole's carpentry business.
- That is, until - The Great Depression.
[narrator.]
It turns out that global financial calamity is terrible for business.
And so, in the early '30s, Ole downsizes his business, literally, and begins making Smaller furniture, wooden ironing boards, wooden stepladders, and then he also starts to produce wooden toys.
[narrator.]
Which Ole seemed to have a knack for.
And they soon became his biggest seller.
Because, you know, toys are fun.
[crowd.]
Yay! [narrator.]
It was called the Great Depression, after all.
In 1934 that's when he decides, "I'm going to be a toy manufacturer, 100%.
" [narrator.]
But Billund Woodworking Factory wasn't a very fun name for a toy company.
[crowd.]
Boo! He knows, "Okay, I need a more catchy name.
" He takes the two Danish words, Leg Godt, "play well.
" That's what it means.
He takes the first two letters of each word.
Puts them together.
And within the name, we have the whole purpose of this company.
[narrator.]
Which is to help children play well.
But the newly-formed LEGO company also did something else.
It sold well.
It's a decent period of time for the company.
Suddenly, there is room in the Danish toy market for Danish toys.
A lot of the toys before that was, uh, German toys.
[narrator.]
But then the Germans made a terrible marketing decision and invaded Denmark.
And suddenly German products weren't quite as popular as they used to be.
Yeah.
But also, a lot of the toys back then were made out of metal.
And, well, you used metal for other stuff.
[chuckles.]
So, instead, there was room for these wooden toys.
So there was actually a toy market, even though we had the war.
[narrator.]
And while Germany continued to goose-step across Europe, LEGO went the other way.
One of his early toys was a duck.
[narrator.]
So instead, they duck-rolled, cat-squeaked, and teddy bear-truck-drove their way throughout Denmark, eventually outlasting those pesky Nazis.
[crowd cheering.]
[narrator.]
The bombs stopped and business boomed.
[crowd.]
Yay! [narrator.]
Maybe a little too much.
During the '40s, we start to have problems finding enough wood to maintain our production of wooden toys.
[narrator.]
And a huge factory fire in '42 didn't help, either.
[Hauge.]
So, Ole starts to look and see, "Is there something else that I can supplement my production of wooden toys with?" And that's when he, uh, discovers plastic.
Injection-molding machines, uh, started to surface.
[Hauge.]
Eventually, he ends up buying one of those.
[narrator.]
But it was the plastic toy that Ole released in 1949 that would ultimately change not just LEGO, but the entire toy industry forever.
The exciting and revolutionary innovation known as Automatic Binding Bricks.
[narrator.]
Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? [Hauge.]
When we introduced our plastic brick, we were not the first to do so.
We're one out of many who produces plastic bricks.
[narrator.]
Like Kiddicraft in the UK.
But their bricks featured drab colors and lacked artistic pedigree.
[Robertson.]
LEGO went to the Dutch modernist painter Mondrian, the guy who did those squares with the really vivid hues.
That's where they got the inspiration for the original LEGO brick colors.
[narrator.]
Although based on the colors of a famous painter, these stylish modernist plastic bits could only be appreciated by the cultured children of Denmark and southern Sweden, just a short ferry ride away.
[ferry horn blows.]
[narrator.]
And it was on such a ferry that a fortuitous meeting would occur involving Ole Kirk's son, Godtfred.
[Robertson.]
Godtfred was on a ferry one time with, uh, the key buyer from the big Danish department store.
And he's really complaining.
"Oh, God, it's just a mess.
There's no system in anything.
You buy something, play with it, throw it out, and then buy something new.
Nothing fits.
" "Do you have something like that?" [narrator.]
Guess what? He did.
- Automatic Binding Bricks.
- [narrator.]
Perfect.
So Ole Kirk and his son Godtfred got to work.
First, LEGO dropped the clunky moniker - Automatic Binding Bricks.
- [man coughs.]
in favor of the snappier and more succinct LEGO Mursten.
Mursten meaning "brick" in Danish.
Now, that's a name you can build a business on.
- [laughs.]
- [narrator.]
Thank you.
Now, if the department stores wanted a system, they'd get a system.
This is when we introduced the system.
[narrator.]
And if they wanted a plan, they'd get one of those, too.
[Hauge.]
This is our Town Plan, which we introduced in '55.
[narrator.]
Town Plan was a breakthrough for LEGO.
But it wasn't quite LEGO as we know it just yet.
- The figures were a bit weird, too.
- [bicycle bell rings.]
The small cars and the trees and so on can't be built together with a brick.
[narrator.]
But to be fair, at this point, you couldn't really build much at all with the bricks.
All the bricks at this time are hollow.
[echoing.]
It didn't have the tubes underneath.
So it would stack, but it wouldn't stick.
[narrator.]
Stack, but wouldn't stick? - It would fall apart.
- [narrator.]
What's the point of that? And we realized that.
We need to create better stability.
So the founder of the company and his team started experimenting.
"Could we make this brick in a way that they would stick together with just the right clutch power?" That leads us to the most important thing that has ever happened.
And that's when we patent the tubes we have underneath the brick in 1958.
That is it.
That is the game-changer for us as a company.
[narrator.]
Ladies and gentlemen, LEGO.
[Mortensen.]
This mold here is from 1958.
That year, we patented the clutch power, as we say.
We began putting the LEGO name on each stud in the mid-1950s.
Because of the tubes, you can combine your bricks in so many new ways.
[narrator.]
That's true.
For example, there are 950,103,765 different combinations.
That's one of the combinations.
[narrator.]
And here's another.
One more.
Oh, don't forget.
Yeah, good.
We'll leave the rest to you.
But adding those tubes really worked.
When we come up with that solution in '58, we know it's what we need to focus on.
[narrator.]
And that intense unblinking focus has stared children down for 60 years.
LEGO still relies on the information outlined in these early patents.
Unprecedented for a toy company.
Imagine if Hasbro and Mattel were still trying to sell their products from 1958.
For LEGO, it's a risky business model, to say the least.
Good thing patents don't expire.
Spoiler alert, they do.
By 1958, the guy who brought us the wooden duck could go to his grave knowing he revolutionized the plastic building brick.
And that same year, unfortunately, he did go to his grave.
But the LEGO family tree was only just beginning.
Godtfred takes it to the next level.
[narrator.]
When Godtfred Kirk Christiansen took over, LEGO was growing.
He stopped production on all wooden toys because The brick is the future for us.
[narrator.]
Another major fire in their woodworking factory that year is also credited for the decision.
By 1961, LEGO sold 50 different sets in 11 countries.
Meanwhile, in America, LEGO found a local manufacturer for US production.
I don't think we felt we had the know-how of the American market.
[narrator.]
But if you thought they went with Hasbro or Mattel, you'd be wrong.
The president of Samsonite luggage saw it in a store in Denmark.
And he thought this was pretty amazing.
So he actually came back with suitcases, Samsonite, I assume, full of LEGO bricks.
[announcer.]
LEGO is here.
Hey, kids, look! LEGO, the sensation of Europe, now made in America by Samsonite, who make it better for longer-lasting fun.
[narrator.]
Better and longer-lasting? It's sure to be a success.
It wasn't a huge success.
That's one tough bag.
[narrator.]
And one tough market.
LEGO struggled in the US.
But in the rest of the world Their LEGO brick was so popular by the end of the 1960s that it was sold in 42 countries around the world.
[narrator.]
And with so many fans, Godtfred had a bit of a problem.
He literally built a park to keep people out of his factory.
[narrator.]
And thus, LEGOLAND was born.
A mighty theme park empire that would grow into eight parks, and become part of the second-biggest theme park corporation in the world.
In LEGOLAND Billund's first year, they had 625,000 visitors.
[narrator.]
The LEGO name was growing into a mighty brand.
And when the US license expired in the early '70s, Samsonite packed their bags, and Godtfred Christiansen got his brick back, ready to take personal control over US sales domination.
[boy.]
Here's some more LEGO building bricks.
[narrator.]
But during the late '60s and early '70s, American children were exposed to much more than just [announcer.]
Buses and houses and bridges and helicopters.
[narrator.]
There was also Lots of trains, beautiful trains.
Products children relate to.
[announcer.]
Even the new safety rail on the Sunnydale bridge.
[narrator.]
As children were relating to safety rails [crowd.]
Yay! mothers around the country opposed toys that capitalized on that other relatable topic of the time, war.
So LEGO capitalized on peace.
We don't want to portray tanks and weapons.
[narrator.]
LEGO made a pistol in the '40s, but don't mention the war toys.
The '70s were very good for LEGO, and there was nothing rotten in the state of Denmark.
Quite the opposite.
LEGO accounted for 1% of the country's industrial exports, and annual retail sales worldwide approached $300 million.
