ThrowbackThursday: 1979
Posted by Huw,
This week's ThrowbackThursday article has been written by guest author Zander who recalls one of his favourite years: 1979.
It’s fair to say that some years are bigger than others for LEGO enthusiasts and few years were more momentous for UK fans than 1979. New and expanded ranges became available that would have a lasting impact, in some cases through to the present day. And for AFOLs like me who were kids back then, the late ‘70s hold special memories.
Presented here is the UK catalogue from 1979. Unlike today’s internet age when products are released around the world more or less simultaneously, back then some territories saw products a year sooner or later than others. So if you remember some of the new sets in this catalogue as being 1978 releases, you’re not wrong, you were likely in North America or another favoured region at the time.
Cover
The cover was the first to show an assortment of parts from all the ranges available that year, a concept that would be repeated on-and-off on the cover of future catalogues.
Duplo
The catalogue says that Duplo was the new name for TLG’s preschool range but that’s not entirely accurate. The brand existed from 1975 to 1977 outside the UK. It was only new to the UK.
The new Duplo sets for the year have many of the same elements in common, most noticeably the farm animals and chairs. This was due to the high production cost of new moulds. TLG couldn’t afford a wide variety of specialised new parts, so any new pieces had to be usable in multiple sets. As Duplo elements don’t lend themselves to being used in other ranges, new parts had to find a place in more than one set within the range.
Basic sets
In the 1960s and early 1970s, TLG saw LEGO primarily as a construction toy. The thinking was that the play and learning value came from building things, either TLG’s designs or your own. Kids had a different idea: they wanted to role play with their LEGO. It took TLG a few years to fully accept that and in 1979 the company was still coming round to that way of thinking. As a result, the Basic range features quite prominently in the catalogue.
Am I the only person who thinks “Advanced Basic” is oxymoronic? I can see how it came about but it’s an unfortunate name!
I seem to recall that 107 Battery Motor was pretty powerful with considerable torque but that could just have been relative to my strength at the time.
Fabuland
1979 marked the launch of Fabuland, a range intended to bridge the gap between Duplo for toddlers and Legoland (later Lego System) for primary school kids. It featured moulded, articulated figures with human bodies and animal heads. It was commercially pretty successful for TLG and lasted for ten years.
Most of the figures in the range were given alliterative names. No prizes for guessing why Michael Mouse wasn’t called Mickey!
The idea of humanoid bodies with animal heads would make a comeback years later in LEGO System ranges including Ninjago and Chima.
Space
In the UK, 1979 was a landmark year for many FOLs because that was when the Space range was launched (what we now refer to as Classic Space). It featured eleven new sets in a mostly blue, grey and trans yellow palette plus two new baseplate sets. It included the first LEGO minifigure astronauts and a number of new parts. The range captured the interest at the time for all things space-related from Star Wars to real world space exploration and was an instant hit.
The catalogue shows the sets available surrounding a great layout with a starry backdrop.
By today’s standards, the sets are blocky and unsophisticated. The helmets have no visors, the walkie-talkies and tools are disproportionately large, and even the flying crafts are controlled with steering wheels. But that didn’t stop the sets from selling like hotcakes. Kids made up for those shortcomings with their imaginations.
One criticism sometimes unfairly levelled at the early Space sets is the open design of the smaller vehicles. The designers of the range were following their idea of what space exploration might look like in the not-too-distant future, rather than some fanciful sci-fi concept. Hence the inclusion of mundane vehicles like a petrol tanker in set 920, a forklift truck in set 924 and a camera buggy in 926. The open design was modelled on the real lunar vehicles driven on the moon in 1971 and ‘72.
One set, Mobile Signals Centre (894) included a couple of trans clear round shields as radar dishes. It is the only set to ever have included this piece in trans clear. 2018 (2019 in the UK) will mark the 40th anniversary of (Classic) Space. I really hope that TLG celebrates by reissuing 894. I wonder if the set would appeal to today’s KFOLs or only to nostalgic oldies like me!
