Classic-Castle.com

Hey all,

More pics have come out of the Scooby Doo sets that will come out soon (August?). I know somewhere (Toy Fair coverage probably) we've talked about the castle-relevance some of the figs (haunted knight armor, ghost, monsters) and various elements (esp in the haunted manor), but I'm just liking this theme for it's own sake. A couple of favorite aspects:

The mystery machine is well-designed (though, stickers - arghh - including a STAMP - double arghh -), can sit two figs side by side, and opens up to find a command center of sorts in the back.




I was very happy to see that either under a headpiece or as a reversible head, the villains have dejected faces for the obligatory "I would have gotten away with it, too, if not for you meddling kids" unmasking scene.




Also, and this was probably noted before, there are three different Scooby variations (sitting and walking, two different prints on the walking version), which is an okay compromise if we're stuck with a molded piece for him (though maybe his head rotates? not sure, it might just be different camera angles).

I'm not sure if we ever saw these in the cartoons (at least not the ones in the 70's), but in addition to the Mystery Machine itself we get plane, boat, and motorcycle in Mystery Machine colors.

Bruce

There is the biggest set which is very castle-ish. I happen to be THRILLED about this line. I've been a Scooby loving human since I first saw it. It may be the only sets I am actually excited about coming out. I'm sure that will change, but for now, my summer LEGO budget is heading straight to Scooby...and my stock piled VIP points.

I'm very excited for this! Brickninja tipped us off to this last July. I'm starting with the mansion and Mystery Machine to get the whole gang. I kinda wish the mansion had a layout more similar to the MF haunted house set, only smaller (and cheaper!) of course.

Hey,

Brick 101 was lucky enough to get some pre-released sets from Warner Brothers for review. The first video is here in which he looks at the figs. It looks like he has all the sets, so presumably over the next couple of weeks he will post detailed reviews of each one. One thing he noted was that Scooby's head rotates and can be removed, so you could swap the 'scared Scooby' head from the walking Scooby body to the sitting Scooby body.

Also, I don't know if it had ever been addressed here, but I had wondered why a Scooby Doo theme at this time. Scooby is a Warner Brothers property, and WB also made the LEGO Movie, so I had assumed that it just grew out of the business deal between theme (Wizard of Oz is also WB, which is presumably how that ended up in the Dimensions game) (though I'm still hoping for an Oz mini-theme, maybe a couple of sets). Anyway, I was doing some Googling around and found that WB is creating 450 new episodes of Scooby and Bugs Bunny cartoons for the Boomerang Network as part of Boomerang's push to catch up with Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Sprout in the kids-TV area. So I guess WB was interested in pushing Scooby out into the market in different ways. Of course this also raises the question of whether there might be a Loony Tunes theme at some point in the future.

Bruce

These are pretty neat, I like the look of the figures. I don't think that at this point I plan on picking up any due to budget constraints, but it's a good-looking theme nonetheless.

I now own all but the Mystery Machine set...but it is on it's way. My thoughts:
1) These are as well designed as the Indiana Jones sets..and those were a-freaking-mazing
2) The parts in these sets...the colors are not necessarily castle, but they are really good. I don't mind fun colors.
3) The minifigs rock! First, to have scooby in more than one pose is wonderful. Shaggy's wig is great. Daphne's wig is great. The bad guys...really well done.
4) This pumpkin...happiness, joy, and butterflies!!! They are my new favorite. I would like 10 more please.
5) My only negative comes here...the instructions are...well...extremely over simplified. Tons of steps where you just put one piece. Now I get that I am not the target audience for this line, so I can understand, and do. But...it is slightly annoying to have to flip thru 5 pages to put 8 bricks in place.
6) The knight has a really sweet torso.
7) Those of you crazy for profile bricks...the light house has more dark red ones than the pirate set that had them. Nice to see them again.
(I hate that smilie..always ruining my lists) I actually am putting the stickers on...like I did with Indy, because they are that good.