Round and round the playground went the little mouse.

@chrisaw: Yeah, I want some of those to put on a Lego Games Die. I'd need something to stand in for the six, but dice that replace either the highest or lowest number with something else are quite common.

When you see the prices for sealed sets llke this, it just makes you wonder.

Brick-free zone.

@SwingTop said:
" @StyleCounselor said:
"When you see the prices for sealed sets llke this, it just makes you wonder."

Makes you wonder about what? For a collectible, sealed product that is almost 40 years old, I'm not surprised at all it goes over 150$."

Sorry. I wouldn't pay retail for this. I would get it at half off to use as a prank white elephant gift.

@SearchlightRG said:
"I would say this is one Fabuland set no one can create a grim dark, dystopian interpretation of…but I’ve been on this site long enough to know I’m wrong."

Well, there's a scene from Terminator 2 involving a playground . . .

Soon we will run out of Clikits and Fabuland will become a much appreciated replacement.

@Zordboy said:
"Cute, but it just needs more gigantic animal-shaped mecha. "

It's LEGO - you can build one!

Ah yes, when you remove the hopscotch tiles you find Lucy Lamb buried underneath.

I wouldn't want to live in a world where worms not only eat apples whole, but are cruel enough to still leave them on the trees...

@PurpleDave said:
"Does anyone know if there’s a reason why the tree has holes through the apples? It reminds me of the Hi Ho Cherry O game one of my classrooms had when I was really young."

Since I never heard official explanation for that, I think it's posibble they planned to produce removable apples together with the tree, but at very late stage they decided that those apples would be safety risk (choking hazard). So they started making only the tree with holes, because it was too late to change design, molds, etc.

Just a theory, but it sounds plausible.

@SearchlightRG:
I feel like I failed as a commenter…

Um…something about trying to eat healthier?

I have this! Fabuland is one of my fav theme!

Russian roulette tree. Looks like a revolver.

@SearchlightRG said:
"I would say this is one Fabuland set no one can create a grim dark, dystopian interpretation of…but I’ve been on this site long enough to know I’m wrong."

When I saw the RSOTD was Fabuland, I eagerly anticipated what horrifying grim subtext lurked beneath the scene. But there was none! It's just a cute playground!

@SimonSpace70s
I theorize that Chima predates Fabuland. The uncanny relationship between predator and prey in Fabuland sets indicates a predator class which has conditioned its prey into total docility. The predators were probably exhausted after all their brutal Chima wars, and developed an easier, sneakier way to get meat without killing each other. It's just like in H.G. Wells's novel "The Time Machine." The herbivores in Fabuland are Lego Eloi, inhabiting a bucolic world in which their every need is provided for, right up until it isn't. The predators are the Morlocks, conveniently holding all the positions of power, so that dinner—tender, unstressed, and fat—is always at hand and ready to serve.

@Rare_White_Ape:
Regarding the size of fighter planes yesterday, I found the opposite to be true. I have Battle of the X-Planes on DVD, and on first glance I thought the X-32 was a tiny little plane, maybe about the size of an A-Wing. Well, compared to the X-35, it was pretty small, but that’s like comparing watermelons to pumpkins. I asked a coworker (former Navy), and he said there were a couple early post-Korean MiGs, and the F-16 that might be small enough to strip down and crate up and ship.

Military aircraft are usually flown from the factory, and the first to need major repairs usually end up being cannibalized for spare parts. The National Museum of the US Air Force even has a runway in the back yard so planes that are being sent there for permanent display can just fly in. You can remove the wings from something like an F-15, but the engines fit inside the airframe, so removing them doesn’t actually make the plane smaller.