An often overlooked design classic from the range that also debuted that year is the logo of the spaceship orbiting a moon featured conspicuously here at the top of the page. Although it would be dropped in later Space ranges, it seems to have left an indelible mark on our consciousness. Recently, it has been featured on a T-shirt worn by Dr Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory (though not his minifigure in the BBT set) and on the Collectible Minifigure Series 15 astronaut’s spacesuit and flag.
Town
The next two-and-a-half pages cover what we now call City. Most of the Town sets had been launched the previous year along with the articulated minifigure that we know today. The text still mentions that the minifigures are poseable with prehensile hands to distinguish them from the earlier static hands-in-pockets figures.
New sets include a Dumper (607), Garage (361), Snack Bar (675), Taxi (608), Police Helicopter (645), Police Headquarters (381) and Bus Station (379). The thinking behind the Bus Station was that children would want to create the most complete representation of a town as possible (in much the same way that doll’s house collectors seek completeness) including everyday buildings. The more mundane sets didn’t catch on however and TLG never did a bus station again (they had done one previously in the static minifigure era). TLG would eventually go the other way and focus on action-orientated City sets. The new Police Headquarters in 1979 owes much to its predecessor and namesake set 370 from 1976. The two designs are almost identical save for the articulated minifigures.
For Girls
Nowadays, TLG may think of ranges like Friends and Elves as aimed primarily at girls though they tend not to say that overtly in their marketing. Back in 1979, the political climate was different and TLG openly marketed at girls with seven sets designated “for girls”, none of them new that year. The catalogue shows a girl with one of the sets as well as the boxes of three sets, all showing girls at play. In what now appears as dated gender roles, all the sets are either domestic or health and beauty, with a male doctor and female nurses and hairdresser. How times have changed!
Castle
We tend to think of Castle as having been a major part of TLG’s offering from the dawn of the articulated minifigure but in 1978 it consisted of only one set, Castle (375). It was supplemented a year later with two more sets: Knight’s Tournament (383) and Medieval Knights (677). The jousting set was the first to feature a female minifigure in an historic themed set and the box of knights lays claim to being the first battle pack. The equivalent for Space with a mix of six astronauts wouldn’t be available until 1983.
Trains
The next two pages are dedicated to LEGO trains. TLG was going after model train collectors such as Hornby, a popular hobby at the time. The two complete LEGO Train sets, 171 and 182, have engines with numbers corresponding to their respective set numbers.
Technic
Although not branded as such, the next two-page spread shows the Technic offering for the year including two new sets: 856 Bulldozer and 857 Motorbike and Sidecar.
The apparent absence of functional or play features and the way it is portrayed as a display piece makes set 398 U.S.S. Constellation look like it’s aimed at teenagers, not kids. TLG must have been keen to grow its US sales in the late 1970s given the company’s decision to have a US ship in preference to any European ones. The set was launched in 1978 but, unusually for a LEGO set, was rereleased 25 years later in 2003 as set 10021.
Spares
The next few pages show the spare parts you could order by post at the time. Interestingly, the catalogue doesn’t allow you to order the sets featured, only extra pieces. I can’t recall whether TLG UK had a mail order service at the time. Maybe it didn’t or it simply didn’t want toy retailers that stocked LEGO to think it was competing directly with them.
The prices in the spares pages don’t seem to be lower than today’s in real terms for the same or similar pieces, and may even be higher. Granted, the quoted prices include postage and packing, but the post was subsidised in the UK at the time, so wasn’t particularly expensive.
Back page
The back cover is the blurb and form for the LEGO Builders Club. For the princely sum of £1, you could become a member for a year. The text reassures readers that “girls can become Master Builders too, of course” which seems unnecessary and patronising from today’s perspective. I’m not sure if that made girls at the time more or less likely to want to join.
Thanks Zander! If you would like to write about a year dear to your heart, get in touch.
