40506 LEGO Fabuland Tribute unveiled as next LEGO House exclusive!

Lol, I love this!! The tree is so good!

Yes! I absolutely love Fabuland, and will 100% be buying this set. So stoked.

Lore, anyone?

When LEGO acknowledges the random furry theme from the 80s and yet still act like Power Miners never existed...

Edward the Elephant! Yes! Best Fabuland character. Of course I’m biased being “Edward Junior” :)

Everybody, yeah
Rock your body, yeah
Everybody, yeah
Rock your body right
Backstreet's back, alright!

Fabuland is one of my fav themes. This however does not interest me in slightest. Thankfully :3

We're so back

I've gotta be honest, I've never been a huge Fabuland fan. I had two or three of the smaller sets as a kid, but can't remember ever playing with them.
So this set is an easy pass for me.

When the Fabuland tribute has 5x the part count of the Bionicle tribute.

Seriously though this is very cute.

“Introduced in 1979, LEGO was a completely new type of LEGO play theme.” - I think the main word might be missing there!

Stuart Harris said:
"You can really see the influence it had on the storytelling themes of future series from the LEGO Group, including LEGO NINJAGO, LEGO Friends, LEGO Bionicle and more."
Notice how carefully he avoided mentioning Chima…

I think this set would have been a much better tribute if it had been a neighborhood cookout instead of a band.

Meh. It's so far away from the Fabuland mine I can't see the appeal of such an hommage

That tree is weirdly satisfying, I'll have to recreate that.

I like how Clive brings a part of a classic Technic car.

For their size, I think those figures have actually come out pretty decent. And as they are brick built, I can see there being MOCs to create the other characters in the same style.

I won't be buying the set due to the exclusive sales location and the price it will be on the secondary market, but I will for sure be making the characters.

I really hate these regional exclusives, if anything they deter me from visitng TLH, not incentive me.

Really justifies the price of a plane ticket to Billund

I have absolutely no connection or nostalgia for Fabuland, but I still like this.

I love this set for the exact reason that I have no desire whatsoever in acquiring it and this is just as fine as I have little to no opportunities in going to Billund in the near future. However 40504 was a very sad affair because I had no access to it and I very much would have liked to get it (at retail price - not ebay or Bricklink prices). I am happy when I have no desires for sets I cannot get anyway! (Besides, this set does not offer any interesting recolours)

To me, this looks very close to Fabuland brickheadz. Considering that fabuland minifig are just one piece, a better set to me would have been 4 original minifigs(and one accessory each), one original tree and a base plate; 10 parts! I never had any Fabuland sets, so the nostalgia is not really there for me, but I am very happy for those who are experiencing fond memories out of this set - provided they can get it.

And now for something completely different: anyone knows when North America will get the full contingent of parts available on PaB? As of now we only have 4000ish parts available versus 14000ish available in Europe.

This wasn't a surprise for me, as I already saw just2good's video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsQdB_DTp6o ) that, while it wasn't a full reveal, still showed enough to make it obvious what this was going to be.

@legodachi said:"Is Clive Crocodile holding an accordion?
If so, please, no "Weird" Alligator jokes.

Whoops."

Now you've started it. I'm going to Polka Your Eyes Out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DC-sb54mkU

@Kynareth said:
" @watcher21 said:
"Using minifig heads as part of the drum sticks is both amusing and disturbing."

And completely in keeping with lore"

If by "lore" you mean "Bricksetters' warped imaginations."

Ooh, new Animal Crossing set!

...no, wait.

The first Lego house exclusive I actually want. I’m hoping for a general disinterest in the set, so it could have a reasonable price on the secondary market :-)

@WolfpackBricksStudios said:
"When LEGO acknowledges the random furry theme from the 80s and yet still act like Power Miners never existed..."

You spelled “Bionicle” wrong.

@AllenSmith:
Definitely needs a giant grille or Barbeque pit full of meat, maybe a butcher’s table, and lots of carnivores enjoying steak dinner.

As a Fifty-year-old, this is right into my ballpark. But I would have preferred two slightly bigger brick-built Fabuland figures instead. Lots of fun memories, would be nice to see this theme return.

so happy i'm going to the LEGO-house this summer...
Fabuland is and always will be AMZING!!

