Hey, smarty pants, I've got a little riddle for you.
Ready?
What comes in all the colors of the rainbow has its own hit movie franchise and can make entire cities that fit inside your bedroom.
Did you say, that sounds crazy?
Because it does.
But if you said Lego, you'd be right.
Lego sets containing colorful, stackable plastic bricks have been around for nearly 90 years.
And in that time they've completely changed how kids and some adults play build, create and, of course, destroy.
Because as fun as it is building a giant Lego skyscraper, it's also fun toppling it over.
I'm a giant come to destroy your city.
Chances are you've either built something yourself or seen something built from Lego bricks.
But how much do you really know about Lego?
Who invented Lego?
What does the word Lego even mean?
And why should you only say Lego and not Legos?
It's time for another whiff of science and history on... Who Smarted?
Who Smarted?
Who's smart?
Is it you?
Is it me?
Is it science?
Or history?
Listen up, everyone.
We make smarting lots of fun on Who's Smart?
Robots.
Skyscrapers.
Cities.
Airplanes.
Even the Millennium Falcon.
I'm going to make a jump to light speed.
If you can picture it, there's a good chance you can build it using LEGO.
And it's by far the biggest toy brand in the world bigger than Fisher-Price Nerf Play-Doh Barbie, My Little Pony and Hot Wheels combined.
There's even a TV series devoted to LEGO Master Builders, plus an entire movie franchise based around this tiny awesome toy.
And while the Lego pieces we all know and love today are made of plastic, that wasn't always the case.
What do you think the first Lego bricks were made out of?
Was it A, wood?
B, paper?
Or C, actual bricks?
Well, actual bricks would be way too heavy.
My Lego house is so heavy!
And paper would be way too light and flimsy.
Um, my Lego house just blew away.
Bye!
So clearly the answer must be... Wood.
The answer is wood.
You're right.
And also, who said that?
Why, I'm Ole Kurt Christensen, creator and founder of Lego.
Wow, Mr Christensen, what an amazing surprise to have the inventor of Lego on the show, especially since you died in the 1950s.
Yes, well, it may require a little suspension of disbelief.
Just like when you're playing with Lego and you pretend the firehouse you just built is real.
Okay, let's go with that.
Anyway, you were inquiring about my greatest invention.
Yes, maybe you can tell us how you came up with the idea for Lego bricks?
I thought you'd never ask.
It all started back in 1932, in a small town called Billund in the nation of Denmark.
Ah, the happiest place on earth, according to some.
Also, where the Vikings come from.
I was a struggling carpenter, raising four young boys on my own.
I didn't have money to buy toys so I decided to make the boys a toy duck from some leftover wood in my workshop.
They loved it!
So I decided to make more toys.
Soon I had wooden trucks, trains and cars.
One day, a traveling salesman noticed my toys and admired the high quality.
He placed a big order for the upcoming Christmas holiday.
Amazing!
It sure was!
I hired people from town to help me.
We worked day and night making hundreds of wooden toys to fill the order.
And that's how LEGO started?
No, the man wrote to say he'd gone bankrupt and had to cancel the order.
Oh!
Banner, yeah.
So what'd you do?
I decided to sell the toys myself.
I packed them into my car and drove across Denmark selling them directly to toy stores.
And?
I sold all the toys.
So I decided to make more toys.
But first, I needed a name for my toy company.
I wanted something short and easy to say, but that conveyed my philosophy about toys.
Which is?
Toys should teach you not only to play, but play well.
I took the Danish word for clay, leg, and combined it with the word for well, got, legot.
Then I combined and shortened legot to become... Lego!
Precisely.
I would have thought it was the Danish word for brick.
Anywho, continue.
The early LEGO company did well for many years.
But a terrible storm in 1942 caused a fire in our factory.
All the wooden toys and designs were destroyed.
We rebuilt the factory, but things weren't the same.
Until 1946.
I was in the Danish capital of Copenhagen when, by chance, I saw a demonstration of a new machine that I knew would change how we make and play with toys forever.
Wow!
What was it?
It was...
A plastic injection molding machine.
Oh.
You don't sound impressed.
It's partly because I thought it would be cooler.
And partly because I have no idea what that is.
It's cool.
Trust me.
A plastic injection molding machine was a revolutionary invention that could take a relatively new material plastic, and press it into any shape imaginable.
The samples they made at this demonstration were very plain.
But it was capable of making animals, cars, planes, houses, you name it.
I knew this machine was the future of the Lego company.
So what'd you do next?
I took my life savings and bought one.
We began making small plastic bears and baby rattles.
That doesn't sound very Lego-like.
No, the bears in the rattles did okay.
But I kept thinking of the simple samples they made at the demonstration.
Small, rectangular bricks.
I realized those plain little bricks were the key to a toy that could stand the test of time.
After several years of experimenting, my son Gottfried eventually came up with the idea of The Lego system.
Lego system?
What's that?
Normally, toys arrive in stores fully built the way the toy maker designed them.
You want a toy house?
Here's a toy house.
You want a toy car?
Take your pick from these five.
