@Lego_Lord_Mayorca said:
"We're on a tear now of "junk LEGO released around the turn of the century", aren't we?"

All according to Huwbot's plans, since Clikits and Beville won't be the only girl themes allowed by the next of next week.....

Where’s the fire?

@Collector_Nonas:
Dumpster?

I wouldn't go out of my way to get this set, but if I found it secondhand for cheap enough, I'd buy it. I've long wanted one of those booms, and it does have some interesting minifigs. And the face print on the fireman in the lower-right corner gives me Space Police II nostalgia.

Never ever have I seen this set. And that box the firefighter is standing in, is that one unique piece?

This was one of the better sets of the period, and I use that term loosely. Think I sold it in the early 2010's for £10.

@LuvsLEGO_Cool_J:
2424, crane bucket w/ non-locking hinge fingers. There’s also 51858a, with a 9-tooth click hinge, and 51858b, which uses the updates 7-tooth design. Several years ago, I made Acer the Pacer from Cars 2, with a cutting torch. I ended up using a black 2424 bucket to hold the gas bottles on the back bumper, but I also bought the 51858a version, since I wasn’t sure if either would actually work. Turns out the claw-shaped hinges locked into other parts on the design perfectly.

@MCLegoboy said:
""Oh no, the set designed for kids age 5-8 is too juniorized!"
~Jaded 40 year olds."
I'm glad I'm nowhere near that point yet, seeing as I was 8 in 2000. This was my LEGO City, before LEGO City, even though I never actually owned any sets from this incarnation. Some of the sets certainly were on my wish list, though. No one can argue with 6600-2 — it was great for the elevated roads and we all know it.

@lynels said:
"The current City line is also aimed at 5-8 year olds and isn't overly juniorised like this. :)"
We're expected to believe they're getting there, though...

Oh man, why did that printed headlights/grill part give me a sudden memory of the LEGO Creator video game?

This was one of the first sets on our oldest son.

The cab is terrible but the rest of the set is fine. And that handlebar mustache is divine. It's Rollie Finger in minifig form.

@lynels said:
"The current City line is also aimed at 5-8 year olds and isn't overly juniorised like this. :)"

Really? The build level looks almost identical to me. I'd even argue the current Juniors sets have even bigger specialized pieces than sets from this era.

Why is that man pouring water on his partner? And why is there water coming out of his back too? No wonder the chief is running to save them from this chaos.

@sir_vasco said:
"Oh man, why did that printed headlights/grill part give me a sudden memory of the LEGO Creator video game?"

I loved that game, which is probably why I don't mind these sets being so juniorised.

And I think minifig heads from that period were the best. They were colorful and detailed while not being unnaturally overly expressive like todays' are.

I m not sure juniorised is the right word for this; I don’t think it’s deliberately simplified just quite bare-bones. Must have been budget cuts at the fire department

Have this set fully build sitting in my closet. So much nostalgia, though I remember that it could topple over pretty quick so it wasn't the greatest of builds. I still have fond memories of it and for what it was, a decent set.

I miss 2000.

I find it is always good to have a boom as saves walking up the ladder! I didn't realize until now that you can lift the boom off the trailer as a stationary boom and use the trailer for something else. I can see lots of difficulty getting a mini-fig into that 1978 cab compared to the more modern pieces in 6358. Not much potential for alternative builds as the trailer is one large piece, and the cab sits on one large black plate which already includes the wheel attachments.

When they introduced the simple cars made of basically 2 parts, I quit LEGO. Glad they upped their game, but it took them a decade of bad LEGO City era.

Is that box at the end of the boom clipped onto the studs?

Set may be simple but still felt complete.

Main issue was that those yellow discs or the whole crane weren't a sturdy construction.

Figs and accesoires were great.

That said, it was one of my last sets before a 15 year lego pause so i cant compare this with early city, I do have the 2019 downtown firetruck, which is obviously bigger and better and more expensive.

@TheOtherMike said:
"Space Police II nostalgia."
One of the most ubiquitous classic heads : SPII, but also Space Port, Exploriens, Aquanauts, Unitron - I must have about twenty of these.

