It started out as an idea by Ivan Guerrero (aka. bulldoozer) who submitted the project to LEGO Ideas. If you don’t know what LEGO Ideas is, it’s a platform for everyday fans & builders to showcase and submit their ideas for LEGO to potentially make them into real, purchasable sets. The struggle is gaining the 10k supporters needed to see it through to the review stage. To find out more head over to Ideas.lego.com.

When I was younger I used to watch Sesame Street, so when I heard LEGO were producing a set based on the 1969 show I knew I had to get it and add it to my growing collection, I may have to add to it and slot in between my Modulars!

A friend of mine, Martin (a.k.a LEGO Fan UK) was fortunate enough to interview the creator on his YouTube Channel, I’ll embed the video at the end of the review.

The Build:

When it comes to building LEGO I like to take my time and enjoy it, rightfully so, but when I received this as a Christmas present from my Wife I was like a Child again and couldn’t wait to open it!

Box art

It’s not often my Wife asks to help construct it, lets just say she isn’t into LEGO as much as I am and leave it there, she could’t wait just as much as me.

The box follows suit of the recent 18+ theme, with its dark background and brightly coloured informaiton banner along the bottom, in this instance the banner is Green to match the town of the set.Along with it the instruction manual is also black and features the five and a half Minifigures on the front. it is surprisingly chunky for the part count, 1367 in total, I guess i’m comparing it to LEGO Modulars when I shouldn’t.

Instruction manual

As always with LEGO Ideas sets the manual features a nice welcome message and a brief history of the source material and product. The same can be found here with details on the TV show, it’s makers and puppets, the set creator and the LEGO designers that made it possible.

Welcome to 123 Sesame Street

Slide out the rest of the boxes contents and you’re presented with a sticker sheet and six numbered bags, some numbers having multiple smaller bags inside.

Stickers glorious stickers

Bag one starts of very easy and straightforward as you’d expect, it makes the base and basement area of the set. It uses two 16×16 grey baseplates and several smaller ones for the foundations. I particularly like the way the pavement curves and makes the whole set into a corner building, great for eventually inserting into my Cityscape.

Bag one

I love it when LEGO sneak in some extra detail, here they have put a Spider and its Web under the whole building which you can just make out through the basement window.

It’s the small things that count, details

Bag two adds most of the ground floor and a whole host of details and Easter eggs. From Elmo and his Family members to an orange ball and a wall mounted telephone.

Ground floor

The ground floor features Elmo’s residence, with his sleeping quarters and train set.

LEGO and their design team do a great job when it comes to architecture, I really like the window style used here. The dark tan colour really compliments the green window frames. Leaving the bottom window slots open like that works so well in the whole look of it.

On the side you’ll find Big Bird’s house, well his basket and tree. It’s not until the final bag (6) that we add the finishing touches to the overall build.

Ground floor interior

I’ve always like the way LEGO beds look, there’s something just so aesthetically pleasing about them. The ultimate bed would have to be the one from the Destiny’s Bounty set, you can actually place a Minifigure in it and tick them in!

Bag three – first floor

Bag three builds up the building and adds the first floor, this is where Bert & Ernie reside.

With the outer shell the main focus here we do however add a few details and a mini-build inside the apartment. A shelf with books, a dark blue curtain, and of course the iconic bath tub and rubber ducky!

The bath tub is really nice and well designed, the classic style tub with its gold feet and taps looks amazing and the added blue & white rug finishes off the bathroom nicely.

Bert & Ernies apartment

Bag four adds some much needed details to the front of the building as well as more beds and furnishings to the interior.

Bag four – exterior & interior details

Windows, exterior details and bedding etc on the inside, bag four is very much a filler bag. We make both Bert and Ernie’s beds, which are identical in construction but super enjoyable to build, again I don’t know what it is about LEGO beds I like, I just do!

First floor furnishings

More stickered tiles and accessories here featuring Bert & Ernie’s friends. There’s a nice clock sticker that sits above the bookshelf and behind their dark green armchair. It’s quite a small but cosy apartment, with their bedroom, sitting area, and bath all in the same room, I don’t recall it being like that in the TV show, but this is LEGO so a bit of  forgiveness is given.

Bag five adds Hooper’s Store, it features an outdoor seating area for the lunch counter and a well stocked general store.

Hooper’s Store sign

Big Bird often frequents Hooper’s Store for a Birdseed Milkshake, it’s a shame the designers didn’t include one.

It also acts as a newsstand and features two new sticker prints. ‘Super Grover saves the day again‘ and a rather concerning headline that reads ‘Winter porridge shortage‘!

Read all about it!

I wonder if Hooper would mind if i slipped a ‘The Brick Post‘ custom tile into the basket, I’m sure Big Bird would love to read it.

Upstairs in, above the general store, is where a very greedy monster lives, the Cookie Monster!