But the Lego system would provide children with the raw materials, the Lego bricks and their imaginations would do the rest.
They could build the house or car of their choosing.
Or a cool spaceship.
Oh, that's my favorite thing about playing with LEGO bricks.
Yes, but the real breakthrough came in 1958 when we discovered a way to interlock the bricks.
Before then, you could only stack bricks on top of one another.
Sure, you could build an Eiffel Tower, but it'd fall apart if you bumped it or tried to move it.
Ah, like Jenga.
What's Jenga?
A stacking game.
Never mind.
About those interlocking bricks...
By placing round studs on top of the bricks and creating round tubes on the bottom, you could build walls and structures that held together.
This allows for more creative freedom and endless variations.
And guess what?
The system we created back then is the exact same as the one used today.
Meaning?
If you found a Lego brick behind your couch from 1958, it would still perfectly interlock with a piece from today.
Awesome, as long as you don't step on it barefoot.
Ow!
Sounds like things were looking up.
They were.
Until another factory fire in 1960.
Yikes!
Now we had a big decision.
Continue making wooden and plastic toys, or just plastic bricks.
What would you do, Smarty Pants?
Of course, you'd go all in on plastic bricks.
Exactly.
The day after the fire, we discontinued making wooden toys and only made plastic bricks.
We worked very hard to make sure each Lego brick and Lego set met our high standards.
After all, our Lego motto is...
Det bäst är icke för gott, which means only the best is good enough.
Oh, we have a similar motto at Who's Smarted.
Still, to take LEGO to the next level, we needed to start selling them outside of Denmark.
My son Gottfried had the brilliant idea to build an airport in our small town of Billund.
When people could easily visit our factory and see what LEGO was all about, toy sales exploded.
And with our own personal airport, we could easily ship our product all over the world.
Soon, the LEGO system of play was in houses across the globe.
Incredible.
But there's something I've always wondered.
How come you say Lego and not Legos?
Oh, there's an easy answer for that.
Which we'll reveal right after this quick break.
Now back to Who Smarted?
So why should one only say Lego and not Legos when talking about the bricks?
Because Lego is an adjective, not a noun.
Huh?
Well, we all know a noun is a person, place, or thing, and an adjective is a word describing a noun.
But you're saying Lego is an adjective and not a noun?
Exactly.
A Lego is not the brick.
A Lego brick is the brick.
You can have a Lego brick.
Or a Lego set, but never.
Legos?
No.
Gotcha.
Well, thanks for the history lesson, Ole.
But how's Lego doing today?
Talk to my great-grandson, Thomas Kirk Christensen.
He runs the Lego company today.
Hi, hi.
Oh, hi.
There must be a door around here I don't know about.
Thomas, the trusty narrator wants to know about the Lego company today.
Well, Lego has only grown in popularity and importance.
In the year 2000, we were named Toy of the Century by the British Association of Toy Retailers.
There's Lego sets to go along with Lego movies and popular movie franchises like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings.
Altogether, we've made over 400 billion Lego pieces.
If you stack them all on top of each other, they'd reach the moon and back 10 times.
Far out!
And if Lego was its own country, filled with our minifigures, we'd have the largest population in the world, with over 4 billion Lego minifigures being sold across the globe.
4 billion?
That means a Legoland would have more people than China India, the United States and all of Europe combined.
Whoa.
True.
And speaking of Legoland, there is an actual Legoland.
Made of Lego bricks?
Not quite.
We have several Legoland amusement parks around the world.
There's one in Denmark, birthplace of Lego, also in the UK, South Korea Dubai, the Netherlands, plus three in America.
California, Florida, and New York.
There was also a man who built a full-size Lego house using over 3 million bricks.
It included a working toilet, shower, and a bed, all made of Lego bricks.
A Lego bed could support a man?
Easily.
Lego bricks are strong.
A single brick can support 375,000 other Lego bricks before buckling.
Whoa.
You could build a Lego tower over two miles high before the bottom brick broke.
Nice.
Also, say bottom brick broke five times real fast, smarty pants.
But there's more to Lego than big numbers and impressive stats.
We follow my great-grandfather's philosophy and motto.
Only the best is good enough.
Which is why our simple yet long-lasting toys have remained popular with people of all ages.
Unless you step on one barefoot.
Ow!
A big, big shout out to Maximilian.
Max in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
I hear Who Smarted makes you feel like your brain is growing bigger all the time.
It's like your brain muscles are working out.
Wow.
Keep on flexing those brain muscles, Max.
This episode Lego was written by Jason Legomaster-Williams and voiced by Taya Garland, Jason Williams, Brandon Bayless, Adam Tex-Davis, Gia Davis and this guy, Jerry Colbert.
Technical direction and sound design by Josh Hahn.
Who Smarted is recorded and mixed at the Relic Room Studios.
Our associate producer is Max Kamaski.
The theme song is by Brian Suarez, with lyrics written and performed by Adam Tex-Davis.
Who Smarted was created and produced by Adam Tex-Davis and Jerry Colbert.
This has been an Atomic Entertainment production.
