The Entire History of LEGO...

this is Ole Kirk Christensen the founder of Lego and I'm building his Workshop where he made wooden products more than a 100 years ago this is the story of how Lego went from that Workshop to the massive company it is today but let's go back to billand in 1932 Ole's house was the only house in town with a concrete pavement which is a testament to his dedication to good quality but O's business had seen better days with the world economy in bad shape he couldn't sell many of the big wooden projects that he used to like ladders and Furniture he had to lay off all of his workers and try to keep making things on his own but he still had a lot of little pieces of wood so he had an idea he made small wooden toys like this this and this he decided to name his company Lego which comes from the Danish words legot meaning play well O's son godfred Kirk Christensen started helping him with the company to sell wooden toys at first Olay didn't get many sales but over time he got a reputation for making the best quality models and people from all over the country came to buy the famous wooden Lego toys it was so successful oay was even able to rehire his workers the bestselling Lego toy in this time was a wooden pull along duck which is now a prized item in Lego collections hey maybe I'll get one or maybe not olle would only use the highest quality wood and put three lay of lacquer on every toy his motto was only the best is good enough and he stuck to it but his son godfred didn't always understand the motto godfred had the idea to put only two layers of leer on a batch of toys instead of three this way they could save money by using less lacquer but when he told his father about this Ole was shocked he told godfred to unpack the toys and put the last layer on them now godfred understood the motto only the best is good enough but it was in Danish so it actually sounded like death beste iy forg you know what I better stick to English and so they continued to make the highest quality wooden toys but then everything changed when World War 2 broke out Germany invaded Denmark during the occupation there was a fire in the workshop they tried to save it but everything went up in flames [Music] [Applause] [Music] all of the toys were destroyed but even worse the drawings of the plans were destroyed which would make it difficult to make the same toys again things were not looking good for The Lego company but then it started to get better Olay rebuilt his house and made it even bigger Lego was once again able to produce wooden toys then the Allies pushed back against the German [Music] Army it was a hard fight but eventually they won the war Denmark became free by this time godf Frid was all grown up and taking much more responsibility in the company overall things were looking up the company was doing well so well that olle decided to buy a plastic injection molding machine to expand what they could do with this machine they would be able to make plastic toys as well as the traditional wooden toys he learned how to use the machine and started making Plastic Products but he wanted to make a different kind of toy out of plastic interlocking bricks he tried a few different shapes but settled on this one which he called the automatic binding brick when it was released in 1949 it was not initially popular customers much preferred Lego's new plastic Ferguson tractor that sold very well at the time and is now a collectible piece of Lego history maybe I could get one never mind but the Christenson still believed in the automatic binding brick and kept working on it and improving it over the years on O's 60th birthday he took a picture with the three generations of Christian Sons Ole godfred and godfred Son [Music] killed in 1955 godfred launched the Lego system which was a set of products that could all be used together and he had his own kids play with the toys for the cover photo because of the Lego system any brick produced after 1955 can fit together soon after Ole Kirk Christensen died and then the factory burned down again now godfred had to make a big decision he could rebuild the factory as it was or he could leave out the wooden workshop and focus purely on the plastic bricks he decided to leave out the workshop now the company would only produce toys in the Lego system but now the small town of billand was getting too small for The Lego company so godfred decided to build an airport to provide more access to the rest of the world people flew into band from all over just to visit the factory so godfred decided to give the visitors a proper place to go he planned a theme park all about Lego it would have rides and giant Lego models to look at if would be called Legoland so he set about building it Legoland first opened in 1968 with these white pillars at the entrance and they were guarded by three Soldiers made of real Lego Legoland opened with a tiny village made of real Lego called minil land it also had a city of the future a medieval section with a castle and even a giant running TR train Legoland was so successful The Lego company went on to build 10 more all over the world and that wasn't the only thing in Lego news the company made heaps of progress in the following years launching Lego [Music] trains Duplo oh Dupo tricks and Technic Technic [Music] Tech in 1973 the first fan-made stop motion Lego movie was made this was before even the first Lego characters the next year in 1974 Lego introduced the Maxi figures wow the same year they made the first version of the minifigure but it wasn't quite perfect so they made another one of a few years later now that's the face