A LEGO Brickumentary

Space.

Humankind has been gazing into its infinite vastness for millennia.

Here we are pushing the boundaries of our knowledge,

venturing out into...

What? What are LEGO minifigures doing out here?

What the heck are toys doing in outer space?

To answer that, first we have to start our story

back on good old planet Earth.

Here in the U.S.'s Pacific Northwest,

a boy named Thorin makes last-minute preparations on his battle scene.

In the Netherlands, Rosa is building a car in her living room.

In Shanghai, China, Yuhang celebrates his birthday with a new LEGO set.

And in Denver, Colorado,

Eben, like so many around the world

is sprawled on his living room floor playing with LEGO bricks.

This is what we expect, right?

After all, around half a billion people grew up with LEGO bricks.

There are over 100 LEGO pieces for every person on the planet.

But this story... but... Can you hear me out there?

There. That's better.

What? What's wrong?

Why are you looking at me like that? Oh, oh.

There. How's that?

Now, I know. I know.

You recognize me, right?

Featureless yet functional hands.

Interchangeable hair.

Perfect golden, uh, tan, I guess?

But this story's not about me. Well, not entirely.

This story is about a simple toy that became,

well, more than a toy.

And how its unique properties ushered in a new era of creativity,

not just for kids, but for a whole generation.

This is about more than the brick.

This is beyond the... No, hang on a second.

Beyond the brick! A LEGO Brickumentary!

Ooh, look at that. That's awesome.

At the annual Toy Fair in New York City

the world's toy manufacturers gather to show off

what they hope will be big products for kids.

LEGO is, let's face it,

undoubtedly the greatest success story of the toy industry.

They have become the number two toy company

with simply one category of toy, and that's construction.

And that's up against giants like Mattel and Hasbro.

Mattel has Hot Wheels. They have Barbie.

Hasbro has GI Joe. And they've got other lines.

And LEGO just has LEGO. (CHUCKLES)

When other toy companies look at LEGO, they look at them as a powerhouse.

When you look at a four billion dollar brand

and that's going to continue to grow this year, it's amazing what they've done.

It's become a monster brand of the toy business.

So how did the LEGO company become so huge?

I can explain that, but I think I better park this thing first.

Recognize this baby?

Yeah, good old number 497.

Galaxy Explorer.

It had these cool yellow-tinted windows,

all these 2x2 computer bricks,

and, uh, these things.

It's just a small part of the LEGO brand's fascinating history.

Let's take a moment for a little primer on how the toy began.

Oh, no, wait a second.

There we go. Much better.

Many people know Denmark as the home of ready-to-assemble furniture.

Sadly those people are wrong because that's Sweden.

Denmark is home to Hans Christian Andersen,

delicious pastries,

and the birthplace of, you guessed it, LEGO bricks.

Back in 1916, a Danish man by the name of Ole Kirk Christiansen

lived in the quaint little town of Billund Denmark.

A carpenter by trade, he started a small wood shop which burned to the ground.

Not a great start but Ole would not be dissuaded so he built another one.

In the new factory he was inspired to build toys.

By the 1930s, Ole was known for his pull toys made from birch wood.

Trucks, trains, and of course ducks.

It was around this time that Ole came up with the name LEGO.

It comes from the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning "play well."

Then the factory burned down again.

But with Ole's perseverance, it was rebuilt again,

this time mostly for making wooden toys,

until a fateful day in 1947 when Ole was visiting a toy fair.

He came across a new contraption, a plastic molding machine.

Ole brought the first one back to Denmark,

though not everyone was impressed.

At first, Ole used his hand-powered molding machine

to make simple plastic toys.

But then his son Godtfred had a brilliant idea.

I remember my father, for him, the system was very, very important,

to turn the bricks into a system of play.

The brick in itself is, of course, a simple structure.

But with the number of bricks, you have endless possibilities.

The idea stuck, and the LEGO system of play was born

and continues to this day.

In fact, bricks made in 1955 still work with bricks you can buy today.

The bricks were great for stacking, but still had room for improvement.