And in the Kristiansen family, using nature's building blocks, Godtfred had produced a son, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.
Kjeld was a chip off the old LEGO block.
[Robertson.]
Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen had been intensely frustrated by his father.
He says it took six years to convince his father to put the color green in the inventory.
Godtfred didn't like that.
[narrator.]
It's not easy having green.
Apart from controversial color palettes, Kjeld figured something out that had so far eluded every other member of the Kristiansen family.
And when he took over in the late '70s, he immediately revealed The minifigure.
And it was huge for LEGO.
[narrator.]
To give you some idea of how huge, as of today, there are nearly four billion little LEGO figures inhabiting the Earth.
This is one of the first boxes where we introduced minifigures.
This is, uh, from 1978.
[narrator.]
Kids have been happy with that design ever since.
The minifigure that your grandfather played with, the grandson can play with.
They didn't change it.
[narrator.]
It's no coincidence that these LEGO figures fit so well into the town plans of children across the world.
Our minifigure is, without a hair piece, uh, exactly four LEGO bricks tall.
[narrator.]
This scale fit the system perfectly.
So it fits the system really well.
That's really what we like, the system.
- [narrator.]
It might fit - The system.
[narrator.]
But at this point, they didn't fit inside the cars.
And this was a bit of a pain - for the designers.
- Yes.
It was a huge challenge to build the cars so you could have a minifigure in the car, and not just standing next to it.
It had a big impact on the models also, because they changed all the models.
- They got bigger because of - [Eggert.]
The minifigures.
[Skov.]
The minifigures.
[narrator.]
It might not be shaped like a brick, but that LEGO minifigure was the perfect fit for LEGO.
And its addition in 1978 can still clearly be seen today.
- Whoa! - You're darn right, "whoa.
" [narrator.]
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
1978 wasn't even done yet.
And as you're about to find out, something very special lurks deep in the LEGO archives.
The biggest innovation in the late '70s changed LEGO profoundly.
[Tucker.]
To this day, I still believe is LEGO's most thought-provocative, the most inspiring, the most magical line - LEGO has ever done - Let's see.
The classic space series.
[narrator.]
LEGO Space was the fantasy playset that changed it all.
- Oh, hang on.
- I have to show you this one as well.
Both of them are really, really iconic sets.
[Robertson.]
Those Space and Castles are two of the most popular sets ever made for LEGO.
Just amazing, beautiful sets that are timeless today.
If you have them in good condition, they're worth thousands of dollars to collectors.
[Hauge.]
Castle starts in '78 and then really takes off during the '80s.
The Castle sets were amazing because they had the drawbridge.
The minifigures actually had visors.
They had weapons.
[narrator.]
Weapons? What happened to peace? Well, don't worry.
There's a reason why the first Castle is yellow.
It's because the Kirk Kristiansen family were worried if we made it in gray, the children would start to build, uh, tanks.
We didn't want that.
[narrator.]
However, this idea tanked the very next year.
And Castles have been tank gray ever since.
At least they tried.
- Tanks.
- [narrator.]
You're welcome.
[announcer.]
LEGOLAND Space.
Its unending mission [narrator.]
The Castle and Space sets were one giant leap for LEGO.
So we expanded a little bit.
[Eggert.]
It took years to break the borders of the City.
[narrator.]
As the world of LEGO expanded beyond the City limits and into the realms of limitless imagination Zack the LEGO maniac during the '80s, LEGO's profits grew and grew.
- Along with this guy's tummy.
- [laughing.]
[narrator.]
The small town of Billund was now a living, breathing LEGO Town Plan.
Not built from LEGO bricks, but from LEGO's profits.
A town that once had a population of 200 now had thousands of LEGO employees.
Every single one of them was busy working in LEGO's now advanced facilities.
We were asked to make ships that actually could float.
The only place we could test it was in this sink, so that was where we tested the ships.
It's funny to think about that.
[narrator.]
As employees were leaving floaters in the LEGO bathrooms, during the '80s, another evil was lurking.
Not in the bathroom, but in the patent office.
That patent expired in the '80s all over the world.
[narrator.]
LEGO's complex and precious design was now free for the taking.
And as the LEGO wannabes mobilized, or shall we say, Playmobilized, Kjeld had big plans to beat back the competition.
And this big plan would involve Small turtles.
[narrator.]
That's right.
Turtles.
- He saw a TV program.
- [narrator.]
But not just any program.
It was a show hosted by an MIT professor called Talking Turtle.
In the program was Seymour Papert explaining about a programming language that he developed called Logo.
[narrator.]
No, that's Logo, with an O.
It wasn't the similar name that interested Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.
It was what the programming language was able to do.
It fascinated Kjeld.
He thought, "If he can do that on the screen, what if we could combine that with LEGO bricks in the physical space?" That led to the launch of the first robotics product that was called LEGO TC Logo.
- [interviewer.]
What was it called? - LEGO TC Logo.
TC stands for technic control.
- [narrator.]
Ah.
LEGO Technic.
- Yeah.
[narrator.]
It's an advanced version of LEGO that still fits The system.
[narrator.]
And with nothing but an Apple IIe and this control board, LEGO could now do this.
Kjeld had pushed the boundaries to create [Askildsen.]
LEGO TC Logo.
[narrator.]
Revolutionizing what could be done with a simple brick.
Good luck topping that, patent copycats.
LEGO TC Logo, uh, was a product for classrooms.
- [school bell ringing.]
- [narrator.]
Oh, just classrooms? So the only thing on toy store shelves was [announcer.]
Buses and houses and bridges and helicopters [narrator.]
And this created a major roadblock for LEGO.
Or should we say, Mega Bloks.
Or Ban Bao, Best Lock, Cobi, Oxford, Tyco Superblocks.
The market was now saturated with plastic impostors.
In any store that sells LEGO, next to it is a brick that snaps together with LEGO for half the cost or less.
[narrator.]
It's true.
On the left is a LEGO brick, and on the right, a Tyco Superblock.
Or is it the other way? Wait, actually, it doesn't matter.
And that's the point.
[Robertson.]
LEGO had the first loss in company history in 1998.
They had to lay off a thousand people.
[narrator.]
That's a third of the Billund workforce.
For the LEGO employees, their careers were now going down the drain.
You didn't know, "Is it me tomorrow?" If it wasn't me, it was a good friend.
[narrator.]
It was the first sign the simple LEGO brick just might not be enough anymore.
[Hauge.]
Maybe we were a little complacent thinking we'll produce something, you'll buy it, and everybody's happy.
But suddenly, that just wasn't the case.
The toy market started to change.
[narrator.]
Ironically, it would be another brick that would nearly bring LEGO down.
But it wasn't Mega Bloks.
This one was called the pixel.
[robotic voice.]
PlayStation.
Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, those virtual, digital play experiences.
- That was the future.
- [man on TV.]
Booyah.
LEGO became convinced around the late '90s that if they only offered boxes of bricks, they'd become irrelevant if not bankrupt.
We had to dare more.
We had to risk more.
We looked for new things that could grow out of the current LEGO shape and the current LEGO form.
It was clear that anything that would make them excited had to involve technology.
- [narrator.]
Uh, do turtles count? - [boy.]
Yeah.
- [narrator.]
Oh, yeah, here they come.
- Oh, wow.
[narrator.]
Twelve years after LEGO created the breakthrough LEGO TC Logo.
- [narrator.]
LEGO changed the name - [announcer.]
LEGO Mindstorms.
[narrator.]
and pulled back the curtain on a reinvented LEGO brick.
Why redesign an old classic? LEGO says the thinking brick is its way of competing with computer games.
[narrator.]
But LEGO was off with their target market.
The people buying it were these adults that they had Masters and PhDs in computer science.
[narrator.]
The first thing they did was hack it.
The adults put together their own programming languages that were more powerful and let the brick do more.
And they published all the machine code, and they started creating their own programming languages, some more powerful than LEGO's.
We were like, "Whoa, why did they do that?" LEGO's first response was to sue those people.
They were like, "It's no offense at all.
We thought we could make it better.
" LEGO said, "Let 'em do it.
Let's put money into the schools starting to have robotic competitions.
Let's encourage this.
" [narrator.]
LEGO had adapted to the futuristic world of '90s technology.
The company was a force to be reckoned with.
- But not - The Force.
[narrator.]
until 1999.
[announcer.]
LEGO and Star Wars join The licensing of the Star Wars sets was genius.
[narrator.]
LEGO bricks had transformed from a simple plastic rectangle to a powerful Jedi weapon.
Or a missile.
A blaster.
Hang on a minute.
The children would actually start to build tanks.
[echoing.]
[Robertson.]
LEGO had made this commitment to never have a toy that glorified modern warfare.