Well I can't say I'd bother going to Billund for that... I do still want the Duck and the Pirate though!

there's hope that we can get a Bionicle Set in the future
finger crossed

I've never had a Fabuland set, so I wish TLG would bring the theme back.

P.S: I'm not Dutch and I live in Turkey. I've chosen the Netherlands on this website for personal reasons.

That box cover doesn’t show builds comprised of +1,000 pieces.

@twentythree said:
"That box cover doesn’t show builds comprised of +1,000 pieces."

The box cover doesn't include the display stand (seen in the header image of this article).

@Givememorebricks said:
"I've never had a Fabuland set, so I wish TLG would bring the theme back.

P.S: I'm not Dutch and I live in Turkey. I've chosen the Netherlands on this website for personal reasons."

Yeah but the Dutch are weird. With their ovens, rudders, and angles.

@MDC427 said:
" @Givememorebricks said:
"I've never had a Fabuland set, so I wish TLG would bring the theme back.

P.S: I'm not Dutch and I live in Turkey. I've chosen the Netherlands on this website for personal reasons."

Yeah but the Dutch are weird. With their ovens, rudders, and angles."

None of which are actually Dutch ;-)

As creepy as those brick built Mickies.
I never thought the hunger for nostalgia could be so eeriily distorting.

@Brickodillo said:
"Lovely! That tree is well done, and also the instruments look really good. The figures look good enough (maybe the necks a bit too thin?) If i would go there, i definitely would grab me this set and would make a real Fabuland version to go along with it (i’ll have to check if i have that version of the elephant, and my crow doesn’t have an aviator hat)"

Thank you for telling me what was on the crow's head. I thought it was an angry cardinal at first like my old school mascot. But then when I saw that the name was "Joe Crow" I couldn't figure out why his head looked like that.

@MDC427 said:
" @Givememorebricks said:
"I've never had a Fabuland set, so I wish TLG would bring the theme back.

P.S: I'm not Dutch and I live in Turkey. I've chosen the Netherlands on this website for personal reasons."

Yeah but the Dutch are weird. With their ovens, rudders, and angles."

Don’t forget Dutched chocolate. Then again, I don’t want to eat it if @Ridgeheart has been rubbed on it or sprinkled in it.

I'm equal parts happy and sad they didn't do minifigs.

*skips and buys Animal Crossing sets instead*

me skipping, buying Animal Crossing sets instead, as well. I do like the look of it but i honestly cant see where over a thousand pieces went. It looks realy small, not tiny but realy small. I cant see any specialised pieces just yet but if anything, one will come quite close to this with instructions provided after release, so why bother buying it?

We already had a Fabuland revival. It was called Chima.

So is this an homage to both, or what?

@Brickodillo said:
"The figures look good enough (maybe the necks a bit too thin?)"
The sheep and crow, at least from the photos I've seen, seem designed to hide the thin neck joint well enough that you don't see it. The elephant and crocodile just... don't.

What pushes these designs into creepy (or possibly disturbing) for me is their hands. The designer scaled up the brick-built figures by a factor of around 1.6 compared to an original Fabuland figure, but left the hands the exact same size as the original, so they have tiny hands. The original design by one of the master builders at Lego House had the arms less bulky and used the bar with mechanical clip part for the hands, so they didn't look weird like the final set does - see pictures at New Elementary.

@peterlmorris said:
"We already had a Fabuland revival. It was called Chima.

So is this an homage to both, or what?"

This is a nostalgic set based on Fabuland only. Chima was entirely different.

@peterlmorris said:
"We already had a Fabuland revival. It was called Chima.

So is this an homage to both, or what?"

And now we have animal crossing

@CCC said:
" @peterlmorris said:
"We already had a Fabuland revival. It was called Chima.

So is this an homage to both, or what?"

This is a nostalgic set based on Fabuland only. Chima was entirely different. "

You seem to not understand the true origins of Chima. For that you must visit Mark Stafford’s Flickr gallery and view his mindbending Fabuland mech collection.

