Thoughts on Toys from the Co-Founder of the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio

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LEGO FRIENDS – Friends or Big Love?

There’s been a lot of controversy about the new LEGO FRIENDS line. And we’ll be writing a lot more about that soon. So far, we have gotten nothing but positive reviews for both the building aspect and the pretend play potential of these sets. (We have however stayed away from the more gender-stereotyped sets such as the hair salon.) You can read our review by clicking here.

But I did need to share the following….

I was very interested to note how our girl builders became quickly invested in the names of each of the friends. They quickly knew their names and which sets included which figures. With the exception of maybe the Harry Potter or Star Wars LEGO sets, I’ve never really had this kind of conversation about the regular LEGO figures.

Then I got confused. The man with the beard? Who could that be? Why was this bearded play figure living with two female figures in Olivia’s House? My toy testers just assumed he was a boy and that they were all just friends. After all the line is called LEGO FRIENDS. That made a certain amount of sense.

So maybe this was LEGO’s version of NBC’s hit comedy Friends? Was the bearded guy meant to be Ross? Chandler? I can’t really remember that any of them had a beard. Anyway…then I thought maybe this is like HBO’s BIG LOVE. I mean the two female figures look as grown up as the bearded man.

I called the folks at LEGO…and in case you were wondering, here’s the relationships of the figures in Olivia’s house.

The guy with the beard is Peter. He is Olivia’s FATHER. The other female figure in the house is actually Peter’s wife, and Olivia’s mother, Anna.