This catalogue, along with more than 60 others, can be viewed in our catalogue archive. Since last week's article we have added scans from the early 1990s and I have also implemented a fancy flip-book viewer that makes flicking through them a more pleasurable experience. We hope you appreciate our efforts!
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45 comments on this article
The oxymoronic "Advanced BASIC" was also applied to the now-ancient programming language!
As for the sets, these are likely the ones released as I entered The Dark Ages. I turned 13 in 1978 and something clicked that "teenagers don't play with LEGO". I don't recall having any of the sets shown in this catalogue. After 6 or 7 years building up a big collection (which was eventually GIVEN AWAY by my parents!) it's a bit of a shock to realise that I went off LEGO so suddenly.
These features are dangerous! I like my Star Wars and Creator sets these days but browsing these old catalogues is making me want to to buy up the sets I used to have as a child. 1979 holds a lot of fond LEGO memories for me :-)
@Huw, I'm loving the fancy flip-book viewer.
This marks the start of my collecting period of my childhood (I was 4) and I have many of these sets, including the space set with the trans clear shields. Unfortunately they were broken and lost long ago. I avoided having my LEGO sold or given away during my dark ages. ( Transformers weren't so lucky!) and still have all my old sets.
^^ Good. It makes them much nicer to flick through, doesn't it.
This is the most nostalgic Throwback for me so far; I used to own this catalogue and many of the sets in it were the first Lego sets I owned. 910 was the first, and 912 the following Xmas.
854 Go-Kart was the first technic set I had, I remember building the motorbike from the pictures on the box (it was included in the instructions if i recall).
I even filled in that form to join the Lego Club!
Looking at the old town sets (and even the older train sets), all I'm thinking of is, gosh, they're beautiful. What I would've give for that bus station in my Lego city right now, you know? It'd look great on the street alongside 17 police stations.
What a trip down memory lane.
I can see all my original LEGO sets in this catalogue. About a third of the Legoland Town sets in the catalogue, the Fire Fighter Launch, 4.5V Battery Motor.
I only owned the Space Scooter and drooled over the Space Cruiser.
857 Motorbike and Sidecar and 855 Mobile Crane catapulted me into Technic(al) sets forever.
Excellent..... I reckon this was the year my mum decided I would be collecting Lego as my first sets are from 78 and 79... little did she know..... 35 ish years later i have not stopped.... no Dark ages for me........ Just a shift between "themes" as they stop making them and now a must have at least one of every theme approach. I wonder what todays young collecters would think of grey spaceships with grey guns grey steering wheels grey slopes and did I mention grey plates. I managed to add about 200% more trans to each of my models to make them better.... Only Blue red or green mind......
Lots of great memories here. My favourite set as a kid was 171, the freight train, which (along with the battery tender) used to run round my parent's house on lots of blue track. Still have the train, and some of that blue track is now a narrow gauge railway extending from the mine in my son's LEGO city. :)
@Huw, I'm really enjoying browsing these old catalogues! Will you be uploading the rest at any point? And if so could you possibly set up a proper section of Brickset dedicated to them?
Yes, it's here! http://brickset.com/library/catalogues, linked to under the 'More' menu above.
Oh yes, rereleasing any of those Classic Space sets would be welcome...
I had (and probably still have) the 107 Battery Motor. I also remember it having pretty good 'torque' but was somewhat limited in it's controls, and the size and weight of the actual motor! Was better used for stationary machines than vehicles from memory.
It brought a tear to my eyes reading this. I was 7 at the time and mum and dad bought me the red house with thr blue roof and I loved it. Then one day dad came home and gave me a box and it was the lego castle. I was over the moon. I loved it to bits. But reading through this catalogue I now can remember this catalogue when I was a kid. The town setting I remember like it was yesterday. Amazing how a catalogue can unlock memories which have been locked up for so long. Really makes me appreciate my parents. I didnt have many toys but geez they bought me the best lego set with the most minifigures with that castle. I have never really understood why Lego never brought out an Ancient Greek or Ancient Rome theme. That has puzzled me for years.
