LEGO Systems Takes Home Top Honor at Prestigious Toy of the Year Awards -Company Wins Construction, Specialty Categories and Overall Toy of the Year Categories- NEW YORK, Feb. 18, 2017 NEW YORK, Feb. 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL TOY FAIR -- LEGO Systems, Inc., the North American division of the world's leading construction toy manufacturer, was honored with three Toy of the Year (T.OT.Y.) Awards, including the coveted overall Toy of the Year recognition. LEGO® Friends Amusement Park Roller Coaster garnered the top award of the night, overall Toy of the Year, and Construction Toy of the Year, while an additional LEGO building set won the Specialty Toy category. The awards were presented at the Toy Industry Association's annual gala to celebrate the best and most innovative toys, held Friday, February 17 in New York City. "We are honored that LEGO sets have been named the gold standard in their respective categories and thrilled with the recognition from the industry and consumers alike," said Michael McNally, senior director, brand relations at LEGO Systems.
"It is particularly satisfying as we celebrate the 5th anniversary of the mini-doll introduction that a LEGO Friends building set is named the overall Toy of the Year for 2016. Our designers will continue to deliver innovative and relevant building experiences to children of all ages and interests across the entire LEGO portfolio." 2016 Toy of the Year and Construction Toy of the Year: LEGO Friends Amusement Park Roller Coaster The LEGO Friends Amusement Park Roller Coaster is filled with detailed functions and accessories including a functioning roller coaster track, a drop tower, a mini-doll activated light-up brick and a spinning Ferris wheel with swinging gondolas. Providing builders with realistic characters, highly detailed interior elements and a rich storyline LEGO Friends has been successful in inviting many more children to try LEGO building. Toy finalists were selected from nearly 600 submitted toys, games and properties by nomination committees comprised of journalists, toy trend experts, play therapists, toy inventors and designers, and toy retailers.
Consumers were also invited to cast their votes online in each of the categories, as well as for the overall "Toy of the Year" award in an effort to celebrate the creativity and innovation of the toy industry. The LEGO tradition of innovation has been recognized with 19 T.O.T.Y. Awards since the program was established in 2000, including honors for LEGO NINJAGO™, BIONICLE®, LEGO Harry Potter™, LEGO Soccer, LEGO & Steven Spielberg MovieMaker Set, CLIKITS™, LEGO KNIGHTS' KINGDOM™, LEGO Star Wars™, LEGO City, LEGO MINDSTORMS® NXT 2.0, LEGO Friends, LEGO Fusion, LEGO Juniors and LEGO Architecture , in categories of most innovative toy, best boys' toy, best girls' toy, educational toy, activity toy of the year, specialty toy and overall toy of the year. About the LEGO Group The LEGO Group is a privately held, family-owned company with headquarters in Billund, Denmark, and main offices in Enfield, USA, London, UK., Shanghai, China, and Singapore. Founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen, and based on the iconic LEGO® brick, it is one of the world's leading manufacturers of play materials.
This time, I picked a set I was super excited about, the CITY Fun in the Park set. It’s a pretty small set, considering the price (only 157 pieces for $39.99, when lots of sets have twice the pieces for 2/3 the price.) Thing is, though, it’s atypical in a major way. Unlike all other sets I’ve ever seen, this one really focuses on the minifigs, of which there are fifteen! The builds are secondary, and very minor: there’s a small merry-go-round, a picnic table, a bench, and a hot dog cart. The highlight here is not just the number of minifigs, but their features. There’s a baby (more on this below) a few kids, various grownups, a mustachioed gentleman, seniors, and best of all: a man in a wheelchair. This is the first time a wheelchair has appeared in LEGO, and it’s a big deal. LEGO has a very mixed record when it comes to this, particularly in terms of gender and race. The disabled haven’t appeared at all in minifig form, which is ironic since LEGO are used by a number of disability-focused organizations.
Anyway, the wheelchair is really nice, with rubber-edged wheels. I hope we will see disabled minifigs included in more sets in the future. The rest of my critique really focuses more on why I was personally super pumped about this set. When I saw it was going to be released, it really felt like it was made *just for me*. Honestly, with just a few additions, it could have been. I didn’t build this set alone. My 7yo built it with me, or rather I watched while she assembled. She really enjoyed the build, and unlike other sets, didn’t need me to help much. She particularly loved matching the minifig pieces. The build items were all small and she was able to figure out each one from the directions on her own. As for me, I appreciated that there are no stickers in this set. She had two favorite items in the set: the baby (more on that below) and the mustachioed gentleman. She’s obsessed with cooking shows and loved this contestant from the Great Food Truck Race. The mustachoied guy immediately sparked her imagination.
While my kid really enjoyed the assembly, she also disliked some aspects of the set. In particular, she wasn’t impressed with the park items (me neither) and truly hated the fact that there is no included baseplate (me too.) My kid loves soccer, but the single-piece soccer goal and white soccer ball left her completely indifferent. I can’t blame her: there’s no build value and really no point in playing with such a fiddly item. The most complicated piece, the merry-go-round, wasn’t super interesting to her either. She abandoned it quickly. Surpisingly, she liked the picnic table and placing the family around it. Its scale was just right. Long story short: she played with the set for a while, and stayed busy during a sweltering afternoon. Sadly she still prefers LEGO friends. Last spring I taught a senior lab about playgrounds. As part of their research, they designed a playground, and since there were a bunch of LEGO lying around, they modeled the playground in LEGO.
This allowed them to work out proportion and develop the shapes and features in the playground. I found out about the CITY Fun in the Park set halfway through the semester and could not wait to get my hands on it. Waiting until the summer was tough. I even briefly worried that LEGO would do such a good job with the set that it would overshadow my students’ work. I need not have worried. While the set minifigs are really nice and numerous, the build items are lame. The best build in the set is actually the lawnmower, which isn’t exactly a common sight in a playground (or park, even. Who uses a push mower in a park? A riding mower makes more sense.) The second best is the picnic table, but my students made good ones in their project, too. The merry go round is tiny and those are becoming all but extinct in parks due to safety concerns anyway. In other words: this set isn’t a park or a playground, really. It’s just a bunch of every day items and neat every day minifigs. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but you would be in for disappointment if you chose the set from its name.
THREE: THE FAMILY (BABY!!!) The true highlight of this set is the BABY. I’m pretty sure this is the first minifig baby, and it is ADORABLE, with tiny cute minifig hands and a tiny cute bald head. The baby comes with a stroller and bottle, too. My 7yo was completely in love with the baby, particularly as it finally allowed us to make minifig Smith family. The set’s dad pretty much already looks like my husband, complete with beard and plaid shirt. The little girl in the set had the wrong hair, but I had light brown hair from another set. And though the mom in this set looks nothing like me, a minifig from the City Hall set is pretty good (purple scarf FTW!)There are plenty of sets I only look at once and then am done with. This one, I’m gonna keep and keep playing with. Is this set worth buying? Do you like LEGO primarily as a fan of Star Wars or Ninjago or superheroes? Then save your money. Do you have lots of CITY sets and want more minifigs to complete streetscapes?