The Best Idea Yet 🧱 LEGO: Earth’s Biggest Toy Biz

The Best One Yet

Nick & Jack Studios

News, Business

4.7 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

To hear the rest of this episode, follow The Best Idea Yet here: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/

Click… That satisfying sound of Lego bricks has brought joy to millions of kids - and adults (kidults?) for more than 70 years. But did you know it all started in a Danish carpenter's workshop during WWII? And that boxes of Lego were used to smuggle grenades to resistance fighters? Today, family-owned Lego is the biggest toy company on earth, but this plastic empire almost came tumbling down more than once. Lego dodged disasters (four fires), product mis-steps (bangle bracelets?), and some spectacular business snafus before taking over the world brick by brick — All thanks to the founder’s visionary son. Find out why every Lego piece is precision-engineered to 0.005 mm, how Jar Jar Binks breathed new life into minifigures, and why Lego is the best idea yet.

Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet for the untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with, and the bold risk takers who brought them to life.

Episodes drop every Tuesday, subscribe here: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Nick. This is Jack. And on this lovely Saturday, Jack and I are serving up a sample of our weekly show, The Best Idea Yet.
0:09.0	Our second show. It does deep dives on the most viral products of all time. Now, Yetis, we got your back. We got a special one for you today. Today, it's Lego, the toy that brings the entire world together. Doesn't it, Jack?
0:20.8	Literally. Yeah, it does. Literally. Lego has a unifying theme, though toy that brings the entire world together, doesn't it, Jack? Literally.
0:21.4	Yeah, it does, literally.
0:22.4	Lego has a unifying theme, though, that is a shockingly sophisticated business model.
0:27.6	Oh, this is so good.
0:28.6	And it is dedication to that theme why Lego is the number one top-selling toy in the world.
0:35.2	So sit back, relax, and enjoy this sample of the best idea yet. And then once you're
0:39.6	done listening, go make sure to listen to the rest of the episode, because you got to hear the whole
0:43.4	story and subscribe to the show on the show page. We have a link in the show notes. Subscribe to the
0:48.5	best idea yet. Now here we go. Let's hit it, Jack.
1:00.5	So, Nick, to make inroads into Germany's toy market, Lego made roads.
1:01.2	Literally.
1:07.3	They created Lego products that kids could use to create cities and streets.
1:11.4	Perfect for every Hansel and Gretel who dreamed of driving their father's Porsche one day. And at the heart of this grand road plan was the Lego Town Plan. It's a Lego
1:18.5	baseboard with streets drawn on it and studded spaces where you could put the buildings. It comes
1:23.6	with Lego bricks, windows, and doors, and instructions for building houses and shops,
1:28.5	gas stations, and hotels.
1:29.9	This is the first Lego set built with Gott's new system and play as its guiding principle.
1:35.3	And this is wild, Yetis.
1:37.3	But Lego even got the sets endorsed by Denmark's traffic police as a way to teach kids about road safety at a time when the use of cars was on the rise.
1:47.3	Legos was DMV-approved. Although we should point out, Jack, that at this point, there are no Lego cars.
	...

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