To call this set Juniorized is an insult to Juniors sets. These sets are terrible builds. I've bought several Juniors sets as adults and they are much better builds than these fire department sets were.

I'm more familiar with this set now than I would have been two months ago, because I got some the pieces and about half the minifig parts in a used find and was having trouble placing the printed click-hinge 1x4 white pieces used as stabilisers here.

I think it's missing the point to compare this to the Town sets of, say, 1992 or to the City sets of 2011--this is clearly to be compared with the +4 sets and other things of that nature. Granted, in 2000, there WAS no other, "normal" Town to compare it with, which looks with hindsight as a clear failure on LEGO's part, but as a juniorised set, this has several clear play-features, excellent printing, not-even-slight-juniorised minifigures (well, as far as their torsos go--you can make an argument for Chief Twistybars).

It's ultimately going to come down, in preferring this or more modern juniorisation, if you like the blocky look of ca.2000 or the more-rounded look of ca.2020. Honestly, I prefer the 2000 look--at least the part looks more like LEGO (the genetics of the 2x4, so to speak) rather than Mega Bloks: rounded juniorised pieces with some studs on top.

(Okay, I'm being a bit unfair--the modern ones don't look like Mega Bloks. But they do simplify things into single pieces in a curvier way than these old ones.)

@MCLegoboy said:
""Oh no, the set designed for kids age 5-8 is too juniorized!"
~Jaded 40 year olds."

Don't disparage 5–8-year-olds.

This set is manifestly inferior to the designs of the late 80s when I was in that age range. Against those sets, I wouldn't have considered it worth buying then, and I didn't consider buying it in 2000 either.

But the other reason the Juniorized sets of the late 90s/early 00s get so much scorn versus modern 4+ sets is that they completely replaced Town in the product catalog. The newer Junior sets have been mostly supplemental, but the 90s/00s Juniors completely swept away what had been a wonderfully robust line-up of modern playsets just a few years early. It wasn't so much Lego trying to target a younger demographic as it was Lego giving up on the older demographic completely. This was no accident. Lego management at the time believed their product was a dinosaur in the digital age, and that older kids had no interest in it and were an increasingly lost market. So they doubled down on dumbed-down dreck…and nearly wound up in bankruptcy. Compare 6477 to 7239, the set that Lego considers the icon of its renaissance. One of these two turned Lego into the biggest toy company in the world, partly because those snotty 5–8 year olds liked it so much. Guess which?

As for modern City? Yeah, it's pretty bad. I don't want to see history repeat itself.

All in all, Lego has about a 20% hit rate on the fire truck: with about four bad ones to every good one ( 6385 , 6480 , 7239 ). The failures range from the excessively concept radical ( 4430 , 7213 ) to some sort of Brotherhood of Nod turreted vehicle ( 6389 ) to cryptic in a Where's Waldo way ( 10254 ) to utter ineptitude as we have here with 6477 . It looks like the front tires are sterically hindered by the undercarriage of the cab and do not rotate freely, which we all know kids love.

@AllenSmith:
That doesn’t look like a Bionicle set.

I kid, I kid! Bionicle didn’t make them the 1 toy company in the world (The LEGO Movie did that). It just kept them afloat while sets like this one kept piling anchors into the boat. By the time the company was really headed back to a healthy state, Bionicle had already begun to lose some of its initial head of steam, and was no longer the juggernaut of sales that it had been during the first few years.

@PurpleDave
Even though I've never understood Bionicle, I'm fully aware that without it, Lego may not have survived. But without radical change in Lego's design strategy back toward challenging builds and realistic models, precipitated by 7239, was what made the Lego Movie an attractive studio proposition in the first place.

@ambr said:
"I find it is always good to have a boom as saves walking up the ladder! I didn't realize until now that you can lift the boom off the trailer as a stationary boom and use the trailer for something else. I can see lots of difficulty getting a mini-fig into that 1978 cab compared to the more modern pieces in 6358. Not much potential for alternative builds as the trailer is one large piece, and the cab sits on one large black plate which already includes the wheel attachments."

Might the trailer look good with a Classic Town tractor?