Was Star Wars a modern warfare toy, or was it more of a timeless toy of heroes and knights in shining armor? [narrator.]
After some moral soul-searching, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen decided it would be absolutely fine to make millions off Star Wars.
[Jens Kronvold Frederiksen.]
When designing the models, we wanted to build them off, uh, as many existing LEGO pieces as possible.
We didn't want to make too many special elements, because we want still to stimulate kids' creativity, and show them they can build whatever they want from the pieces they already got.
For example, the Millennium Falcon.
These big shells are UFO shells from the previous Space launch.
[narrator.]
After fitting LEGO together with the mega-franchise, they did something odd.
They didn't make enough toys.
You couldn't find LEGO Star Wars toys in '99.
That's the worst thing that can happen.
[narrator.]
Wow.
What a blunder.
[imitates Yoda.]
The same mistake next year, don't let's hope they make.
The next year in 2000, what do they do? [narrator.]
Did they make not enough again? - No.
They make more.
- [narrator.]
That's a relief.
But the demand is less because there's no Star Wars movie.
- [narrator.]
Oh, yeah.
Hmm.
- Yeah.
[Robertson.]
Those toys go on the discount shelf.
[Luke Skywalker.]
That's impossible.
They didn't understand the cyclical demand.
It led to huge success, but it's also why they almost went bankrupt, because they didn't understand the business.
They had to send a large part of their revenues to another company.
- [narrator.]
Paging Mr.
Lucas.
- [Jar-Jar Binks.]
Exsqueeze me.
[narrator.]
In the late '90s, LEGO was invested heavily - in Mindstorms - [announcer.]
LEGO Mindstorms.
[narrator.]
and minifigures with buns.
That's the first time we did, uh, Princess Leia as a minifigure.
[narrator.]
LEGO had drifted at least 12 parsecs south of the simple brick.
[Hauge.]
We start to ask ourselves, "Do children want to play with a physical brick?" [narrator.]
People really were wondering if the LEGO management had turned to the dark side, not least within LEGO itself.
There's still definitely a bit of internal resentment to the fact that it's just not pure LEGO.
And that changed the dynamic of LEGO immensely.
[narrator.]
LEGO Star Wars wasn't the consistent block blockbuster they'd hoped for.
As profits slumped again, LEGO would need a hero to save the day.
[announcer.]
There's a new kind of hero in town, so ready to save the day.
He's Jack Stone [narrator.]
This would definitely not be that hero.
One of the biggest mistakes that LEGO made was the Jack Stone line of toys.
Jack Stone was a LEGO kit for kids that don't like LEGO kits.
[narrator.]
They'd finally reached the bottom of the LEGO bucket.
Things could only get better from here.
They went to Hollywood and commissioned a TV show.
Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension.
It's gonna be great.
[narrator.]
Actually, no.
It was a disaster.
[announcer.]
Galidor.
It cost a tremendous amount, and was a failure.
[narrator.]
Oh, but they were just getting started.
[Robertson.]
LEGO made electronic toys for toddlers.
[narrator.]
Weird.
Did that work? It was an expensive failure.
- [narrator.]
Oh.
What about Scala? - [announcer.]
LEGO Scala! Scala was this pink and lavender set.
It was out of scale with the other toys.
- [narrator.]
So it doesn't even fit - The system.
- [narrator.]
Isn't it all about the system? - Uh, no.
It's not based on the LEGO system.
[narrator.]
Oh, boy.
Where did they take it next? Afterschool education centers in Asia.
It cost a lot.
It didn't go anywhere.
[narrator.]
Computer games.
Failed themes.
Too many theme parks.
You really had to ask What are you doing? This isn't LEGO.
[narrator.]
From the late '90s to the early 2000s, a darkness enveloped the company.
And it seemed like it might all be over.
I think that time made me afraid.
[narrator.]
As LEGO's new creative head of the 7-to-16-year age group, Søren Holm had good reason to feel scared.
I was to lead this team into a new era, or into a new way of thinking.
[narrator.]
No pressure.
But luckily for LEGO I was a creative.
Some would call it a weirdo, I'd call it a cool guy.
- [narrator.]
We'll go with "cool guy.
" - Lovely.
[narrator.]
With LEGO's fate in the balance The stakes were super high.
The risks were super high as well.
[narrator.]
Søren and his team presented Boneheads.
It was constructing small heads and putting bones in them.
[narrator.]
Sounds fun! But distinctly un-system-ish.
LEGO was nearly broke.
They had nothing to lose.
It was the evolution, or revolution, of the brick.
[narrator.]
So, the cool guy dares to suggest revolution? We dared.
[narrator.]
Søren dared to think outside the brick and also think outside the office, enlisting the help of a guy, but not just any guy.
A guy with an inoperable brain tumor in Copenhagen.
A guy that didn't even work for LEGO, named Christian Faber.
[narrator.]
He'd already done good work with - Boneheads.
- [narrator.]
And now Christian was sent an action figure that looked nothing like any LEGO toy, and was told to draw the world in which this character lived.
But instead of doing that, he started thinking, "What if this wasn't a life-size action figure, but instead it was nanotechnology medicine?" [announcer.]
Nanotechnology involves the manipulation of atoms and molecules.
[Robertson.]
And what if the world it lived in wasn't an island in the middle of the ocean, but rather the crusted-over face of a dormant robot that had been killed by a cancer-like force called the Makuta? Makuta.
[narrator.]
And thus these Boneheads became [announcer.]
LEGO Bionicle.
The evil hunter has stolen the golden mask of control.
- [narrator.]
And - That was a success.
[announcer.]
Now he wants to take over the world.
The story just grabbed kids' attention.
[announcer.]
Win back the golden mask and save the world.
[narrator.]
And save LEGO.
Thanks to Christian Faber's vision, Søren's team adapted the LEGO brick into a fully-formed story with characters, video games, books and animation.
All a license-free LEGO property.
Sorry, George.
We took the world and the kids by storm.
[narrator.]
For the first time in LEGO's history, collectible components.
The mask itself became the collectible.
Without the revenues and profits from Bionicle, LEGO would not be here today.
[narrator.]
And it wasn't only LEGO that started to look healthy again.
The treatments that Christian Faber was going through worked and he's still around and was able to tell the story.
[narrator.]
And even though Bionicle almost solely kept LEGO afloat, the purists still weren't happy.
[Robertson.]
It looks nothing like any other LEGO toy.
Uh, no.
Some people in LEGO don't think it fits in the system.
- The system.
- The system.
The system is almost a religion among some people within LEGO.
[narrator.]
Well, if the system is a religion, 2004 was LEGO's apocalypse.
Bionicle had held back the tide as best it could, but they'd strayed a long way from the brick.
- They still had Star Wars, right? - Yeah.
[narrator.]
And as well as that, in 2001, LEGO also picked up the Harry Potter license.
Not even Hermione Granger could keep them - from getting into trouble.
- [Hermione.]
Oh, dear.
[narrator.]
Because in 2003, something terrible happened, or more accurately, didn't happen.
There was no movie from either franchise in 2003 or the first half of 2004.
Sales of those toys fell off a cliff.
[narrator.]
A more than $220 million-sized cliff.
And the impact of that fall was staggering.
$220 million is a lot of money to lose when you're a family-owned-and-operated company.
LEGO almost went bankrupt.
It explored plans to liquidate the company and sell off the assets.
It sent a team out to Mattel to see if Mattel wanted to buy LEGO.
It was really bad.
We started to say, "Where is this going to end?" [narrator.]
In 2004, the end did come, but not for LEGO.
For its CEO, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.
[Todd.]
I could not imagine how Kjeld felt to step down from leadership of the LEGO company.
But for him to go and find somebody and say, "This is what my family has built.
We want you to help us keep it alive.
" He did a lot of soul-searching, but found the perfect person.
[narrator.]
It was a painful and necessary step.
But [Robertson.]
LEGO appointed as CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp.
He was 34 years old.
His second-in-command was a financial guy named Jesper Ovesen.
[narrator.]
So the young blood and financial mastermind sat down to look at the books.
Crisis over.
If anything, it's worse than Jørgen Vig thought.
[alarm blaring.]
The company is hemorrhaging cash.
They have no committed lines of credit.
They're so close to going out of business, it's unlikely they'll make it.
[narrator.]
Even though a Kristiansen was no longer CEO, LEGO remained in the family, so ultimately, the financial burden still sat squarely with Kjeld.
A year after he stepped down, he made the ultimate sacrifice.
When LEGOLAND was sold, it was a feeling, selling heart blood.
But it was a necessary situation.
So he needed to let it go.
It was very tough times.
[narrator.]
And tough times require a tough boss.
[Robertson.]
