Review: 40091 Thanksgiving Turkey
Posted by LostInTranslation,
Firstly, allow me to apologise for my lateness in posting this review. LostInTranslation very kindly provided me with the review to be posted shortly before Thanksgiving but due to a combination of poor Internet connection and busyness at Brick 2014, I was unable to post it then. I hope you enjoy it now even if it is a few days out of season! - CapnRex101
Hot on the heels of the big LEGO Ideas Birds news a few days ago, here’s my review of another ornithological offering from LEGO: set 40091 Thanksgiving Turkey. Unfortunately this set, like the Snowman and Reindeer which I will be reviewing soon, is now sold out online (they all seem to have disappeared by early November), though you may still find it in stores.
The front of the box of course features a picture of the built model against a backdrop of nice autumnal images in oranges and yellows (lovely and cheerful, not at all like the greyness we have been experiencing of late in the UK!), though the positioning of a wind vane behind the wing of the turkey (I’ve called mine Pugsley) did make me think he was waving a wand! Like the set I reviewed previously, Halloween Bat 40090, the back of the box includes a little storyboard showing the turkey losing his hat, chasing after it and happily donning it once more at the end. The story serves the purpose of highlighting the fact that the hat can be easily removed as well as the poseable features of the model, namely the wings, tail, feet and beak.
The parts in this set are not really remarkable. The rarest part I suppose would be the dark tan cheese slope, which I got very excited about, knowing I had none of these when I sorted through my cheese collection recently. It turns out that this part has appeared in a total of seven sets currently, and there are 7 of them here (6 used in the model and 1 spare). For the rest, there is an abundance of brown slopes and inverted slopes, a number of parts in yellow and light bley including several of the relatively new 1x2 curves, a smattering of tan and finally a splash of red for the turkey’s... thing. I looked up what the technical word was for its ‘thing’ (you all know what I’m talking about, right?) but got bamboozled by various baffling terms such as ‘wattle’, ‘snood’, ‘caruncle’, ‘dewlap’ and ‘excrescence’. I thought I had a good vocabulary, but all of those? No clue.
The instructions begin by building the body, which is assembled using SNOT techniques, creating a rounded effect by means of all the sloped and curved parts. The feet are then attached before moving on to the tail. Reddish brown wedge plates are affixed to four tan hinged plates, allowing the tail to be fanned out. The tail is in turn connected to the body in a hinged manner, as are the dark tan wings, so that they can all flap. The head is then built, mainly in light bley. Now, I complained about the use of bley in my review of Bruce the bat and rebuilt him to edit it out, so I was all prepared to kick off again here, but in my turkey research I discovered that they do indeed have grey heads, so I calmed down and carried on. As mentioned above, the beak is hinged so that it can be opened and closed and the eyes are made by 1x1 printed round tiles. The last thing to do is to make Pugsley his very own pilgrim hat, which is simply formed of a large dish and cone and a round tile in black. I think the hat is a very nice touch to the model, adding to the festiveness and character of the model.
LEGO have produced small Thanksgiving turkey models before (40011, 10090 and 40033), all of which have a very similar design that seems to be more accurate-to-nature than this more anthropomorphised set. However, I think TLG have realised that while accuracy is nice, cuteness and characterisation are what sells! This little guy does have a certain charm about him and while I don’t celebrate this holiday (being from the UK) I’m happy to have bought this model, as it has shown me more of the various possibilities for building an animal model at this scale using SNOT techniques.
From what I’ve seen so far, the models in this seasonal range combine the benefits of being not only poseable and playable for kids, but also cute holiday display pieces for adults, at a not-unreasonable price point. I hope my positive impression continues with the Snowman and Reindeer!
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12 comments on this article
Great review. Missed it when I could get it, all the same! :-( Maybe I could BrickLink the parts and order them... ;-)
Looks like the pictures are not available...
^ same problem for me
Nice review! I believe it's wattle, although I've heard snood as well. English, both British and American, is so difficult! :-D
I'm pretty sure its a wattle too. I have no idea as to those other odd terms. Also I can't see the pictures either.
I think the problem with the pictures is that the links all start "https:" instead of "http:" Anyway, opening the link in a new tab worked for me.
I've heard of "Wattle", I've never heard of those other terms.
I like the set, but I'm afraid that if I owned it it would only remind me of the wild turkeys that live in my neighborhood, all my neighbors and I hate them because they leave droppings all over the place and block traffic.
Ours was a pretty nice centerpiece for our "kids table" at Thanksgiving.
It's so great I bought another for $5 for my grandma.
ice review
I guess someone replaced the photos on flickr after posting the review because the last two images don't show, whilst the links are still valid.
Big question remains to be answered: how did it actually taste? ;-)
Don't worry, Lucy. I am sure the turkey farming community are equally at sea when it comes to Lego terminology.