This is the Poky Little Puppy in Barbie Land.

More like filthy rich puppy!

Dear oh dear, i had forgotten about Belville, the first Lego-not-Lego sets that i had come across. Still better than Galidor but not as painful as Scala but still a little cringeworthy in some parts.

It currently sells for $25? I shall pass, but thank you.

Aside from the false advertising (because there's clearly only one puppy, here), I think it's a cute little set. Scala at this point had a habit of releasing sets that had unusual but very-pretty pieces, and I collected more than a few.

@tmtomh said:
"Is there any more wonderfully bananas year for crazy Lego themes and never-to-be-seen again colors and molds than 2001?"

That's why they nearly went bankrupt!

@Zordboy:
I think you mean Belville, not Scala.

@Arnoldos said:
"That chest looks like it can fit a minifig inside. Would be perfect for hiding bodies if it wasn't transparent."

According to Bricklink, the piece comes in six opaque colors.

@Maxbricks14 said: "I think you mean Belville, not Scala."

I do have a habit of using the two terms interchangeably, don't I?

I love that transparent pink chest.

@Maxbricks14 said:
"Also, there is only one puppy, not two!"

The other one has been magically cursed into a 2D image on a piece of paper (or whatever that tile is suppposed to represent).

@Arnoldos:
Starving Mimic, because you can tell what happened to the last guy.

Pupper.

This set weirdly fills me with nostlgia because this was in a toy shop catalog I had since 2001. It used this exact image and I still find it a pretty composition with the rays of light being used.

The catalog isn't a complete overview of everything lego made back then like lego's own catalogs (and even then there were rare sets), but it did show the breadth of Lego at the time. So many pages with product lines beside System! It even still has the prices in Guldens, our currency at the time. I also have a 2002 one with both Gulden and Euro prices!

My first square catalog from lego (the kind you still find in stores to this very day) is from early 2004 (those debuted in 2002 I believe). So together with pamphlets in boxes I had a nice overview of sets from the era as sets from previous years often remained in catalogs for far longer than they do now.

One puppy was lost during the adventure. :(

One puppy and one pupa does not make for puppies!

I thought for sure this was going to be a Friends set when I clicked on my RSS Feed Reader this morning--I am quitely pleased to see it's actually Belville.

Not that Belville was really up my alley. Friends, being more properly fig-scaled, is more compatible, but Belville at least hits the nostalgia button (though, oh dear, some Friends is getting old...). This particular set isn't abundant with parts, but that chest has already been mentioned for a reason.

Another term for Paw Patrol

On that note, I'd be lying if I said I've never considered what LEGO Paw Patrol would look like

@AverageChimaEnjoyer said:
"Another term for Paw Patrol

On that note, I'd be lying if I said I've never considered what LEGO Paw Patrol would look like"

Mega did Paw Patrol in duplo compatible bricks. Duplo seems better than system bricks for this subject.

Curious... Bricknerd reposted a Belville article yesterday, and now Huwbot posts this. Very Curious!

See here for the article: https://bricknerd.com/home/bizarre-belville-baseplates-a-fine-foundation-3-7-22

2001… One of Lego’s worst years.

@AustinPowers said:
" @Arnoldos said:
"That chest looks like it can fit a minifig inside. Would be perfect for hiding bodies if it wasn't transparent."
It's a classic Fabuland piece which at that point had been around for nearly two decades, since it had been introduced in 1982!"

So…meat storage locker that somehow evolved into a Mimic?

@Formendacil:
At the rate they’re aging up the characters, it won’t be long before they start making funeral and cemetery sets. I mean, this guy’s clearly not long for that world, given his hair color:

https://brickset.com/minifigs/frnd635/friends-stanley-dark-turquoise-shirt-dark-red-trousers-black-shoes-silver-glasses

@Atuin said:
" @BaconKing said:
"2001… One of Lego’s worst years."

It started of Bionicle and (if you ignore the giant minifig and Statue of Liberty, which were not available until 2001 in some countries anyway) also the line that would become Creator Expert, with Shop at Home's Sculptures sub-theme.
Also Life on Mars and Alpha Team are really underrated.

I think people are mostly biased towards these years because of certain odd themes (Jack Stone, Znap, Galidor) and thus disregard anything from that era in general.

But yeah... Belville took a strange route in 2001, with life-sized (?) mugs and similar weirdness. The dog in that picture is also vastly misleading on it's real size. Looking at Bricklink images, the collar is barely wider than a stud's height!"

Don't forget about Harry Potter, which was a huge leap in licensed themes in that it was the first full minifig theme after Star Wars with a licensed IP.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Maxbricks14 said:
"Also, there is only one puppy, not two!"