So Jesper Ovesen and Jørgen Vig Knudstorp go around the company to see what should be eliminated.
[crowd screaming.]
[Robertson.]
If you're not delivering a fire truck or a police station [announcer.]
Emergency services are on red alert.
then your job is at risk.
[narrator.]
Almost a third of the jobs in Billund were moved to the Czech Republic.
And North American manufacturing was moved from Connecticut to Mexico.
But the biggest move they made was inward.
We turned our focus back to what we know we're good at.
[Robertson.]
It cut down on the colors, it cut down on the shapes that it made.
It simplified its supply chain and manufacturing process.
[narrator.]
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp rebuilt LEGO brick by brick.
And he found that the true value of LEGO was deep in its foundations.
Not that deep.
We talk a lot about that today, the core of what we know we're good at.
Meaning, the LEGO brick and the LEGO system.
- [narrator.]
That's right.
- The system.
[narrator.]
And one of the earliest successes of The system.
[narrator.]
was the fire truck.
[David C.
Robinson.]
The fire truck became a symbol that Mads Nipper, who headed up marketing and product development, used across the company.
He actually called all 600 people who worked for him together, and he held up a Jack Stone fire truck from 2001.
He said, "This is where we hit bottom.
We will never do something like this again.
" [narrator.]
So, the next fire truck they released was this one.
You could say this product almost relates all the way back to the 1955 LEGO Town Plan.
It should be very realistic looking.
It should be very simple to build, so even five-year-olds could build it.
[narrator.]
The LEGO City line really was a return to form, and the same system of play that made LEGO successful in the first place all those years ago.
The regrowth of LEGO began again as the company adapted once more to a changing world by keeping it simple.
- Simple.
- And simple, yeah.
[narrator.]
Well, not that simple.
[Eggert.]
We couldn't just build police station and fire station.
So we had to come up with airport, harbor, blah, blah, blah.
And then we expanded to underwater.
- That was a challenge.
- Yeah.
[narrator.]
Can't imagine why.
As the LEGO designers enjoyed the city life, LEGO also looked at that other line that had saved them from bankruptcy a few years before.
One of the things LEGO learned from Bionicle, and from their failures such as Galidor, was the importance of story.
Story gets kids involved with the toy.
[narrator.]
In the coming years, those irresistible boxes of bricks would be plastered with all manner of TV and movies.
But like Bionicle, their biggest successes would come from tales of their own making.
[announcer 1.]
Did somebody say [announcer 2.]
New from LEGO Ninjago.
[narrator.]
ninjas? Ninjago is a hit toy that came out in 2011 and had a great TV show.
I think it's in its eighth or ninth season now.
[man.]
Ninja-go! And the whole thing just combined to make this toy irresistible for kids.
It's because of the stories and also very much the figures.
[narrator.]
Oh, yes, the figures were very good indeed.
LEGO had crawled its way back from the brink of bankruptcy.
I've never seen a company make so profound a turnaround in such a short time.
[narrator.]
And now everyone was happy.
- Weren't they? - No.
[newscaster.]
Research shows LEGO only clicks with about half of all children.
The male half.
Girls wanted to have an equal building experience to the boys.
They could handle it.
They loved building.
They just wanted it to be relevant for them.
[narrator.]
But this wasn't LEGO's first attempt at marketing exclusively to girls that weren't already into LEGO.
I actually liked Clikits.
A lot of girls that were building with LEGO already, they loved building, but the minifigure just wasn't cutting it.
[narrator.]
But LEGO was determined to get it right this time.
We spent four years developing the product line that became [announcer.]
New from LEGO Friends.
It's a beautiful morning in Heartlake City.
[Charity.]
LEGO gave us complete freedom.
We ended up with a figure that fits with the system.
Goes through the same doors, looks through the same windows, and fits with everything they have in their toy box already.
[narrator.]
And guess what? Girls loved it! [narrator.]
Here's proof.
I love playing with them.
It was like a whole other world separate from regular LEGOs.
[narrator.]
They'd cracked the girls' market with LEGO Friends, but one of their latest and greatest accomplishments would come in 2014.
The same year The LEGOî Movie hit screens around the world.
Awesome.
In 2014, LEGO became the largest toy company worldwide.
[narrator.]
At its core, LEGO built a simple brick.
And like any bricklayer will tell you, you can build just about anything if you use enough of them.
This one is Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Fallingwater house.
This one is Burj Khalifa.
The Hoover Dam.
The Golden Gate Bridge.
The Roman Colosseum.
This model took me about two months to construct.
[narrator.]
But what LEGO built is more than just a four-sided plastic building block.
It built a movement all around the world for kids to build their own futures.
And that's something that the company has always put first, quite literally.
[crowd cheering.]
Welcome to the FIRST LEGO League World Festival awards ceremony at FIRST Championship! [narrator.]
Remember that programmable turtle? Well, now LEGO Mindstorms is an international phenomenon, as the FIRST LEGO League brings together children from around the world.
[cheering.]
You walk through the pits, and you come out and say, "I just saw the future.
" [Holm.]
Mindstorms has a promise.
You can program anything you can build.
So imagine, out of imagination, you come up with an idea to build a robot.
You can certainly do so.
The bricks are for that purpose.
[rhythmic drumming.]
Mindstorms has come a very long way from wooden LEGO toys and a quacking duck that you pull across the floor.
[narrator.]
The LEGO brand has built a global empire, but in their hometown of Billund, they are building an amazing new facility called LEGO House.
And inside that house, they're building a giant tree.
So this is the Tree of Creativity.
[narrator.]
Its branches adorned with LEGO history that begins with the roots, and Ole Kirk Kristiansen's first fire truck and duck, and continues into the glass ceiling, which is very strong, we're told.
[Jesper Vilstrup.]
You can jump on this.
[narrator.]
The new LEGO House is a reminder of how far LEGO has come from the humble origins of an embattled duck maker, to a plastic injection-molded brick that changed the world with a simple idea.
[Todd.]
The urge to create is equally strong in all children, boys and girls.
It's imagination that counts.
You build whatever comes into your head, the way you want it.
The most important thing is to put the right material in their hands and let them create whatever appeals to them.
[narrator.]
With a simple idea, LEGO has always found a way to give kids the opportunity to build their vision, no matter what shape it might take.
It was the idea that you'd done this yourself, you created something from your imagination with these bricks, was really something that you'd be so proud of.
Kids, you see something in your head.
Something beautiful.
Then you want to make that with the building system.
- [narrator.]
Oh, go on, then.
- [Hauge.]
The system.
[narrator.]
But that system really is what holds LEGO together.
[Hauge.]
The system is the reason why you can take a LEGO brick produced today and combine them with bricks from the '50s.
They will fit together.
[narrator.]
But the system isn't just that cleverly-designed brick.
LEGO has withstood the decades by adapting and pushing the limits of the simple brick.
We dared.
[narrator.]
And the LEGO family that's dedicated generations to actively promoting peace and teaching the world to play well.
There's nothing better in this world than sitting together with some kids and seeing a smile in their eyes when they play with LEGO.
[announcer 1.]
Build hotels, animals, people, boats, skyscrapers and more.
So kids, get your LEGO set now.
At department and toy stores everywhere.
[announcer 2.]
There's no end to LEGO.
[theme song playing.]
- [both panting.]
- [in Danish.]
Let's do this.
Yes.
[whistles.]
[Tine Froberg Mortensen.]
Up until the 1980s, obsolete molds were buried in concrete in the foundations of the factories.
We did it to make sure that the old molds didn't fall into the wrong hands.
[man in Danish.]
There will be no unauthorized infringement on this intellectual property.
[narrator in English.]
Despite their best efforts, LEGO has been copied ever since.
But nothing beats that original LEGO brick.
Four glorious walls of pure plastic pleasure, engineered to the highest precision.
LEGO has made its mark on the world, - and parents' feet, for generations.
- [man groans.]
[narrator.]
From humble beginnings, this family-run company for over 80 years has become an unshakable empire.
It was this foreign, strange thing from Scandinavia.
[narrator.]
It's a company that completely relies on one simple system.
The system.
[narrator.]
LEGO lives and dies by the brick.
The risk was super high.
[narrator.]
And adapts to the changing decades.
- Hello.
- [narrator.]
Sometimes too early.
- We lose a lot of money.
- [narrator.]
Sometimes too late.
LEGO almost went bankrupt.
[narrator.]
But LEGO's foundations are strong.
And the world's children unite in their love of the brick.
He's Zack the LEGO maniac I can build it how I want to build it.
[narrator.]
Hashtag, LEGOLIFE.
It's such a global phenomenon.
[narrator.]
From the Danish countryside to the world's biggest toy company, these are The Toys that Made Us.
