Best of BrickNerd: Weekend Highlight — Article originally published October 8, 2021.

Here at BrickNerd we’ve gone deep into a few of LEGO’s classic themes. Pirates, Adventurers, and Ninjago have some of the most extensive story and world-building out of any theme, and are stretched over a vast number of sets. But what about the small themes? The sparks of original ideas, the tiny little off-shoots, or short-lived IPs? Here we’re going to take a look at some of the smallest and “flash in the pan” series that have been brought to life by LEGO. In this installment, let’s explore a number of these “intellectual property” based themes.

Avatar: The Last LEGO Products

Avatar: The Last Airbender has seen a massive surge in popularity once again to bring it back into pop culture. Even at the time of its release, the show received critical acclaim and high praise, especially considering the fact that it was a children’s cartoon. Nickelodeon repaid the fans by airing a substantial run of three seasons for 61 episodes. Furthermore, it has been followed up with a live action movie (even though many pretend this doesn’t exist), a spin-off series in The Legend of Korra, and multiple print stories.

So, LEGO cashed in on the popularity of the show? Well, it’s a little odd with how the entire Nickelodeon license was handled at the time. The main focus of the partnership was the Spongebob Squarepants sets, but they did attempt to explore other shows, such as Avatar and Dora The Explorer (in DUPLO). However, there are reports that it came down to a competition of success between Spongebob and Avatar with Spongebob ultimately winning out.

The Spongebob line even explored non-Minifigure scale sets while Avatar suffered. Pictured here is 3826 - Build-A-Bob. Image via Bricklink

So what did that mean for Avatar: The Last Airbender? It meant there were a whopping TWO sets produced. Total. It was not hard to see when these sets were available they continually sat on shelves. They suffered largely due to the poor set design, questionable box artwork, and that they focused on relatively non-iconic scenes from the show. Coupled with the worry that the show would be concluding and lose even more of the fan interest, LEGO discontinued the theme after just the initial run.

Images via Bricklink

You be the judge if these sets are actually good sets. Or if you’re all just really starved for Avatar merchandise.

The recent Avatar submission to reach 10,000 votes on LEGO Ideas by Minibrick Productions. This submission was Not Approved. Image via ideas.lego.com

While these sets are now long retired, there is a significant clamor for the return of the line. Avatar has had many LEGO Ideas submissions, including a few that have met the 10,000 vote threshold. But none have passed the review stage and we still don’t have any more official LEGO Avatar.

If you want to pick up this short theme these days, even with all of the shortcomings of the sets, they will set you back a sizable chunk of cash, even for poor condition used copies. Given the popularity of the show and small release, these have become an aftermarket nightmare especially for the figures. To make matters worse, you can’t even officially get a number of the main characters!

The entire Avatar figure collection. No other characters ever made it (except Momo). Image via Aleg THELEGOFAN on Flickr.

In the end, apart from very obscure partnerships, this has remained LEGO’s shortest lived licensed theme, especially considering there were no promotional items or gear produced to go along with the lone two sets.

Go (Away) Speed Racer!

Poor, poor Speed Racer. Another beloved cartoon turned into a frighteningly bad “live action” movie. Only this time, unlike Avatar: The Last Airbender, the sets released would be based off the film’s rebooted universe.

The classic Speed Racer and the movie version. Imagge via Rottentoatoes.com and IMDB.com

Coming out in 2008, a mere 40+ years after the original cartoon, the sets would try to capture the same confused style and look of the overly CGI filled film rather than the iconic animated look. Speed Racer would double the amount of sets that Avatar had received, leading to an astonishing 4 whole sets.

They put the picture of the real cars in the top corner so you can see how poorly they captured the shape and style of the cars. Image via ebay.com

There would be no more Speed Racer after the initial release, largely in part to the extremely poor design choices made with the sets. Whether it was the questionably bald Minifigure with odd printed hair, a truck that wasn’t even a whole truck when it should be, sticker overload that makes Speed Champions look tame in comparison, or just poor construction all around, these sets were largely unpopular and sat around on shelves.

While the sets have seen a small bump in price (probably due to less and less surviving stickers making good copies hard to find), the only set with a significant jump is 8158 - Speed Racer and Snake Oiler, largely due to featuring the Mach 5, Speed Racer’s iconic vehicle.

The worst offender. This is a complete set. 8160 - Cruncher Block and Racer X. Image via Bricklink.com

The movie truck it is supposed to represent. Image via Speedrally

Much like the Avatar sets, you be the judge if you think this is a good representation of the source material. But I doubt we will ever see more LEGO Speed Racer unless there is significant interest in the Creator Expert line of iconic large scale vehicles. And even that is a stretch.

Ben 6?

I’m seeing a trend here, it’s another popular children’s cartoon, this time with Cartoon Network’s Ben 10! But to make this one even more fun, this time the sets are constraction figures instead of brick built. Does that make them better or worse than the previous two themes? Well, whatever your answer to that question is, there are still a whole lot of problems with this one.

When you think of Ben 10, you kind of think about the main character, Ben, who is able to change into all of the fantastic alien creatures. He’s kind of an important character, given how the show is named after him, and he’s even on all the box art. So obviously sets based off the show would give us a physical “Ben” set…. right? Nope! And, while he can transform into 10 unique alien creatures, the initial and only run of Ben 10 LEGO sets had just 6 alien species.

