Random set of the day: Skeleton Surprise

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Skeleton Surprise

Skeleton Surprise

©1995 LEGO Group

Today's random set is 6036 Skeleton Surprise, released in 1995. It's one of 7 Castle sets produced that year. It contains 74 pieces and 2 minifigs, and its retail price was US$8.

It's owned by 3717 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.


22 comments on this article

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By in Australia,

I thought this was very cute. The falling skeleton gimmick didn't always work, but it was still pretty cool.

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By in Venezuela,

"They will be so scared! hehehehe"
- Sir Marcus the Easy-going, former Royal Knight.

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By in Portugal,

This is that kind of set that makes you wanna play and create a story! Imagine what kind of battle might have happened! If you put 4 or 6 of these together you could build a nice fortress! Cute little set!

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By in New Zealand,

Wow!! I got a Huge Surprise!

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By in United States,

Spooky Scary Skeletons and I WANT TO GET OFF MR. BONES WILD RIDE

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By in United States,

One Christmas morning, a set's spooky surprise blew up the imagination of a 5-year-old little boy.

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By in Finland,

If you look closely, you can see that the knight is actually grabbing the skelly's leg rather than running away in fear. He he he.

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By in Latvia,

My uncle had this! And now I have some of the pieces from the set and Minifigures!

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By in Greece,

I bought that set just before my dark ages but I always thought that this rendition of the castle line was one of the weakest around (at least so I thought not having seen the juniorized sets that came afterwards...)

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By in United Kingdom,

one of the firsts sets I got as a child! always had a little trouble keeping it in one piece...

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By in Netherlands,

Bring back spooky skeletal Castle!

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By in Belgium,

One of the first sets to have a skeleton. Despite its size, it was one of my young-time favorites... The dark mysterious open entrance combined with the falling skeleton feature was so neat.

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By in United States,

This set coincided with the introduction of the skeleton figure (like how 6034-1 was released when the ghost was introduced). The similar Pirate set 6248-1 was released the following year.

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By in Spain,

Simplicity, humor sense, great minifigs...a charming set seen with nostalgy in these mad times.

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By in Netherlands,

Simple, yet very neat.

I see a lack of cries to bring Castle back this time though. So let's remedy that.

Please bring Castle back Lego. :)

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By in United States,

Yes, bring back Castle Lego! With little features like this!

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By in Canada,

I love the classic LEGO skeleton, but these days it's hard to think about it without remembering hearing on the LEGO Inside Tour how Godtfred Kirk Christiansen threatened to fire Niels Milan Pedersen for putting a skeleton in the dungeon of a prototype Castle set, even just as a joke! The company had some SERIOUS hangups about anything even remotely scary or morbid back in the early days of the minifigure. Glad that they eventually overcame those, and that Niels was able to continue working as a LEGO designer for decades afterward!

My brother had this set, and it was pretty nifty! Although the use of a lance piece as the hinge for the skeleton-dropping mechanism seemed strange even at the time.

Also, in hindsight, it's a little bit of a bummer that the wall just stops so abruptly. Some LEGO Castle sets from before my time like 6041-1 and 6067-1 were able to pull off an incomplete structure like this more effectively by including Technic pins on either side, so that they could be linked together with the walls of larger Castle sets — a feature we've seen make a comeback in some more recent sets like 9471-1, 70402-1, and 41195-1, but that was largely absent from the Castle themes of my childhood.

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By in United States,

@Aanchir yes I do distinctly remember souping up my own rudimentary connections between this and the Royal Knights' castle. But man did I love the ever-bleeping bleep out of this little set!

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By in Netherlands,

I had this set and for a small set it has a lot of nice castle-building parts.

Also part of one of the best looking good-guy 90s Castle factions.

I had the Royal Drawbridge and Royal King as well, and Wizard cart from the same year. And I used the 1993 Dragon Wagon and 1997 Bat Lord/Black Dragon sets as rivals.

The Royal Knight's crest is my favorite as it's colorful, yet classic, using 5 of LEGO's more traditional colors (white/black/red/yellow/blue)

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By in Hungary,

Glad to have got it as a child. Loved it to bits (literally), restored it since.

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By in United States,

The Royal Knights sets were packed with jumpscare gimmicks.

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By in France,

My second "Castle" set when I was a kid, 25 years ago later, I still love this set, so creative, so fun, I have a lot a good memories with this one

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