It's an eight-part documentary series About the toys that we all know Plastic creations That last for generations And we still cannot let go Little molded figures That gave us big dreams We'll go back in time And behind the scenes - It's The Toys that Made Us - Toys that Made Us The Toys that Made Us is here [narrator.]
It starts with a single LEGO brick.
The potential that's contained in this little box of magic is almost limitless.
But it's not just what it can become that makes LEGO bricks so special.
It's what built the LEGO brick that's truly an amazing story.
And like the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, this story begins in Denmark.
Frequently listed among the world's happiest countries.
It's famous for beer, furniture, and pigs.
- Like, lots of pigs.
- [pigs squealing.]
In Denmark, we have five-and-a-half million Danes.
You know how many pigs we kill every year for the slaughterhouse? Twenty-five million.
[pigs squealing.]
[narrator.]
As well as swelling with pork products, the Danes also commonly swell with pride for arguably their greatest achievement.
And if you follow the red, blue, and yellow brick road west from the Danish capital, you'll find its origins here, deep in the Danish countryside, in a tiny town called Billund, aka LEGO world headquarters.
LEGO is a part of everybody's life in Billund.
[bicycle bell rings.]
Either their grandma worked at LEGO 50 years ago.
Everybody in Billund has some link to LEGO.
It starts with a local carpenter, Ole Kirk Kristiansen, who produced a lot of houses for the local farmers.
[Jan Christensen.]
We're actually inside this house that he built in 1924.
It housed both the company as well as his family.
[narrator.]
As the local farming industry grew, so too did Ole's carpentry business.
- That is, until - The Great Depression.
[narrator.]
It turns out that global financial calamity is terrible for business.
And so, in the early '30s, Ole downsizes his business, literally, and begins making Smaller furniture, wooden ironing boards, wooden stepladders, and then he also starts to produce wooden toys.
[narrator.]
Which Ole seemed to have a knack for.
And they soon became his biggest seller.
Because, you know, toys are fun.
[crowd.]
Yay! [narrator.]
It was called the Great Depression, after all.
In 1934 that's when he decides, "I'm going to be a toy manufacturer, 100%.
" [narrator.]
But Billund Woodworking Factory wasn't a very fun name for a toy company.
[crowd.]
Boo! He knows, "Okay, I need a more catchy name.
" He takes the two Danish words, Leg Godt, "play well.
" That's what it means.
He takes the first two letters of each word.
Puts them together.
And within the name, we have the whole purpose of this company.
[narrator.]
Which is to help children play well.
But the newly-formed LEGO company also did something else.
It sold well.
It's a decent period of time for the company.
Suddenly, there is room in the Danish toy market for Danish toys.
A lot of the toys before that was, uh, German toys.
[narrator.]
But then the Germans made a terrible marketing decision and invaded Denmark.
And suddenly German products weren't quite as popular as they used to be.
Yeah.
But also, a lot of the toys back then were made out of metal.
And, well, you used metal for other stuff.
[chuckles.]
So, instead, there was room for these wooden toys.
So there was actually a toy market, even though we had the war.
[narrator.]
And while Germany continued to goose-step across Europe, LEGO went the other way.
One of his early toys was a duck.
[narrator.]
So instead, they duck-rolled, cat-squeaked, and teddy bear-truck-drove their way throughout Denmark, eventually outlasting those pesky Nazis.
[crowd cheering.]
[narrator.]
The bombs stopped and business boomed.
[crowd.]
Yay! [narrator.]
Maybe a little too much.
During the '40s, we start to have problems finding enough wood to maintain our production of wooden toys.
[narrator.]
And a huge factory fire in '42 didn't help, either.
[Hauge.]
So, Ole starts to look and see, "Is there something else that I can supplement my production of wooden toys with?" And that's when he, uh, discovers plastic.
Injection-molding machines, uh, started to surface.
[Hauge.]
Eventually, he ends up buying one of those.
[narrator.]
But it was the plastic toy that Ole released in 1949 that would ultimately change not just LEGO, but the entire toy industry forever.
The exciting and revolutionary innovation known as Automatic Binding Bricks.
[narrator.]
Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? [Hauge.]
When we introduced our plastic brick, we were not the first to do so.
We're one out of many who produces plastic bricks.
[narrator.]
Like Kiddicraft in the UK.
But their bricks featured drab colors and lacked artistic pedigree.
[Robertson.]
LEGO went to the Dutch modernist painter Mondrian, the guy who did those squares with the really vivid hues.
That's where they got the inspiration for the original LEGO brick colors.
[narrator.]
Although based on the colors of a famous painter, these stylish modernist plastic bits could only be appreciated by the cultured children of Denmark and southern Sweden, just a short ferry ride away.
[ferry horn blows.]
[narrator.]
And it was on such a ferry that a fortuitous meeting would occur involving Ole Kirk's son, Godtfred.
[Robertson.]
Godtfred was on a ferry one time with, uh, the key buyer from the big Danish department store.
And he's really complaining.
"Oh, God, it's just a mess.
There's no system in anything.
You buy something, play with it, throw it out, and then buy something new.
Nothing fits.
" "Do you have something like that?" [narrator.]
Guess what? He did.
- Automatic Binding Bricks.
- [narrator.]
Perfect.
So Ole Kirk and his son Godtfred got to work.
First, LEGO dropped the clunky moniker - Automatic Binding Bricks.
- [man coughs.]
in favor of the snappier and more succinct LEGO Mursten.
Mursten meaning "brick" in Danish.
Now, that's a name you can build a business on.
- [laughs.]
- [narrator.]
Thank you.
Now, if the department stores wanted a system, they'd get a system.
This is when we introduced the system.
[narrator.]
And if they wanted a plan, they'd get one of those, too.
[Hauge.]
This is our Town Plan, which we introduced in '55.
[narrator.]
Town Plan was a breakthrough for LEGO.
But it wasn't quite LEGO as we know it just yet.
- The figures were a bit weird, too.
- [bicycle bell rings.]
The small cars and the trees and so on can't be built together with a brick.
[narrator.]
But to be fair, at this point, you couldn't really build much at all with the bricks.
All the bricks at this time are hollow.
[echoing.]
It didn't have the tubes underneath.
So it would stack, but it wouldn't stick.
[narrator.]
Stack, but wouldn't stick? - It would fall apart.
- [narrator.]
What's the point of that? And we realized that.
We need to create better stability.
So the founder of the company and his team started experimenting.
"Could we make this brick in a way that they would stick together with just the right clutch power?" That leads us to the most important thing that has ever happened.
And that's when we patent the tubes we have underneath the brick in 1958.
That is it.
That is the game-changer for us as a company.
[narrator.]
Ladies and gentlemen, LEGO.
[Mortensen.]
This mold here is from 1958.
That year, we patented the clutch power, as we say.
We began putting the LEGO name on each stud in the mid-1950s.
Because of the tubes, you can combine your bricks in so many new ways.
[narrator.]
That's true.
For example, there are 950,103,765 different combinations.
That's one of the combinations.
[narrator.]
And here's another.
One more.
Oh, don't forget.
Yeah, good.
We'll leave the rest to you.
But adding those tubes really worked.
When we come up with that solution in '58, we know it's what we need to focus on.
[narrator.]
And that intense unblinking focus has stared children down for 60 years.
LEGO still relies on the information outlined in these early patents.
Unprecedented for a toy company.
Imagine if Hasbro and Mattel were still trying to sell their products from 1958.
For LEGO, it's a risky business model, to say the least.
Good thing patents don't expire.
Spoiler alert, they do.
By 1958, the guy who brought us the wooden duck could go to his grave knowing he revolutionized the plastic building brick.
And that same year, unfortunately, he did go to his grave.
But the LEGO family tree was only just beginning.
Godtfred takes it to the next level.
[narrator.]
When Godtfred Kirk Christiansen took over, LEGO was growing.
He stopped production on all wooden toys because The brick is the future for us.
[narrator.]
Another major fire in their woodworking factory that year is also credited for the decision.
By 1961, LEGO sold 50 different sets in 11 countries.
Meanwhile, in America, LEGO found a local manufacturer for US production.
I don't think we felt we had the know-how of the American market.
[narrator.]
But if you thought they went with Hasbro or Mattel, you'd be wrong.
The president of Samsonite luggage saw it in a store in Denmark.
And he thought this was pretty amazing.
So he actually came back with suitcases, Samsonite, I assume, full of LEGO bricks.
[announcer.]
LEGO is here.
Hey, kids, look! LEGO, the sensation of Europe, now made in America by Samsonite, who make it better for longer-lasting fun.
[narrator.]
Better and longer-lasting? It's sure to be a success.
It wasn't a huge success.
That's one tough bag.
[narrator.]
And one tough market.