The pic you linked to would be an Oversized Load in the US for sure. It would need danger stripes and a huge “OVERSIZED LOAD” sign at both ends, flags on the corners of the truck and load, spotters driving passenger vehicles with signage at both ends, and it would drive slow as heck on surface roads. The fact that it’s not airworthy is probably the only reason they shipped it overland. That’s not to say you _can’t_. If you really need to, you could probably strip down a 747 and haul it on a trailer. Biggest rig I’ve seen is a 110-wheeler that was being used to haul a decommissioned nuclear reaction chamber. Truck had 14 wheels, and the trailer sat on a dozen fifth wheel “pods” with two dually axles each. It took two weeks to drive 400 miles (exclusively at night, to avoid impacting traffic), and straddled two lanes, with a max speed of 30mph. The route had to be carefully mapped out before they even started moving, to make sure it could even navigate the roads involved. And it shipped as a Superload.

@AllenSmith:
The shift in resident species doesn’t seem to support your theory. In Chima, predators rule the day. We’ve got wolves, smilodons, spiders, scorpions, leopards, polar bears, eagles, crocs, lions, and tigers, and bears (oh, my) as major predators. Even the fox, the skunk, and probably the bat are all hunters (though there’s not much of their fare left, which would explain them being near extinction). Scavengers have also moved in, including ravens and vultures. I have no idea what a phoenix eats. So, that basically leaves gorillas, rhinos, and zombified mastodons as the sole surviving species, plus one lonely beaver with no potential mate. Three of those species are very powerful, and the last is _usually_ difficult to prey on.

Now, compare that to Fabuland. There’s not nearly as much variety of predator to be found, and there certainly aren’t any vultures. However, there are plenty of mice, cows, sheep, and other tasty morsels to be found. The predators don’t vastly outnumber the prey. I mean, there’s not enough left to breed fast enough to keep everyone fed anymore, but they haven’t realized their desperation, yet. In Chima, they’ve done away with Fabuland currency system, and now you have to mobilize an entire army with a mobile war fortress just to pick up a burger and fries. Chicken fries, that is…

@PurpleDave said: "Now, compare that to Fabuland. There’s not nearly as much variety of predator to be found, and there certainly aren’t any vultures. However, there are plenty of mice, cows, sheep, and other tasty morsels to be found. The predators don’t vastly outnumber the prey."

Well, a healthy ecology always works in that ratio, with prey animals vastly out-numbering predators. Any environment with an overabundance of predators (like Chima) simply isn't sustainable, because the predators will be forced to compete over an ever-decreasing number of prey, either starving themselves when the food runs out or fighting themselves into extinction.

So the theory that Chima came first, and eventually became Fabuland, actually holds a bit of weight.

@Zordboy:
Predators starving to death doesn't bring sheep back from extinction.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Zordboy:
Predators starving to death doesn't bring sheep back from extinction."

Or they were in hiding during the Chima wars, or else, were specifically cloned and farmed by the ruling predator class of animals when the wars ended.

@PurpleDave
You have shared your socio-ecological analysis before, and I certainly appreciate its depth. However…

@Zordboy said:
"Or they were in hiding during the Chima wars…"
That is my theory. Chima became unsustainable because they hunted their food to the degree that it was so rare it never appeared in sets. When faced with crisis, intelligent beings adapt.

We have clues about what happened.

First off, the rhinoceroses are extinct. They must have lost. Maybe the lions decided their horns were aphrodisiacs or something.

Mastodons…well…Fabuland has “elephants.” Maybe in this urbane era, body hair has gone out of fashion. So what are Elton and Edward Elephant up to? Well, Edward is frequently seen fishing (1516, 3660, 3680). This is very suspicious behavior for an alleged herbivore. And he is seen bringing Bonnie Bunny a mysterious flask as a “gift” in 3674, then wielding a sledgehammer opposite Bonnie Bunny in 1570. NOT GOOD. Elton, meanwhile, is prowling about Lionel Lion’s lodge with a saw. So…the mastodons appear to have joined the predators.

The gorillas are up to no good too. Gabriel Gorilla in 3631 is a drummer (sounds rather martial, doesn’t it?!), and while all the other primates are identified as monkeys, they all look just like Gabriel. Most of them are undercover doing innocuous-looking things to lull the others into a false sense of security, but the tell is in 3644. Mike “Monkey” is actually chauffeuring Lionel Lion. He knows what’s really going on. And he does nothing.

Looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys!

... I love this site.