we all know and love these Minifigures were released with the first proper Lego themes Castle space and town which has since become Lego City hey by this time Lego had changed its logo to the iconic word on Red Square now that Min figures existed more complex stop motion animations could be made like the magic portal this was a classic Lego fan film or brick film as they're now known and it was a big leap forward in terms of technical quality Lego fan animations were growing in popularity and many classic animations were made in this time these stop motion animations would eventually go on to inspire The Lego Movie it was a time of Innovations for the LEGO Group and the number of different themes exploded Like fabuland Pirates and the fan favorite blacktron and more the first Lego Store was opened in Sydney it was a store dedicated just to Lego toys the first glow-in-the-dark piece was a ghost released in this set in 1990 and it glows pretty well surprise black tron's back but now it's gone again so many things happened ice Planet the first pink Lego bricks Lego aquazone Dolphins godfred D that last one isn't so good and it sets the trend of Lego Story over the next few years in 1998 Lego made its first ever yearly loss losing 73 million they updated the logo but that didn't help so the company deviced an idea to bring itself back into profitability Lego Star Wars but that didn't save the company as they had hoped Lego scrambled to put out products that might save the company Rock Raiders Life on Mars Lego sports Harry Potter Alpha Team Bionicle Jack Stone uh I can see why that one didn't save the company these figures are so ugly in one year Lego lost over $300 million and had to sell all of the Legolands it was nearly bankrupt however Bionicle had been a massive success and was only growing the first official Lego film was released called Bionicle mask of light and other things started working out for the company they licensed properties like SpongeBob and Batman they made new original themes too Mars mission Lego board games and the Lego Collectible Minifigures the most rare and collectible of which is Mr Gold you know I collect Minifigures but I don't have that one and it looks like I won't get it and when they made the Lego Star Wars video game it was a huge success so they made a bunch more Lego video games which everyone loved now Lego was thriving they made Solid Gold c3pos which cost over $200,000 this is the most expensive Lego minifigure ever and only five were ever made so it looks like that's not going in my collection either they made the Lego Millennium Falcon which is a minifigure scale version of the ship and it was their biggest ever Lego set when it was released Bionicle got discontinued so long partner but they made Hero Factory instead and that's pretty similar anyway then they released The Adventures of Clutch Powers calling it the first Lego Movie it wasn't though the company made some other weird stuff like this rap song well my name is Lou I've got a black ey Beast not a normal looking head like my good friend t but if you're looking for two wise then you're waiting for a surprise cuz we're a little different from the rest of the guys that was kind of a strange time for official Lego media there was also those singing Cowboys I building something do picking through the P of Bricks now looking for the 4X but let's move on then in 2011 Lego Ninjago was introduced along with this absolutely killer theme song ninj come on I got do it again just drop my Ki with that's even better than blackeyed pieace I can't believe they didn't win an Oscar for this Ninjago was released with metal Spinners so the Minifigures could use Spinjitsu just like in the show you spin them and they fight each other it kind of sucked so they dropped that gimmick then another hit Lego Friends this theme is more geared towards girls and is one of LEGO's most successful themes ever they didn't use mini figures in these sets choosing instead to go with a more doll-like figure called a mini doll they also introduced a bunch of new pretty colors for friends initially there was a lot of criticism of Lego Friends people thought that the sets were too stereotypical but the LEGO Group said this is what girls wanted eventually people moved on in 2014 the Lego movie came out it was based on all those fan animations from earlier even referencing the magic portal it made nearly half a billion dollars in the box office so of course they made a bunch more but then a couple of them flopped so they stopped making them Bionicle is back oh it's gone again Lego came out with loads of new themes and some fancy themes for adults they made their new biggest ever Lego set the Titanic and then an even bigger set the Eiffel Tower and they made a social media platform too so that's cool by this time godfred sun killed his all grownup in fact he's so grown up that he's re tired his son Thomas Kirk Christensen is running the company now Lego is now the biggest toy company in the world making nearly $2 billion per year the Christenson were even able to buy back control over all the legol lands now the LEGO Group is trying to be more environmentally friendly by using sustainable materials in their production 75 years after the first Lego brick was molded more than 60 billion bricks are made per year that's a lot of bricks so Lego went from a man making wooden toys in his Workshop to the biggest producer of toys in the world and that's the entire history of Lego right up to now

Channel: Broke

Views: 609,755

Keywords:

Id: xWu_K3_yAcw

Length: 13min 16sec (796 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 05 2024