Cookie Monster’s residence

This was one of my favourite yet equally worst parts of the build as it features some really cool and retro elements. From the VHS player and cassette tape to the classic TV and framed picture of Count Von Count. The yellow chair looks really comfortable with it’s accompanying footstool, who wouldn’t want to sit there and stuff cookies in their face. The bad point is with the actual building itself and the open sides. From a display point of view it truly is terrible, from any front facing angle you can see somewhat inside the rooms. Inserting it into a Cityscape brings with it a whole new set of problems, granted it’s not designed to slot into a City, if it has a side wall of sorts with one or two big sticker panels it would fit so much easier. There is a chance LEGO could expand on this set as along one edge of Hooper’s Store there are two pin holes, and as many Modular builders know this makes joining buildings together much easier – fingers crossed! 

Bag six – finishing touches

Bag six adds the final touches to an overall great set. We build the rest of Elmo’s furniture as well as the roof antenna, chimney, and air-conditioning unit. We also see some finishing touches to the outside also, with two giant stickers, which are quite nerve-wracking to apply.

Outside area

The two stickers in question are situated on the side of the building. Ones an advert and features Biff & Sully’s Construction Co., it is placed on a 5×5 red tile.

Biff & Sully’s Construction Co.

The other big sticker to apply is of a relatively new character, Abby Cadabby. She pops up during each season and stars in a handful of episodes throughout. Her popularity has grown and she is now a fan favourite. Her magic wand takes pride of place amongst her colourful garden.

Abby Cababby

Overall the set is stunning and I had so much fun building it. Usually these bigger sets do get a little repetitive but I’m happy to say this one isn’t at all!

The first bag is so easy going it gradually prepares you for the bags and build ahead. Even for a first time builder such as my Wife found it enjoyable and can’t wait to see what LEGO do next with this new found theme. I really do hope we get more Sesame Street in the future, there is so much material there to pull from. For starters it would be amazing to expand on the Minifigure selection, more on that below.

The Minifigures:

The Minifigures are key to any and every set regardless of what the build is, in my opinion as a Minifigure collector, and LEGO Ideas 123 Sesame Street 21324 has some of the best Minifigures of 2020.

The usual suspects

We get five, six if you count Oscar the grouch, these include:

• Big Bird
• Elmo
• Cookie Monster
• Bert
• Ernie
• Oscar the grouch

I don’t mean to offend Oscar the grouch but in my eyes he’s not classed as a Minifigure, due to the fact he’s just a head in a trash can, in LEGO form that is, sorry.

Starting in order of appearance, Big Bird. Big Bird is the first Minifigure we see and is included in the first bag we open.

Big Bird

He totally took me by surprise when i put him together. He is made up of standard Minifigure legs and a torso, although the legs are unique to this set, the main body piece is entirely rubber, which was a very pleasant surprise indeed.

Rubber body and unique legs

His wings may look familiar as they’ve been used before with the Chicken Minifigure.

This is personally in my top five Minifigures of 2020, and that’s coming from a collector of figs!

Cookie Monster and Elmo up next, and they each have rubber moulded heads. The paint jobs on both are outstanding and done to a very high calibre.

Cookie Monster & Elmo

If you look closely at the photo their legs differ slightly, Cookie Monster has the newer junior legs while Elmo has the smaller toodler legs. I think this works really well at scaling the Minifigures to what they’d be in ‘real life’.

Bert & Ernie have the same leg setup and it works even better here. They both have new torso prints which look amazing, i love the retro design and can see myself using them in MOCs.

Bert & Ernie

Again their heads are rubber and feature black paint for their hair, LEGO usually suffers when it comes to dark colours on light and as a result the darker colour looks faded, not her though, the black hair paint it solid and looks so good. I hope this is a sign of better paint/print jobs from LEGO.

Bert, being slightly talled, implements the junior legs while Ernie gets stuck withthe shorter ones. I’m a really big fan of the new bendy legs as it gives the Minifigure more room to move and pose. The quicker we lose the short toodler legs the better, in my opinion.

As I mentioned above Oscar the Grouch isn’t technically a Minifigure but i’ll mention him here no-the-less.

Oscar the Grouch

Oscar the Grouch is made up of two parts, a ball for the head and a green Minifigure head as his body (which is hidden inside the trash can). So now you see why he isn’t classed as a Minifigure.

That being said the head print is crisp and detailed enough for fans to instantly know who it is , although the trash can does give it away somewhat!

Overall the Minifigures are great and ultimatly make the set. Big Bird is the standout one for me and I’m so happy they got his spot on, yes his scale is a little off (short) for what we see on screen but he’s just big enough compared to the other Minifigures to stand tall.

The other Sesame Street Minifigures are cool and they’ll all be stood in my collection, pride of place!

LEGO Fan UK‘s interview with Ivan Guerrero is a must watch, please watch the video below and head over to Martin’s channel to subcribe for more. He also posts on Instagram.

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