The other one has been magically cursed into a 2D image on a piece of paper (or whatever that tile is suppposed to represent)."

Ceci n'est pas une chiot.

@Maxbricks14 said:
"What abomination is this? A butterfly that looks like a worm!"

As it turns out, that's actually meant to double as a real-life hairclip. Hence the weird green thing underneath. Yes, I was today's year old too when I found out.

Oh, and I only now realize that Belville of all things had made it to 14 years. It started in 1994 and ended in 2008. It must have done 'something' right if it made it past 2004 into the new era of the company!

Curiously, while this set is called "Adventurous Puppies" in the US Shop At Home catalogs, it's more accurately called "Adventurous Puppy" in the UK catalogs.

Hmm... I guess it's true when they say there's three types of people: those who can count, and those who can't count.

@Binnekamp:
At Brickworld Chicago, they had a keynote speaker come in who talked about all the themes she'd worked on over the years. It was pretty brutal to sit through, as these themes included the likes of Homemaker, Scala, Belville, and Clikets. Every one was meant to crack open the girls market, and every one was a dismal failure. Notably, she had left the company by the time Friends came out.

It wasn't that Belville did something right, but that they couldn't figure out how to stop doing things wrong. They were too invested in trying to make lame horses run and wouldn't face reality.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Binnekamp:
At Brickworld Chicago, they had a keynote speaker come in who talked about all the themes she'd worked on over the years. It was pretty brutal to sit through, as these themes included the likes of Homemaker, Scala, Belville, and Clikets. Every one was meant to crack open the girls market, and every one was a dismal failure. Notably, she had left the company by the time Friends came out.

It wasn't that Belville did something right, but that they couldn't figure out how to stop doing things wrong. They were too invested in trying to make lame horses run and wouldn't face reality."

It certainly is the most plausible explanation for the theme's longevity.

It also explains the inconsistent shift of themes (never deciding between real-world doll houses and fairy tales, but also never releasing both at once) as well as the usually low number of sets per wave (excluding 1998-1999 suspiciously).

I was also very confused about the progression from Paradisa to Scala and their urge to have two 'doll house' themes running simultaneously.

Also not sure about the statistics here, but given that most early videogames (which Lego was so afraid of then) were aimed at boys (mostly male heroes and such), it's easy to see TLG's fixation on getting a foothold in the girl's toy market.

@Atuin:
I think there was a degree of success in some parts of the world, but in the US I know I owned one of the Universal sets that followed on the heels of Homemaker, I've seen Paradisa, and I've seen Clikits. I don't remember ever seeing Belville or Scala sets. They seem to have had a niche success in Europe, though. Of course, this was all largely during a time when the US was a minor market, and once they landed the Star Wars contract, definitions of "success" shifted dramatically.

Likewise, there was some degree of a market share with girls in Europe, where in the US it seems to have all but dried up from the time the minifig was introduced to the time that Friends came on the market. I've had college friends tell me that their parents bought LEGO sets for their brothers, but not for them. Or they may have even been limited to playing with their friends' brothers' sets, because they didn't have anything in their own household.

I missed the part with the lego

@PurpleDave said:
" @Atuin :
I think there was a degree of success in some parts of the world, but in the US I know I owned one of the Universal sets that followed on the heels of Homemaker, I've seen Paradisa, and I've seen Clikits. I don't remember ever seeing Belville or Scala sets. They seem to have had a niche success in Europe, though. Of course, this was all largely during a time when the US was a minor market, and once they landed the Star Wars contract, definitions of "success" shifted dramatically.

Likewise, there was some degree of a market share with girls in Europe, where in the US it seems to have all but dried up from the time the minifig was introduced to the time that Friends came on the market. I've had college friends tell me that their parents bought LEGO sets for their brothers, but not for them. Or they may have even been limited to playing with their friends' brothers' sets, because they didn't have anything in their own household."

It's strange that there was a high number of Belville exclusive parts to be found in bulk lots I saw in the early to late 2000s, often mixed in with Basic/Freestyle stuff, but also a lot of Town. So I guess this hints towards some sales here.

Though I never found any Scala parts or even dolls/figures/horses mixed in with these. It's also odd that the second wave of Scala sets meant to release in early 1998 was also cancelled entirely last minute and replaced with a redesign featuring slightly brighter colors and a um... less old-fashioned 'architecture style'.

I found most of this set at goodwill a month ago along with parts of other belville sets, such a strange set

At least some of the parts from this showed up much later, even where you least expect it :

https://brickset.com/parts/design-30657 is even in 10240: Red Five X-wing Starfighter