LEGO struggled in the US.
But in the rest of the world Their LEGO brick was so popular by the end of the 1960s that it was sold in 42 countries around the world.
[narrator.]
And with so many fans, Godtfred had a bit of a problem.
He literally built a park to keep people out of his factory.
[narrator.]
And thus, LEGOLAND was born.
A mighty theme park empire that would grow into eight parks, and become part of the second-biggest theme park corporation in the world.
In LEGOLAND Billund's first year, they had 625,000 visitors.
[narrator.]
The LEGO name was growing into a mighty brand.
And when the US license expired in the early '70s, Samsonite packed their bags, and Godtfred Christiansen got his brick back, ready to take personal control over US sales domination.
[boy.]
Here's some more LEGO building bricks.
[narrator.]
But during the late '60s and early '70s, American children were exposed to much more than just [announcer.]
Buses and houses and bridges and helicopters.
[narrator.]
There was also Lots of trains, beautiful trains.
Products children relate to.
[announcer.]
Even the new safety rail on the Sunnydale bridge.
[narrator.]
As children were relating to safety rails [crowd.]
Yay! mothers around the country opposed toys that capitalized on that other relatable topic of the time, war.
So LEGO capitalized on peace.
We don't want to portray tanks and weapons.
[narrator.]
LEGO made a pistol in the '40s, but don't mention the war toys.
The '70s were very good for LEGO, and there was nothing rotten in the state of Denmark.
Quite the opposite.
LEGO accounted for 1% of the country's industrial exports, and annual retail sales worldwide approached $300 million.
And in the Kristiansen family, using nature's building blocks, Godtfred had produced a son, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.
Kjeld was a chip off the old LEGO block.
[Robertson.]
Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen had been intensely frustrated by his father.
He says it took six years to convince his father to put the color green in the inventory.
Godtfred didn't like that.
[narrator.]
It's not easy having green.
Apart from controversial color palettes, Kjeld figured something out that had so far eluded every other member of the Kristiansen family.
And when he took over in the late '70s, he immediately revealed The minifigure.
And it was huge for LEGO.
[narrator.]
To give you some idea of how huge, as of today, there are nearly four billion little LEGO figures inhabiting the Earth.
This is one of the first boxes where we introduced minifigures.
This is, uh, from 1978.
[narrator.]
Kids have been happy with that design ever since.
The minifigure that your grandfather played with, the grandson can play with.
They didn't change it.
[narrator.]
It's no coincidence that these LEGO figures fit so well into the town plans of children across the world.
Our minifigure is, without a hair piece, uh, exactly four LEGO bricks tall.
[narrator.]
This scale fit the system perfectly.
So it fits the system really well.
That's really what we like, the system.
- [narrator.]
It might fit - The system.
[narrator.]
But at this point, they didn't fit inside the cars.
And this was a bit of a pain - for the designers.
- Yes.
It was a huge challenge to build the cars so you could have a minifigure in the car, and not just standing next to it.
It had a big impact on the models also, because they changed all the models.
- They got bigger because of - [Eggert.]
The minifigures.
[Skov.]
The minifigures.
[narrator.]
It might not be shaped like a brick, but that LEGO minifigure was the perfect fit for LEGO.
And its addition in 1978 can still clearly be seen today.
- Whoa! - You're darn right, "whoa.
" [narrator.]
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
1978 wasn't even done yet.
And as you're about to find out, something very special lurks deep in the LEGO archives.
The biggest innovation in the late '70s changed LEGO profoundly.
[Tucker.]
To this day, I still believe is LEGO's most thought-provocative, the most inspiring, the most magical line - LEGO has ever done - Let's see.
The classic space series.
[narrator.]
LEGO Space was the fantasy playset that changed it all.
- Oh, hang on.
- I have to show you this one as well.
Both of them are really, really iconic sets.
[Robertson.]
Those Space and Castles are two of the most popular sets ever made for LEGO.
Just amazing, beautiful sets that are timeless today.
If you have them in good condition, they're worth thousands of dollars to collectors.
[Hauge.]
Castle starts in '78 and then really takes off during the '80s.
The Castle sets were amazing because they had the drawbridge.
The minifigures actually had visors.
They had weapons.
[narrator.]
Weapons? What happened to peace? Well, don't worry.
There's a reason why the first Castle is yellow.
It's because the Kirk Kristiansen family were worried if we made it in gray, the children would start to build, uh, tanks.
We didn't want that.
[narrator.]
However, this idea tanked the very next year.
And Castles have been tank gray ever since.
At least they tried.
- Tanks.
- [narrator.]
You're welcome.
[announcer.]
LEGOLAND Space.
Its unending mission [narrator.]
The Castle and Space sets were one giant leap for LEGO.
So we expanded a little bit.
[Eggert.]
It took years to break the borders of the City.
[narrator.]
As the world of LEGO expanded beyond the City limits and into the realms of limitless imagination Zack the LEGO maniac during the '80s, LEGO's profits grew and grew.
- Along with this guy's tummy.
- [laughing.]
[narrator.]
The small town of Billund was now a living, breathing LEGO Town Plan.
Not built from LEGO bricks, but from LEGO's profits.
A town that once had a population of 200 now had thousands of LEGO employees.
Every single one of them was busy working in LEGO's now advanced facilities.
We were asked to make ships that actually could float.
The only place we could test it was in this sink, so that was where we tested the ships.
It's funny to think about that.
[narrator.]
As employees were leaving floaters in the LEGO bathrooms, during the '80s, another evil was lurking.
Not in the bathroom, but in the patent office.
That patent expired in the '80s all over the world.
[narrator.]
LEGO's complex and precious design was now free for the taking.
And as the LEGO wannabes mobilized, or shall we say, Playmobilized, Kjeld had big plans to beat back the competition.
And this big plan would involve Small turtles.
[narrator.]
That's right.
Turtles.
- He saw a TV program.
- [narrator.]
But not just any program.
It was a show hosted by an MIT professor called Talking Turtle.
In the program was Seymour Papert explaining about a programming language that he developed called Logo.
[narrator.]
No, that's Logo, with an O.
It wasn't the similar name that interested Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.
It was what the programming language was able to do.
It fascinated Kjeld.
He thought, "If he can do that on the screen, what if we could combine that with LEGO bricks in the physical space?" That led to the launch of the first robotics product that was called LEGO TC Logo.
- [interviewer.]
What was it called? - LEGO TC Logo.
TC stands for technic control.
- [narrator.]
Ah.
LEGO Technic.
- Yeah.
[narrator.]
It's an advanced version of LEGO that still fits The system.
[narrator.]
And with nothing but an Apple IIe and this control board, LEGO could now do this.
Kjeld had pushed the boundaries to create [Askildsen.]
LEGO TC Logo.
[narrator.]
Revolutionizing what could be done with a simple brick.
Good luck topping that, patent copycats.
LEGO TC Logo, uh, was a product for classrooms.
- [school bell ringing.]
- [narrator.]
Oh, just classrooms? So the only thing on toy store shelves was [announcer.]
Buses and houses and bridges and helicopters [narrator.]
And this created a major roadblock for LEGO.
Or should we say, Mega Bloks.
Or Ban Bao, Best Lock, Cobi, Oxford, Tyco Superblocks.
The market was now saturated with plastic impostors.
In any store that sells LEGO, next to it is a brick that snaps together with LEGO for half the cost or less.
[narrator.]
It's true.
On the left is a LEGO brick, and on the right, a Tyco Superblock.
Or is it the other way? Wait, actually, it doesn't matter.
And that's the point.
[Robertson.]
LEGO had the first loss in company history in 1998.
They had to lay off a thousand people.
[narrator.]
That's a third of the Billund workforce.
For the LEGO employees, their careers were now going down the drain.
You didn't know, "Is it me tomorrow?" If it wasn't me, it was a good friend.
[narrator.]
It was the first sign the simple LEGO brick just might not be enough anymore.
[Hauge.]
Maybe we were a little complacent thinking we'll produce something, you'll buy it, and everybody's happy.
But suddenly, that just wasn't the case.
The toy market started to change.
[narrator.]
Ironically, it would be another brick that would nearly bring LEGO down.
But it wasn't Mega Bloks.
This one was called the pixel.
[robotic voice.]
PlayStation.
Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, those virtual, digital play experiences.
- That was the future.
- [man on TV.]
Booyah.
LEGO became convinced around the late '90s that if they only offered boxes of bricks, they'd become irrelevant if not bankrupt.
We had to dare more.
We had to risk more.
We looked for new things that could grow out of the current LEGO shape and the current LEGO form.
It was clear that anything that would make them excited had to involve technology.
- [narrator.]
Uh, do turtles count? - [boy.]
Yeah.
- [narrator.]