Everything about this just screams LEGO. Image via Brickipedia.com

It also seems like LEGO, a construction toy that encourages building and creation, would play off the “multiple forms” idea and do something fun with a human that has the ability to change into aliens. Maybe brick built sets ala 7251 - Darth Vader Transformation or similar, but they didn’t. The Ben 10 line was essentially one way buildable action figures. Buy an alien creature, get an alien creature. So, failing to capture any audience, Ben 10 did not survive to see any more sets.

The entire Ben 10 line. Time to invest heavily? Images via bricklink.com

There has been a tiny bit of a surge in popularity now, as they are cheap sets to buy for a variety of constraction figure parts, but with how specialized many of the pieces are, they still are largely less sought out than even other buildable figures.

The (Only the First) Angry Birds Movie

A poster for the Original Angry Birds Movie, and yes, there would be a sequel three years later that LEGO would not have sets for. Image via Forbes.com

Angry Birds, a franchise stemming from the humble beginnings of a mobile game turned into a vast universe of physical and digital products and tie-ins. A fairly surprising box office hit that would have a whole lot of products created for it, and even a sequel film, unsurprisingly had a line of LEGO sets to go along with the movie. Unfortunately, while the movie would find a decent amount of success, the sets themselves would not.

The massive selection of Angry Birds sets. I have many memories of building a few of these, as they were often used as convention activities thanks to always being on clearance. Images via bricklink.com

And while they sat on shelves almost until the second movie came out, the next film instalment would still fail to bring interest to the initial line. The sets could not manage to capture the same appeal that the mobile game did, attempting to rely heavily on play features that emulate launching birds that many times failed to deliver any actually fun working components. These sets all sat around featuring deep discounts and to this day, long after their retirement, can be found for well under retail price.

Many of the sets were acceptable parts packs at the time, but with strange figures that don’t really appeal to collectors or builders, and decent but now largely more common parts mix, they are likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. And while an Angry Birds 3 film could potentially be released at some point, any LEGO partnership will probably be nonexistent.

(Taking Up Shelf) Space?!?

This logo may not stand out to you as something from a LEGO theme, but it was featured on a (small) number of sets in the early 2000’s. Image via Wikiwand.com

It’s the first and only non-cartoon theme on the short list! Back when the Discovery Channel used to have a bit more scientific programming being aired, they partnered with LEGO to release a brief line up of just six sets focused on iconic space related vehicles. This theme would encapsulate everything from small sized display models to Minifigure scale sets to large scale builds.

In today’s market, with multiple LEGO Ideas/CUUSOO sets based off of important space travel moments and vehicles, and a number of other NASA licensed products, it’s hard to imagine that these sets are largely forgotten about and now hard to come by. Many of these sets do feature a number of stickers making them more difficult to find in decent shape almost 20 years later, and then 10029 - Lunar Lander had an almost UCS style release making it even more limited than the rest of the run.

And look at these gorgeous product photos. I do beleive these sets were just ahead of their time. Images via bricklink.com

This set would also include the only Minifigures of the entire series, simple, yet beautifully designed astronauts, that are one of the most sought after commercially available figures, each individually costing more than most of the sets in the theme.

Look at this great figure! The only issue is that it was used to represent both Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. A highlight of set 10029. Image via Bricklink.com

While many of the most iconic vehicles from this line have been remade at this point (i.e. 10266 - NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander, 10283 - NASA Space Shuttle Discovery, and 21321 - International Space Station), the smaller scale models have yet to make a comeback, potentially as a testament to less successful sales the first time around. While this rendition of buildable space travel may have failed to capture the same excitement that today’s sets have, it is great to see realistic space vehicles come back into LEGO’s repertoire above and beyond this initial offering.

Honorable Mentions and the Dimensions Dilemma

There are still a fair amount of obscure releases of promotional collaborations and even IP based sets that didn’t quite make the standard list. In a brief rundown, here are a few that you may have thought “why didn’t that make it” and a bit of why it may have missed the cut. And even this is not finite, as there are many random instances of IPs and sponsorships popping up all over the place.

Image via logos.fandom.com

LEGO Dimensions based IPs - This one isn’t fair, there are too many one-off occurrences throughout the game that came to life in the various buildable Dimensions sets. Some of these also launched further product lines, with a handful of them finding a fair amount of success outside of the short lived video game. Scooby Doo and The Powerpuff Girls both tied into the game.

Image via brickipedia.fandom.com

LEGO Ideas based IPs - Similar to Dimensions, IDEAS has been somewhat of a catch-all for attempting new themes, and likely one one the major factors to seeing less immediate failures of licensed themes. Will we get more Voltron or Big Bang Theory? Only time will tell. The LEGO Creator Expert line is also becoming a catch all for a variety of brief partnerships.

Image via LEGO.com

Stranger Things - Probably the most likely to make this list, but as of now already has three different sets, the main 75810 - The Upside Down, the special promotional build of Castle Byers, and the San Diego Comic-Con Minifigure, with a non building set VIP Sketchbook available as well. There have also been rumors of additional sets in the future, saving it from a spot on the list, for now.

Image via brickipedia.fandom.com

Prince of Persia - The theme that appears tied at 6 sets with Discovery just misses the cut due to having multiple gear products made along with the sets. A relative box office failure, and another line of sets that sat around on shelves well after people had stopped caring about the movie. They have become relatively popular now as they contain both ostriches and camels.

Just Like These Themes, We’ve Come to an End

So there you have it: Some of the shortest licenses in LEGO’s history that have been based off another intellectual property. Join us next time for a quick dive into some of the shortest lived original themes!

Do you remember any other short lived IP themes? Have you collected an entire theme? Any favorites, or predictions on what will fizzle out next? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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