1026 pieces when the original was only 26 pieces!

@gearwheel said:
"The designer scaled up the brick-built figures by a factor of around 1.6 compared to an original Fabuland figure, but left the hands the exact same size as the original, so they have tiny hands."

Huh, you figure they would have made one of the characters a Robin, if that’s the case.

@Jackthenipper said:
" @peterlmorris said:
"We already had a Fabuland revival. It was called Chima.

So is this an homage to both, or what?"

And now we have animal crossing "

They’re all the same theme, much like how Castle, Pirates, City, and Space are also one theme. But with more violence.

Meh.

" @Zander said:
@ToysFromTheAttic said:
"Bring the original figures back, or leave it alone. This is just bad."
I strongly suspect that the tooling, moulding and inventory management costs of the parts needed to recreate the original Fabuland figures would be prohibitive. The low volume produced of this set would most likely mean that sufficient economies of scale would not be achieved (unlike, say, CMFs)."

I fully realize that LEGO isn't going to remake these Fabufigs, because they're too costly to produce, even if they still have access to the tooling for these. But I definitely think there could've been better ways to pay to tribute to such a beloved theme from the past than releasing a set of unsightly buildable figures. I mean, recolor some of the Animal Crossing minifigs and you could make a perfectly lovely minifig-scale set.

@ToysFromTheAttic said:
[[[[ @Zander said:
@ToysFromTheAttic said:
[[Bring the original figures back, or leave it alone. This is just bad.]]
I strongly suspect that the tooling, moulding and inventory management costs of the parts needed to recreate the original Fabuland figures would be prohibitive. The low volume produced of this set would most likely mean that sufficient economies of scale would not be achieved (unlike, say, CMFs).]]

I fully realize that LEGO isn't going to remake these Fabufigs, because they're too costly to produce, even if they still have access to the tooling for these. But I definitely think there could've been better ways to pay to tribute to such a beloved theme from the past than releasing a set of unsightly buildable figures. I mean, recolor some of the Animal Crossing minifigs and you could make a perfectly lovely minifig-scale set.]]

Nintendo would never allow that. They are fiercely protective of their IP's.

Never had a Fabuland set as a kid. Actually, never even heard of it til I came out of the dark-ages in ‘06.
Looking at it, it’s very cute. I can see why parents picked it up for the little ones back in the day. Almost like a cross between Duplo and 4+.
But I don’t get it as a nostalgic theme considering it seemed like such a young toy for a 3 or 4 year old at the time.
Looking at the old sets, a Fabuland dollhouse would’ve been a more ‘nostalgic’ remake.

@legoDad42 said:
"Never had a Fabuland set as a kid. Actually, never even heard of it til I came out of the dark-ages in ‘06.
Looking at it, it’s very cute. I can see why parents picked it up for the little ones back in the day. Almost like a cross between Duplo and 4+.
But I don’t get it as a nostalgic theme considering it seemed like such a young toy for a 3 or 4 year old at the time.
Looking at the old sets, a Fabuland dollhouse would’ve been a more ‘nostalgic’ remake. "

I played with Fabuland til my 10th or 11th. They were just a world among all other imaginary worlds where you could make up stories. Sometimes i wanted to play with my Star wars or GI Joe, sometimes with my lego city/castle/space and sometimes with my Richard Scarry lego and make British children book stories.

@Brickodillo said:
" I played with Fabuland til my 10th or 11th. They were just a world among all other imaginary worlds where you could make up stories. Sometimes i wanted to play with my Star wars or GI Joe, sometimes with my lego city/castle/space and sometimes with my Richard Scarry lego and make British children book stories."

Nice.
Got me thinking around 10 and 11 years old, like you, I’d be playing with my Star Wars figures, also army men and loved those cheap balsa wood fighter planes you’d build with a rubber band attached to the propeller.
When my kid was around that age, he was into Nintendo DS (especially the LEGO Indiana Jones games), Lego castle sets, and Minecraft.

@Ridgeheart said:
" @TheOtherMike said:
" @peterlmorris: You can't say something like "[Y]ou must visit Mark Stafford’s Flickr gallery and view his mindbending Fabuland mech collection." and not provide a link!"