The Christiansen solution was clutch power.

What is clutch power?

Clutch power is the result of the patented studs and tubes design

that holds the bricks together.

And allows them to...

...whew...

come apart.

Then in 1960, the factory burned down again.

Yeesh. What are they building these factories out of, anyway?

But Ole went back to work, and despite those pesky fires,

his company continued to grow.

This magic formula of an ever-expanding system

with its locking bricks made LEGO toys

something that appealed to kids everywhere.

What started as a Danish endeavor became a global phenomenon.

Helping with this expansion of the company

was oldest grandson Kjeld who you met before.

You might recognize him from some of the earliest boxes.

Cute kid.

Personally I feel Kjeld's greatest contribution to LEGO history

was his role in the development of LEGO minifigures, or minifigs.

Hey, guys, still no arms, huh?

They obviously improved on that design over the years.

But what really catapulted the company into greater success

were the new theme sets, like Castle and Space.

And later, licensed themes like Star Wars.

Hey! And Harry Potter.

Whoa, whoa.

- (THUD) - Whoa! Yikes!

Today the LEGO company makes more than 100,000 pieces a minute,

and has become one of the biggest toy companies in the world.

But not without first experiencing some serious challenges

in having to redefine itself along the way.

But we'll get into that later.

And just think, all this from a humble carpenter in Billund, Denmark.

- (CRASH) - Ooh, sorry.

No clutch power, I guess.

Billund is still the heart of the LEGO company

and LEGO minifigures are still made here.

Handsome little devils, aren't they?

Okay that shot kinda freaks me out.

Billund is also home to the LEGO design team.

Here, inside the design room, the LEGO sets of tomorrow

are being dreamed up today by designers.

Everybody I meet says

that I have one of the coolest jobs in the world.

It's fantastic to be able to create with these bricks.

We have our desks full of LEGO all the time.

It's like being a child for the rest of my life.

For many the only limitation of building with LEGO bricks is your imagination.

But for the designers at the LEGO company

it's a much more regimented process.

We're always working within a system based on

these LEGO bricks here.

There's not an infinite amount of possibility.

The constraints becomes the challenge, if you will.

Then it's those constraints that are interesting

to find how do we make it work.

You have to think about how kids play with LEGO,

which is something that we always have in our minds.

If you're five years old, it's a lot harder to build

with smaller bricks than it is for an eight-year-old.

At the core of the design process is one guiding principal.

The design process really starts with an idea of a story in a universe.

We really take a starting point in who these characters are,

where they're living, what they're doing.

Story provides context for what you're doing.

It gives you and kids especially a meaning.

It sort of helps to unlock their imagination in new ways.

We were just trying to put together color combinations we haven't done before.

Jamie Berard is one of the company's design stars.

He's the creative lead for the expert building series.

Today he's showing his boss his new Parisian cafe model

which will be revealed to the public soon.

What I really hope to highlight at BrickCon is the storytelling.

For example, the gentleman on the balcony

has actually got a little bit of a surprise,

and he's got this ring in his hand.

That will help him hopefully marry his girlfriend.

The job, it's amazing.

I don't want to oversell it that, you know,

there's rivers of chocolate milk and massages on Tuesdays.

You know, it's a job. But it's an amazing job.

You almost wonder, like, how long can this last?

Is this for real?

Another coveted job at the LEGO company is that of master builder.

Like the designers, master builders are, well,

masters at building with LEGO bricks.

But they get to think outside the box.

So as a master builder, we get to do everything it takes to make our models,

we design models, we do a pretty good mixture.

We do everything from little tiny models,

all the way up to human beings.

It's always going to be different.

Every model poses its own challenge.

Sometimes it's the sheer size of the models.

Ultimately, at the end of the day,

it's really just pushing the bounds of what you can do with LEGO,

being creative and being artistic and all these amazing things.

Today the master builders are working on a huge project

that'll be seen all over the world:

the setting for The LEGO Movie.

The nicest thing about working for LEGO is that

we have all of the pieces we need.