That brought back a few memories! :-)
Definitely remember having the Snack Bar with its solitary tree, as well as a few other small Town sets :-)
That space page is about as influential a moment in the history of LEGO as you'll find. Dawn of an era. They HAVE to do something to celebrate 40 years of Classic Space, but THE LEGO MOVIE 2 is released 2018 so hopefully Benny will be back with a new Spaceship Spaceship Spaceship to help us celebrate.
Except for the trains, I find all the sets in 1979 to be incredibly dull...
So many sets that I remember from my childhood. Years 1976 - 1980 were my peak LEGO years, as a child, and 1979, because of the LEGO Space release was a particularly memorable year. From a quick scan, my brother and I had the following sets from this catalogue:
107,314,886,897,305,306,600,607,621,644,377,671,672,146,147,154,156,157,159
I have liberated all my Classic Space sets from my parents but, thankfully, they also kept all the rest of our LEGO, which now gets played with by their grandchildren (and me!), when they visit. :-)
Thanks for these articles! They are a wonderful shot of nostalgia. :-)
This is just a terrific article; you bring up so many interesting points about the intentions and direction of TLG at the time.
I always feel like the criticism of spaceships for not being airtight is a little unfair - like you said, they've always been set in a science fictional version of space so I just assume the suit protects them. I wish they'd re-release one of the big ships for the 40th anniversary - I wonder how well Benny's Spaceship Spaceship Spaceship! sold, as that would seem like something TLG might take into account... how well have other facsimilies of classic sets sold at anniversaries?
The stuff about gender and marketing is interesting too - I think we who grew up then tend to think of 70s/80s Lego marketing as less sexist (all those ads for generic Basic Lego showing girls, catalogue pics of the same showing girls and boys playing together), but this shows they were very much still finding their feet. When I read Brick By Brick this was confirmed; they always saw their core market as 5 - 9 year-old boys, and I wonder if my perception of it (growing up) as a unisex toy has more to do with my mother's eagerness to buy it for me. (She grew up in the 40s and 50s and commandeered her big brother's Meccano set when he largely ignored it.)
I was also very interested to learn from your article that TLG had trouble selling sets of generic town buildings like the bus station - nowadays I'd be all over those if I found them for sale affordably, but maybe for a kid it's different - they want more action, and like you said, characters they can project themselves into. It's fascinating to realise that TLG had this much trouble accepting the significance of role-playing to children - I guess they really were very fixated on it as a toy based on architecture - they saw having a whole accurate town with trees and road signs and all the different businesses as verisimilitude, from the outside in, but apparently kids want to relate to and inhabit these toys from the inside of a character out...
Space! 1979!
SPACESHIP!!! SPACESHIP!!! SPACESHIP!!!
PS. Benny in The Lego Movie also has the classic space logo on his spacesuit ofc...
- And íts a bit worn, ofc! =)
886 was my first ever LEGO set, bought for me for (I think) a pound by my Nan after she'd had a win at bingo!
Set selection sure was different back in those days. Look at all the small sets available in each theme! Nowadays, you're lucky to get one small car for $9 or so; if you want more, you're either buying multiples of the same set or buying the higher-priced sets for more variety. Same with Space sets.
It seems that today's "pocket money" sets are mostly polybags and CMF/Mixel-type of sets rather than add-ons to the existing themes.
Best LEGO year ever for me. I loved the trans pieces when I was a kid, so I was all over the Space sets. I did have 894, but it, along with the rest of my childhood LEGO, were given to my niece and nephews while I was in college. I don't regret the fun they had with them at all...all three still get LEGO polybags from me every Christmas and they love them...but I'd love to be able to put a few of those sets back together.
Correct me here, but I don't believe 675 Snack Bar was ever released in the States. I remember seeing it on baseplate packages that used the 1979 catalog Town image, and I remember checking every store that sold toys near me for it (I had a very patient father) and never finding it.