Oh, yeah, here they come.
- Oh, wow.
[narrator.]
Twelve years after LEGO created the breakthrough LEGO TC Logo.
- [narrator.]
LEGO changed the name - [announcer.]
LEGO Mindstorms.
[narrator.]
and pulled back the curtain on a reinvented LEGO brick.
Why redesign an old classic? LEGO says the thinking brick is its way of competing with computer games.
[narrator.]
But LEGO was off with their target market.
The people buying it were these adults that they had Masters and PhDs in computer science.
[narrator.]
The first thing they did was hack it.
The adults put together their own programming languages that were more powerful and let the brick do more.
And they published all the machine code, and they started creating their own programming languages, some more powerful than LEGO's.
We were like, "Whoa, why did they do that?" LEGO's first response was to sue those people.
They were like, "It's no offense at all.
We thought we could make it better.
" LEGO said, "Let 'em do it.
Let's put money into the schools starting to have robotic competitions.
Let's encourage this.
" [narrator.]
LEGO had adapted to the futuristic world of '90s technology.
The company was a force to be reckoned with.
- But not - The Force.
[narrator.]
until 1999.
[announcer.]
LEGO and Star Wars join The licensing of the Star Wars sets was genius.
[narrator.]
LEGO bricks had transformed from a simple plastic rectangle to a powerful Jedi weapon.
Or a missile.
A blaster.
Hang on a minute.
The children would actually start to build tanks.
[echoing.]
[Robertson.]
LEGO had made this commitment to never have a toy that glorified modern warfare.
Was Star Wars a modern warfare toy, or was it more of a timeless toy of heroes and knights in shining armor? [narrator.]
After some moral soul-searching, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen decided it would be absolutely fine to make millions off Star Wars.
[Jens Kronvold Frederiksen.]
When designing the models, we wanted to build them off, uh, as many existing LEGO pieces as possible.
We didn't want to make too many special elements, because we want still to stimulate kids' creativity, and show them they can build whatever they want from the pieces they already got.
For example, the Millennium Falcon.
These big shells are UFO shells from the previous Space launch.
[narrator.]
After fitting LEGO together with the mega-franchise, they did something odd.
They didn't make enough toys.
You couldn't find LEGO Star Wars toys in '99.
That's the worst thing that can happen.
[narrator.]
Wow.
What a blunder.
[imitates Yoda.]
The same mistake next year, don't let's hope they make.
The next year in 2000, what do they do? [narrator.]
Did they make not enough again? - No.
They make more.
- [narrator.]
That's a relief.
But the demand is less because there's no Star Wars movie.
- [narrator.]
Oh, yeah.
Hmm.
- Yeah.
[Robertson.]
Those toys go on the discount shelf.
[Luke Skywalker.]
That's impossible.
They didn't understand the cyclical demand.
It led to huge success, but it's also why they almost went bankrupt, because they didn't understand the business.
They had to send a large part of their revenues to another company.
- [narrator.]
Paging Mr.
Lucas.
- [Jar-Jar Binks.]
Exsqueeze me.
[narrator.]
In the late '90s, LEGO was invested heavily - in Mindstorms - [announcer.]
LEGO Mindstorms.
[narrator.]
and minifigures with buns.
That's the first time we did, uh, Princess Leia as a minifigure.
[narrator.]
LEGO had drifted at least 12 parsecs south of the simple brick.
[Hauge.]
We start to ask ourselves, "Do children want to play with a physical brick?" [narrator.]
People really were wondering if the LEGO management had turned to the dark side, not least within LEGO itself.
There's still definitely a bit of internal resentment to the fact that it's just not pure LEGO.
And that changed the dynamic of LEGO immensely.
[narrator.]
LEGO Star Wars wasn't the consistent block blockbuster they'd hoped for.
As profits slumped again, LEGO would need a hero to save the day.
[announcer.]
There's a new kind of hero in town, so ready to save the day.
He's Jack Stone [narrator.]
This would definitely not be that hero.
One of the biggest mistakes that LEGO made was the Jack Stone line of toys.
Jack Stone was a LEGO kit for kids that don't like LEGO kits.
[narrator.]
They'd finally reached the bottom of the LEGO bucket.
Things could only get better from here.
They went to Hollywood and commissioned a TV show.
Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension.
It's gonna be great.
[narrator.]
Actually, no.
It was a disaster.
[announcer.]
Galidor.
It cost a tremendous amount, and was a failure.
[narrator.]
Oh, but they were just getting started.
[Robertson.]
LEGO made electronic toys for toddlers.
[narrator.]
Weird.
Did that work? It was an expensive failure.
- [narrator.]
Oh.
What about Scala? - [announcer.]
LEGO Scala! Scala was this pink and lavender set.
It was out of scale with the other toys.
- [narrator.]
So it doesn't even fit - The system.
- [narrator.]
Isn't it all about the system? - Uh, no.
It's not based on the LEGO system.
[narrator.]
Oh, boy.
Where did they take it next? Afterschool education centers in Asia.
It cost a lot.
It didn't go anywhere.
[narrator.]
Computer games.
Failed themes.
Too many theme parks.
You really had to ask What are you doing? This isn't LEGO.
[narrator.]
From the late '90s to the early 2000s, a darkness enveloped the company.
And it seemed like it might all be over.
I think that time made me afraid.
[narrator.]
As LEGO's new creative head of the 7-to-16-year age group, Søren Holm had good reason to feel scared.
I was to lead this team into a new era, or into a new way of thinking.
[narrator.]
No pressure.
But luckily for LEGO I was a creative.
Some would call it a weirdo, I'd call it a cool guy.
- [narrator.]
We'll go with "cool guy.
" - Lovely.
[narrator.]
With LEGO's fate in the balance The stakes were super high.
The risks were super high as well.
[narrator.]
Søren and his team presented Boneheads.
It was constructing small heads and putting bones in them.
[narrator.]
Sounds fun! But distinctly un-system-ish.
LEGO was nearly broke.
They had nothing to lose.
It was the evolution, or revolution, of the brick.
[narrator.]
So, the cool guy dares to suggest revolution? We dared.
[narrator.]
Søren dared to think outside the brick and also think outside the office, enlisting the help of a guy, but not just any guy.
A guy with an inoperable brain tumor in Copenhagen.
A guy that didn't even work for LEGO, named Christian Faber.
[narrator.]
He'd already done good work with - Boneheads.
- [narrator.]
And now Christian was sent an action figure that looked nothing like any LEGO toy, and was told to draw the world in which this character lived.
But instead of doing that, he started thinking, "What if this wasn't a life-size action figure, but instead it was nanotechnology medicine?" [announcer.]
Nanotechnology involves the manipulation of atoms and molecules.
[Robertson.]
And what if the world it lived in wasn't an island in the middle of the ocean, but rather the crusted-over face of a dormant robot that had been killed by a cancer-like force called the Makuta? Makuta.
[narrator.]
And thus these Boneheads became [announcer.]
LEGO Bionicle.
The evil hunter has stolen the golden mask of control.
- [narrator.]
And - That was a success.
[announcer.]
Now he wants to take over the world.
The story just grabbed kids' attention.
[announcer.]
Win back the golden mask and save the world.
[narrator.]
And save LEGO.
Thanks to Christian Faber's vision, Søren's team adapted the LEGO brick into a fully-formed story with characters, video games, books and animation.
All a license-free LEGO property.
Sorry, George.
We took the world and the kids by storm.
[narrator.]
For the first time in LEGO's history, collectible components.
The mask itself became the collectible.
Without the revenues and profits from Bionicle, LEGO would not be here today.
[narrator.]
And it wasn't only LEGO that started to look healthy again.
The treatments that Christian Faber was going through worked and he's still around and was able to tell the story.
[narrator.]
And even though Bionicle almost solely kept LEGO afloat, the purists still weren't happy.
[Robertson.]
It looks nothing like any other LEGO toy.
Uh, no.
Some people in LEGO don't think it fits in the system.
- The system.
- The system.
The system is almost a religion among some people within LEGO.
[narrator.]
Well, if the system is a religion, 2004 was LEGO's apocalypse.
Bionicle had held back the tide as best it could, but they'd strayed a long way from the brick.
- They still had Star Wars, right? - Yeah.
[narrator.]
And as well as that, in 2001, LEGO also picked up the Harry Potter license.
Not even Hermione Granger could keep them - from getting into trouble.
- [Hermione.]
Oh, dear.
[narrator.]
Because in 2003, something terrible happened, or more accurately, didn't happen.
There was no movie from either franchise in 2003 or the first half of 2004.
Sales of those toys fell off a cliff.
[narrator.]
A more than $220 million-sized cliff.
And the impact of that fall was staggering.
