Scooby Doo Clone Brick sets

[Kev]

At TRU today I ran across some new sets of Scooby Doo fake-legos. They are awful. The sets ugly, and the figures cheap and hideous. Oh, how I wish Lego would have went with licensing Scooby-Doo for its Monster Fighters line! What could have been. Sigh.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_ ... ing+bricks

One thing I noticed was that in the haunted castle set, the have a brick that is made with 'chips' broken off it, for a nice crumbling look. http://www.amazon.com/Character-Buildin ... doo+castle Yes, I think it is intentional, and not just a cheap knock-off mistake!

[Tedward]

Character Building are the same company that does the Doctor Who licensed products right?

[Bluesecrets]

The boxes say Cobi or at least some. It it a legit company. And as blasphemy as this sounds...Cobi's bricks and sets are actually the least offensive to me in terms of the other brick brands. Their color matches. Their bricks are pretty much the same.

Now just a brief info and some speculation here...TLG has lost every lawsuit they have had due to copyright of the stud, bricks, etc. As a result 6-8 new companies have popped up. If you look at the toy fair pictures you will see. Cobi is one of them. I've seen Cobi explode in the market place and on tv lately. And some people believe that these other brick companies are doing a better job in designing the $20-$30 sets than even TLG right now. Some speculate this is why TLG is gathering every single license they can, to corner the market. So...if I had a start up company that I was going to try and compete with TLG, why wouldn't I head right after a tried and true license like Scooby?

Now...back on topic about these sets. Sure they aren't amazing, but the Scooby fan in me finds them worthy of looking at. And I think Scooby is well done. I almost would buy these for my sister who is a bigger Scooby fan than I am, but the reality is, I'm still very much a purist. But Cobi does tempt me more than any other brick company.

[Kev]

Yeah, my big disappointment is that they'd go after something like the Simpsons, which is basically just a figure line, and pass on something with so many more building options that crossover theme-wise like Scooby. You have the haunted Pirate ship. (pirate fans) The castle. (castle fans) The spooky manor house. (town fans) The Mystery Machine. Scooby has been around since the late 1960s, and is the longest running cartoon character in history, having never gone out of production for the past 55 years. Everyone knows Scooby, and the main market is kids under age 12. Talk about a perfect match for Lego. Something that kids like that their grandparents grew up with. Who is the target market for the Simpsons? 30 year olds? Just seems like a dumb decision. Maybe because the Danes don't know much about Scooby? I don't know what their rationale was, but this is a huge, huge missed opportunity for Lego.




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[Brickninja]

Ugh, I can't stand clone brands or "impostors" as my sisters and I call them. It makes me feel awful seeing all these kids who buy them not knowing that they're giving money to rip-off companies.it seems like there's a "battle for the licenses" going on, with each company trying to snatch up the unclaimed licenses first. I think lego took the trump card with star wars, though. I ordered a job lot of lego off of ebay, and there were some megabloks mixed in, so my I sister and I built a lego prison for them

[Aeridian]

You made some great points, Kev. I agree, there are so many memorable/iconic scenes from Scooby Doo that can be remade in Lego. Maybe they had other plans in mind that they could profit from (Speed Racer and PoP?)...

As for the Simpsons coming out sometime in the future, I think Lego is testing the waters for other possible themes outside the norm. I wonder how it'll turn out.

[Brickninja]

Sorry to "necro post" but a Lego store employee told me today that Lego now has the rights to Scooby doo just thought I should share this here.

[Kev]

Sorry to "necro post" but a Lego store employee told me today that Lego now has the rights to Scooby doo just thought I should share this here.

So it sounds like this is true, and is going to happen! I'm pretty excited to see what we get. Hopefully there'll be something for everyone. Looking at the classic cartoon series, they could do a Ghost town set, haunted castle, ghostly pirate ship, ghostly spaceship...and all the ghosts! Fortune teller, Tiki ghost, Pirate captain, Witch, Caveman...just a fantastic collection of villains to choose from. Hopefully they'll lean heavily on classics like these, rather than any specific new movie or show coming up.