I recall seeing them in Canada once, but never in the States.
Christmas '78 when I received my first Lego set (classic space) and thus began almost 40 years of collecting.
Dammit why was a kid who played with my Lego! Most of the classic space sets I have, have missing pieces, broken pieces, teeth marked pieces and dirty/faded pieces.
That "girls can become master builders too, of course" is a little wierd (unless there was like, a confusion between master and mistress-builders). Also, about the "quick to build" quality in the "For girls" sets, Didn't LEGO Friends also have simple construction at some point?
@Griffn29: No, LEGO Friends has pretty much been the same building level as LEGO City from the start. In fact, that was one of the key things setting it apart from previous girl-oriented themes like Scala and Belville, which did focus on "quick and easy" building. The LEGO Group even appointed designers from other themes like Mark Stafford to ensure that LEGO Friends sets had the same degree of complexity as other themes for its age range.
Despite the memetic status some 1970s LEGO ads have gotten for supposedly breaking down gender barriers, some of them sort of smack of desperation today. LEGO probably wouldn't have needed to be so insistent on LEGO being for girls as well as boys if their customers were already inclined to believe that. But the stereotype that "building is for boys" long predates the LEGO brick or even the LEGO Group — Erector and Meccano ads from the 1910s through the 1950s were overtly targeted towards boys.
That's not to be cynical about the LEGO Group's ideals. The fact that they had to work so hard to convince customers that girls could enjoy building doesn't mean they didn't believe it themselves. But the fact that they spent decades advertising girl-oriented building sets as quick and easy to build definitely seems patronizing today.
About Fabuland... from what I heard when I visited the LEGO Idea House last year, it was commercially successful in Europe but not so much in the United States. Incidentally, I've heard the same thing about Chima, but only anecdotally. Maybe Europe is just more receptive to toy animal characters than the United States?
This is clearly a transition period in terms of scaling: there's Town cars that are way too small for minifigures (although a minifig is included!) and equivalents in minifig-scale.
I own quite a few of the vehicles on these pages as well as the police station. My 602 car bears the 'scars' of being run over by my mom's human scale car! ;-)
Unfortunately the US 1979 catalog doesn't appear in the viewer yet, otherwise you would note some additional interesting things. The "For Girls" line never existed in the US, even in later years, same with those two trains. Some individual sets were also never released in the US like the mentioned Bus Station. I have a US catalog somewhere but it would be interesting to analyze the differences in marketing, wording, etc. between US and UK. Maybe a future article topic.
I don't have it, that's why...
I'm happy to accept 300dpi descreened scans of one though!
Ahh... thank you for that.
The 107 motor was a brute. One of the models advertised for it was a tank-like thing, and that's usually what I made with it. Like a tank, that motor was big, slow, heavy, and strong. I also had the 960 (870?) 4.5V Technic motor, but while it may have spun faster, it was not nearly as powerful.
Here in the US those Technic sets were all branded "Expert Builder Set" (look up set 858-1 for an example). I remember wishing for (but not ever getting) the bulldozer, and also building the side-car motorcycle using parts I had on-hand. I bought myself one space set (6861) from that era using 20 quarters I saved up from washing dishes, and my mother was kind enough to pitch in for the sales tax. I went dark soon after pirates and castles started to appear, and remember thinking that I was too old for them when I first saw them.
Love it, I remember buying some of the little space sets at the local toy shop, they must have been less than a pound. My mum still has some of the pieces in a box and my son plays with then when we go over. They're a bit brittle and yellowed but still going.
I'm so glad Brickset is doing these Throwback Thursday articles, it really gives me something to look forward to. I was only 2 in 1979, although I managed to end up w/a few of these sets, which my good mother must have picked up some years after their release. I fondly remember the Fabuland sets, although have no idea what happened to the figures. I also remember writing to Lego when I was about 6 years old asking how I could still purchase Space set 928, and I'm still in awe of that ship. They politely told me I missed the boat and was out of luck, but to be sure and buy some current Space Theme sets they had to offer lol. Maybe when I hit the lottery I'll buy one MIB!