$220 million is a lot of money to lose when you're a family-owned-and-operated company.
LEGO almost went bankrupt.
It explored plans to liquidate the company and sell off the assets.
It sent a team out to Mattel to see if Mattel wanted to buy LEGO.
It was really bad.
We started to say, "Where is this going to end?" [narrator.]
In 2004, the end did come, but not for LEGO.
For its CEO, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.
[Todd.]
I could not imagine how Kjeld felt to step down from leadership of the LEGO company.
But for him to go and find somebody and say, "This is what my family has built.
We want you to help us keep it alive.
" He did a lot of soul-searching, but found the perfect person.
[narrator.]
It was a painful and necessary step.
But [Robertson.]
LEGO appointed as CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp.
He was 34 years old.
His second-in-command was a financial guy named Jesper Ovesen.
[narrator.]
So the young blood and financial mastermind sat down to look at the books.
Crisis over.
If anything, it's worse than Jørgen Vig thought.
[alarm blaring.]
The company is hemorrhaging cash.
They have no committed lines of credit.
They're so close to going out of business, it's unlikely they'll make it.
[narrator.]
Even though a Kristiansen was no longer CEO, LEGO remained in the family, so ultimately, the financial burden still sat squarely with Kjeld.
A year after he stepped down, he made the ultimate sacrifice.
When LEGOLAND was sold, it was a feeling, selling heart blood.
But it was a necessary situation.
So he needed to let it go.
It was very tough times.
[narrator.]
And tough times require a tough boss.
[Robertson.]
So Jesper Ovesen and Jørgen Vig Knudstorp go around the company to see what should be eliminated.
[crowd screaming.]
[Robertson.]
If you're not delivering a fire truck or a police station [announcer.]
Emergency services are on red alert.
then your job is at risk.
[narrator.]
Almost a third of the jobs in Billund were moved to the Czech Republic.
And North American manufacturing was moved from Connecticut to Mexico.
But the biggest move they made was inward.
We turned our focus back to what we know we're good at.
[Robertson.]
It cut down on the colors, it cut down on the shapes that it made.
It simplified its supply chain and manufacturing process.
[narrator.]
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp rebuilt LEGO brick by brick.
And he found that the true value of LEGO was deep in its foundations.
Not that deep.
We talk a lot about that today, the core of what we know we're good at.
Meaning, the LEGO brick and the LEGO system.
- [narrator.]
That's right.
- The system.
[narrator.]
And one of the earliest successes of The system.
[narrator.]
was the fire truck.
[David C.
Robinson.]
The fire truck became a symbol that Mads Nipper, who headed up marketing and product development, used across the company.
He actually called all 600 people who worked for him together, and he held up a Jack Stone fire truck from 2001.
He said, "This is where we hit bottom.
We will never do something like this again.
" [narrator.]
So, the next fire truck they released was this one.
You could say this product almost relates all the way back to the 1955 LEGO Town Plan.
It should be very realistic looking.
It should be very simple to build, so even five-year-olds could build it.
[narrator.]
The LEGO City line really was a return to form, and the same system of play that made LEGO successful in the first place all those years ago.
The regrowth of LEGO began again as the company adapted once more to a changing world by keeping it simple.
- Simple.
- And simple, yeah.
[narrator.]
Well, not that simple.
[Eggert.]
We couldn't just build police station and fire station.
So we had to come up with airport, harbor, blah, blah, blah.
And then we expanded to underwater.
- That was a challenge.
- Yeah.
[narrator.]
Can't imagine why.
As the LEGO designers enjoyed the city life, LEGO also looked at that other line that had saved them from bankruptcy a few years before.
One of the things LEGO learned from Bionicle, and from their failures such as Galidor, was the importance of story.
Story gets kids involved with the toy.
[narrator.]
In the coming years, those irresistible boxes of bricks would be plastered with all manner of TV and movies.
But like Bionicle, their biggest successes would come from tales of their own making.
[announcer 1.]
Did somebody say [announcer 2.]
New from LEGO Ninjago.
[narrator.]
ninjas? Ninjago is a hit toy that came out in 2011 and had a great TV show.
I think it's in its eighth or ninth season now.
[man.]
Ninja-go! And the whole thing just combined to make this toy irresistible for kids.
It's because of the stories and also very much the figures.
[narrator.]
Oh, yes, the figures were very good indeed.
LEGO had crawled its way back from the brink of bankruptcy.
I've never seen a company make so profound a turnaround in such a short time.
[narrator.]
And now everyone was happy.
- Weren't they? - No.
[newscaster.]
Research shows LEGO only clicks with about half of all children.
The male half.
Girls wanted to have an equal building experience to the boys.
They could handle it.
They loved building.
They just wanted it to be relevant for them.
[narrator.]
But this wasn't LEGO's first attempt at marketing exclusively to girls that weren't already into LEGO.
I actually liked Clikits.
A lot of girls that were building with LEGO already, they loved building, but the minifigure just wasn't cutting it.
[narrator.]
But LEGO was determined to get it right this time.
We spent four years developing the product line that became [announcer.]
New from LEGO Friends.
It's a beautiful morning in Heartlake City.
[Charity.]
LEGO gave us complete freedom.
We ended up with a figure that fits with the system.
Goes through the same doors, looks through the same windows, and fits with everything they have in their toy box already.
[narrator.]
And guess what? Girls loved it! [narrator.]
Here's proof.
I love playing with them.
It was like a whole other world separate from regular LEGOs.
[narrator.]
They'd cracked the girls' market with LEGO Friends, but one of their latest and greatest accomplishments would come in 2014.
The same year The LEGOî Movie hit screens around the world.
Awesome.
In 2014, LEGO became the largest toy company worldwide.
[narrator.]
At its core, LEGO built a simple brick.
And like any bricklayer will tell you, you can build just about anything if you use enough of them.
This one is Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Fallingwater house.
This one is Burj Khalifa.
The Hoover Dam.
The Golden Gate Bridge.
The Roman Colosseum.
This model took me about two months to construct.
[narrator.]
But what LEGO built is more than just a four-sided plastic building block.
It built a movement all around the world for kids to build their own futures.
And that's something that the company has always put first, quite literally.
[crowd cheering.]
Welcome to the FIRST LEGO League World Festival awards ceremony at FIRST Championship! [narrator.]
Remember that programmable turtle? Well, now LEGO Mindstorms is an international phenomenon, as the FIRST LEGO League brings together children from around the world.
[cheering.]
You walk through the pits, and you come out and say, "I just saw the future.
" [Holm.]
Mindstorms has a promise.
You can program anything you can build.
So imagine, out of imagination, you come up with an idea to build a robot.
You can certainly do so.
The bricks are for that purpose.
[rhythmic drumming.]
Mindstorms has come a very long way from wooden LEGO toys and a quacking duck that you pull across the floor.
[narrator.]
The LEGO brand has built a global empire, but in their hometown of Billund, they are building an amazing new facility called LEGO House.
And inside that house, they're building a giant tree.
So this is the Tree of Creativity.
[narrator.]
Its branches adorned with LEGO history that begins with the roots, and Ole Kirk Kristiansen's first fire truck and duck, and continues into the glass ceiling, which is very strong, we're told.
[Jesper Vilstrup.]
You can jump on this.
[narrator.]
The new LEGO House is a reminder of how far LEGO has come from the humble origins of an embattled duck maker, to a plastic injection-molded brick that changed the world with a simple idea.
[Todd.]
The urge to create is equally strong in all children, boys and girls.
It's imagination that counts.
You build whatever comes into your head, the way you want it.
The most important thing is to put the right material in their hands and let them create whatever appeals to them.
[narrator.]
With a simple idea, LEGO has always found a way to give kids the opportunity to build their vision, no matter what shape it might take.
It was the idea that you'd done this yourself, you created something from your imagination with these bricks, was really something that you'd be so proud of.
Kids, you see something in your head.
Something beautiful.
Then you want to make that with the building system.
- [narrator.]
Oh, go on, then.
- [Hauge.]
The system.
[narrator.]
But that system really is what holds LEGO together.
[Hauge.]
The system is the reason why you can take a LEGO brick produced today and combine them with bricks from the '50s.
They will fit together.
[narrator.]
But the system isn't just that cleverly-designed brick.
LEGO has withstood the decades by adapting and pushing the limits of the simple brick.
We dared.
[narrator.]
And the LEGO family that's dedicated generations to actively promoting peace and teaching the world to play well.
There's nothing better in this world than sitting together with some kids and seeing a smile in their eyes when they play with LEGO.
[announcer 1.]
Build hotels, animals, people, boats, skyscrapers and more.
So kids, get your LEGO set now.
At department and toy stores everywhere.
[announcer 2.]
There's no end to LEGO.
[theme song playing.]