The link can be found at Mark Stafford's gallery. Use the special knock, perform the secret handshake, and tell them today's password; "the pheasant never lays the same egg twice"."

Damnit!! That explains a lot.

I did everything correct, but said, "the rotten pheasant egg has displeased the good lady's haberdashery."

I'm not really sure what happened next. Yet, I subsequently was required to spend two weeks in a secret CIA interrogation/detox facility.

@yellowcastle said:
"Cancels trip to Billund."

Cancels Billund.

@Murdoch17 said:
" @ToysFromTheAttic said:
"" @Zander said: @Murdoch17 said:
" @ToysFromTheAttic said:
" @Zander said:
@ToysFromTheAttic said:
"Bring the original figures back, or leave it alone. This is just bad."
I strongly suspect that the tooling, moulding and inventory management costs of the parts needed to recreate the original Fabuland figures would be prohibitive. The low volume produced of this set would most likely mean that sufficient economies of scale would not be achieved (unlike, say, CMFs)."

I fully realize that LEGO isn't going to remake these Fabufigs, because they're too costly to produce, even if they still have access to the tooling for these. But I definitely think there could've been better ways to pay to tribute to such a beloved theme from the past than releasing a set of unsightly buildable figures. I mean, recolor some of the Animal Crossing minifigs and you could make a perfectly lovely minifig-scale set."

Nintendo would never allow that. They are fiercely protective of their IP's."

Thought the same thing. Here’s a solution, though. Make minifigs, and put the two-stud neck bracket on backwards. Then attach a 2x3 tile with a print of the critter’s face, so it looks like a mask for the minifig. Like when Deadpool wore the Hugh Jackman mask in the first film. But with less staples. And more violence.
@ToysFromTheAttic said:
"Bring the original figures back, or leave it alone. This is just bad."
I strongly suspect that the tooling, moulding and inventory management costs of the parts needed to recreate the original Fabuland figures would be prohibitive. The low volume produced of this set would most likely mean that sufficient economies of scale would not be achieved (unlike, say, CMFs)."

I fully realize that LEGO isn't going to remake these Fabufigs, because they're too costly to produce, even if they still have access to the tooling for these. But I definitely think there could've been better ways to pay to tribute to such a beloved theme from the past than releasing a set of unsightly buildable figures. I mean, recolor some of the Animal Crossing minifigs and you could make a perfectly lovely minifig-scale set."

Nintendo would never allow that. They are fiercely protective of their IP's."

Thought the same thing. Here’s a solution, though. Make minifigs, and put the two-stud neck bracket on backwards. Then attach a 2x3 tile with a print of the critter’s face, so it looks like a mask for the minifig. Like when Deadpool wore the Hugh Jackman mask in the first film. But with less staples. And more violence.

@Ridgeheart said:
"Use the special knock, perform the secret handshake, and tell them today's password; "the pheasant never lays the same egg twice"."

Are you sure it isn't "swordfish"? I thought the password was "swordfish."

@iwybs said:
" @Ridgeheart said:
"Use the special knock, perform the secret handshake, and tell them today's password; "the pheasant never lays the same egg twice"."

Are you sure it isn't "swordfish"? I thought the password was "swordfish."
"

...and here I thought the password was "Death to Teal"!

I don’t like the retconning going on around here.

The pitch to us for Chima was: “Fabuland with mechs and violence.”

I may not have proof, or forensic evidence, or even a screenshot, but I believe in the power of dreams (and friendship) and that’s the story I’m sticking with.

@legoDad42 said:
"Never had a Fabuland set as a kid. Actually, never even heard of it til I came out of the dark-ages in ‘06."

I never had a dark age, but I never knew what Fabuland was until the Internet came along, I'd only encountered the name on the shovel in 5510. I wondered what was up with that shovel for years.

The reproduction of the characters in larger, brick-built form is incredible.

I was still a kid when my sisters got their first Fabuland sets. I have always loved Fabuland. But sorry, I don't like this one. To me it's not a worthy hommage, it could have been better I imagine.