The very first Lego set (885 Space Scooter) I bought with my own saved up pocket money back in 1980 is in this catalogue!
May also have bought another 1 or 2 of the small Space sets in the following year as they looked very familiar.
@Block-n-Roll,
Haha, doesn't that suck when your parents give your things away? Luckily most of my childhood toys remain intact and accounted for. I gave my mum and dad strict instructions to never throw anything out! The good stuff is to be preserved, while the practically useful will become toys for my kids someday.
1979 was almost the end of my LEGO carrier. I was done with "regular" LEGO, but I really likes LEGO technic. I bought the technic bulldozer 856 that year.
I turned 13 years old that year, and most of my friends did not play with LEGO anymore. In 1980 I bought the car chassis 8860 and that was it until about the year 2000,when I started buying LEGO for our kids and also a big technic set for myself ones in a while. Just last week I got myself the technic car 853 that came out in 1977,also still available in this catalog.
Waited 38 1/2 years to get it.
10 and 20 were my first LEGO sets ever. I still have the boxes. :-)
The Classic space logo in a trippy colors is present also on the new Friends 41128 Amusement Park Space Ride ;)
I disagree with you that kids were only interested in role-play. Those bigger BASIC sets, particularly the top-of-the-range ones that typically came with a motor, were highly desirable sets. Maybe 'play features' rather than 'role play' - both 911 and 912 show more contraption-like 'play features' in their main models than much of the rest of the catalogue, second only to the workings of the Technical sets.
Having said that, SPAAAAACE!!!!!
Ah, this brings back a lot of good feelings and memories to me (born '68)!
- I got the big basic building set 912 (which was released 1976) lying under the christmas tree. It was so great and had the motor included. I also remember the good fold out presentation package which was typical of that time. I was very happy with that set, though all the pieces and package are long lost...
- I LOVED Classic Space, though I never owned much of those sets. I remember playing with the little spacecraft 885 which was one of the sets I loved so much that I bought it twice from my small pocket money. Great nostalgia!
- I missed the "new" Town series while entering my "dark ages". But right now I'm building up a little street on my sideboard with some of the 1978/79 classic town sets. Last year I started a sort of "musical diary": Each song is presented by a small set, whereas the amount of pieces accords with the track length - crazy but fun! :)
I am really thankful for all the Throwback Thursdays! These articles are a pleasure to read. And what makes them even more appealing are all those little stories in the comments - so thanks to all the commentators, too! :)
For me personally 1979 was some years before my time. As being born in 1985, last weeks article of 1989 was more fitting and covering one of my best LEGO years...
I'm really loving this.
I was quite amazed at the selection from the UK 1979 catalog. The same US version did not have all of the Town and Space sets that the UK version had, but nonetheless the selection did give me hours of great playtime. Since the Town and Space sets were brand new items I managed to snag all of the available Town sets (9 in all) and all of the Space sets (7 in all). It would be the only year I was able to do so. I still have all of those sets, nicely put away in their original boxes with instructions and catalogs. When I am in a nostalgic mood, I will pull them out and go on a building spree. I was especially fond of the space sets; the plastic box inserts made storing pieces easy. That is one thing I miss about today's released sets.
I wasn't even a thought in 1979 ... and to be honest I like the sets of the 80s more. But my elder brother had one small space set (897) and I admire the Galaxy Explorer very much. And that space diorama makes me want all those sets even now. I am also missing the plastic inner trays giving an overview for special parts and the strong styrofoam boxes. Look at those beautiful Technic boxes in MISB version if you have the chance. No way a child could resist. Two of my favourite Technic sets came this year: the yellow Bulldozer (or loader in the first place) with new tracks and the blue Motorcycle with sidecar which is up to later Model Team standards but also technical enough to call it Technic (it had even a shift lever imitation working by a rubber band). Great year.