Classic Space Question?

[Hrw-Amen]

For those who are old enough to remember?

When I was a lad many years ago my father would take me to our local toy shop which stocked LEGO. (It is long gone now.) When the classic space sets first appeared it was a very exciting time and we bought many of them, at least the smaller ones.

I recall that they had Minifigs in White and Red.

Did anyone else think of those as Americans and Soviets, or was it just me?

[Aanchir]

For those who are old enough to remember?

When I was a lad many years ago my father would take me to our local toy shop which stocked LEGO. (It is long gone now.) When the classic space sets first appeared it was a very exciting time and we bought many of them, at least the smaller ones.

I recall that they had Minifigs in White and Red.

Did anyone else think of those as Americans and Soviets, or was it just me?

Apparently not! According to this interview with set designer Mark Stafford, this was actually considered by the concept designers for the first Space sets. Of course, in later years of Classic Space, this didn't work so well, as additional colors of spacemen were added to the Space theme without any obvious real-world analogues.

Nowadays, the Classic Space theme and the "Neo-Classic Space" fan-theme are typically considered to be exploration themes with one unified faction of many-colored astronauts and very little conflict. This is probably in part inspired by the box art for these sets, which shows the always-smiling astronauts of those days working peacefully side-by-side. But this cooperative vision of the future was clearly not meant as a constraint on kids' imaginations, as the sets included enough lasers and color-coded uniforms for kids to use the sets for more conflict-based role play.

[Siegfried]

Apparently not! According to this interview with set designer Mark Stafford, this was actually considered by the concept designers for the first Space sets.

Oh my. I never thought that was the case, nor did it occur to me at all that it could be seen that way. Thanks for sharing that link!

[Hrw-Amen]

Um yes, well I can remember my dad asking me what i was doing, as that was not a laser gun it was a torch or a scanner. I mean, no it was definatley a laser!

I am glad I was not alone in that assumption then.

[August11]

For those who are old enough to remember?

When I was a lad many years ago my father would take me to our local toy shop which stocked LEGO. (It is long gone now.) When the classic space sets first appeared it was a very exciting time and we bought many of them, at least the smaller ones.

I recall that they had Minifigs in White and Red.

Did anyone else think of those as Americans and Soviets, or was it just me?

My first classic space set was the little rocket launcher. It came with a white and a red; the pictures showed red as the driver and white as the radar operator, so I figured they were on the same team. I immediately made a Star Trek connection--reds were all about mechanicals and whites were the scientists. Later Blues were command...

But I imagine if my first set had all one color, it would look more like nationalities. Especially in 1978--talk about the depths of the cold war...

[Rufus]

My first classic space set was the little rocket launcher. It came with a white and a red; the pictures showed red as the driver and white as the radar operator, so I figured they were on the same team. I immediately made a Star Trek connection--reds were all about mechanicals and whites were the scientists. Later Blues were command...

Star Trek! That explains why the reds were always the ones to get killed (nothing to do with the fact that I had many more reds that any other colour )

I always had the black spacemen as commanders. The classic spacedudes looked badass in black.

[gcanik]

My first Lego sets were the Classic Space sets of the late 1970s but I never imagined or envisioned the different colored figures representing U.S. or Russian allegiances until I read this post just now. Totally weird, I like others have said assumed the different colors of figures represented different jobs for the astronauts. This is kind of mind blowing thirty plus years later.

[horizon]

Yup, I also had the "job" approach.

iirc white as scientists, red as military. Can't recall blue.

With black suits as commanders.

Being replaced by the Futuron black suits in chain of command haha.

[Hoboman]

Yup, I also had the "job" approach.

iirc white as scientists, red as military. Can't recall blue.

With black suits as commanders.

Me as well. I used the colors to "organize" my group. I did not see them as seperate factions. And to be fair, at that time I did nto really understand the whole cold war dynamic that I do now as an adult.

[snefroe]

Oh my. I never thought that was the case, nor did it occur to me at all that it could be seen that way. Thanks for sharing that link!

wait a minute... that is not what he said. he says they envisioned a space race between red and white astronautes. there's no reference to Sovjets or the US. Besides, many sets have a mixed crew of red and white, so at best it was just an idea at some point of its development...

[Hrw-Amen]

Yes a lot did have mixed crews, but I always thought that was just to give them something for them both to shoot at, (Similar to the newer AC sets.) but that once you had bought a few of them it was easy to crew your vehicles from one faction or the other and share them out to one side or the other often favouring the one you prefered at the time. Maybe I just watched too much news back then!

[egosheep]

wait a minute... that is not what he said. he says they envisioned a space race between red and white astronautes. there's no reference to Sovjets or the US. Besides, many sets have a mixed crew of red and white, so at best it was just an idea at some point of its development...

No, he said: "they envisioned it as a competitive ‘space race’ between astronauts in white and cosmonauts in red." Cosmonauts were Russian.

[charlieboy]

Its something that ive never even considered! As a kid they were my toys,all colours were mixed together and performed whichever job i wanted them too. The cold war meant nothing to a 6/7 year old boy living in the UK.I can see why adults at the time may have read more into it, atleast maybe if you were Russian or American, everybody else just played with the ships and had fun swooshing them about!

Edited June 26, 2011 by charlieboy

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

Interesting! I never thought about this. To me, they were always happy men with perfect lives cooperating for the same faction. I'm glad it stayed that way, and Classic Space was always peaceful.

[Aanchir]

Something else I've learned from the Space issue of Brickjournal, in an interview with a Classic Space designer, is that once the other colors of astronauts were introduced, they were given role-based rather than faction-based meanings. According to Jens Nygaard Knudsen, "The original two colors were explorers, yellow were scientists, blues were technicians or mechanics, and I guess the black were warriors, but we were not allowed to make a big deal out of this. We were not allowed to make war." Based on this, I guess we can conclude that by the time other colors were being introduced the "competing factions" idea had been abandoned entirely, replaced by the spirit of unity that so many people associate with Classic Space today.