Random set of the day: Bernard Bear and his Delivery Lorry
Posted by Huwbot,Today's random set is 329 Bernard Bear and his Delivery Lorry, released in 1979. It's one of 15 Fabuland sets produced that year. It contains 109 pieces and 1 minifig.
It's owned by 277 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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38 comments on this article
Hey it's your Uber driver here. Am outside.
Bernard Bear specializes in delivering creepiness and dead-eyed stares.
He appears to have forgotten to put tires on his wheels. I imagine you can here the sound of Metal on pavement from miles away.
Furniture delivery, that's just a front. But what is rolled up in that rug? What hidden compartments are in the dining set? What truly goes on in Fabuland?
Ah, Fabuland, you make me smile, even if the set you present me is, uh, a prefab truck and a handful of bricks.
I do like Bernard Bear though.
@MCLegoboy said:
"Furniture delivery, that's just a front. But what is rolled up in that rug? What hidden compartments are in the dining set? What truly goes on in Fabuland?"
All I hope is that they’re vegetarian, and don’t have butchers, animal testing, or animal farms.
You know these days, Bernie wouldn't have a delivery van, but a giant red and yellow bear-shaped robot armed to the teeth with laser cannons and stud shooters.
How in the world is this 109 pieces? Looks more around 20-30 to me.
@Romans122 said:
"How in the world is this 109 pieces? Looks more around 20-30 to me."
He was delivering a five-piece dining set, but he’s horrible at his job and it broke into about 90 little pieces, so now it’s a 109-piece set (including the 15-20 piece truck & Bernard).
@Romans122 said:
"How in the world is this 109 pieces? Looks more around 20-30 to me."
Most of the 109 pieces are 1x1 round tiles used to make a Fabuland map.
Cataloging error. The set has 27 pieces. All of them sinister.
https://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemInv.asp?S=329-2
@Romans122:
Now I know how people feel when they see MichLUG displays. They ask how many pieces are in the layout, and I now point to my new 1960’s Ford Good Humor ice cream truck (which is slightly smaller than this...thing) and inform them that, in its current build, it has 301pcs. They usually get this perplexed look and ask how I managed to fit that many pieces in such a small model.
Gonna use this to run the blockade from yesterday's set.
Not as frightening as most Fabuland sets but this gets an A grade. We know he's a booze smuggler or gun runner, right?
That bear does look pretty suspicious. Pity this truck doesnt have any of the nice radiator pieces from this theme.
Town set from 1997: scary, but kinda cute.
Fabuland set from 1979: cute, but kinda scary.
@guachi said:
"We know he's a booze smuggler or gun runner, right?"
That’s right. You’re looking at the Millenium Falcon of Fabuland.
Freddy hasn’t been looking so good since his restaurant closed
Not the best set, but love the bear.
Iconic
Funny enough, years later, a 3D animated cartoon series called Bernard Bear started airing on the Minimax kids' TV Network, starring a white bear that always gets into trouble.
Too bad LEGO didn't get a copyright for all those brilliant animal names...
Funny to think that while 109 pieces doesn't sound like much nowadays, it would be more than enough to build this set four times!
@CarolinaOnMyMind said:
"Bernard Bear specializes in delivering creepiness and dead-eyed stares. "
Nobody beats 3220 My Dad in a staring competition. Nobody.
@LegoDavid said:
"Too bad LEGO didn't get a copyright for all those brilliant animal names... "
You can’t copyright a name.
Hmmm...'continuity wise'; did Chima happen first, then 'evolve' into this once everyone got 'civil'...or was Fabuland first; then things got a little post-cataclysmic, and then broke-down...
@Zander said:
" @CarolinaOnMyMind said:
"Bernard Bear specializes in delivering creepiness and dead-eyed stares. "
Nobody beats 3220 My Dad in a staring competition. Nobody.
@LegoDavid said:
"Too bad LEGO didn't get a copyright for all those brilliant animal names... "
You can’t copyright a name.
"
I am pretty sure you can copyright characters though. Isn't Darth Vader a copyrighted character, for instance?
One of my first lego set. We had 2 of them with my brothers. All my Fabuland were thrown away, I don't know when, and I rebuilt all my collection and much more, sharing them in conventions. I build massive custom Fabuland dioramas.
Love the smart re-use of the head moulds for bears, raccoons and pandas
@brick_r said:
"Hmmm...'continuity wise'; did Chima happen first, then 'evolve' into this once everyone got 'civil'...or was Fabuland first; then things got a little post-cataclysmic, and then broke-down... "
I think it has to be Fabuland first, then Chima. All the kitschy aesthetic the Fabuland stuff has, it’s like pre-nuke Fallout
What happens in Fabuland, stays in Fabuland :)
Heaps better than this year's speed champions.
@LegoDavid said:
" @Zander said:
" @CarolinaOnMyMind said:
"Bernard Bear specializes in delivering creepiness and dead-eyed stares. "
Nobody beats 3220 My Dad in a staring competition. Nobody.
@LegoDavid said:
"Too bad LEGO didn't get a copyright for all those brilliant animal names... "
You can’t copyright a name.
"
I am pretty sure you can copyright characters though. Isn't Darth Vader a copyrighted character, for instance?"
You can copyright a character’s ‘expression’ in writing or graphical representation (drawing, painting, digital representation, photograph, film). However, when Fabuland was current, you couldn’t copyright a 3D representation. That would come much later which is why LEGO at the time was mostly protected by patents.
As for names, if you wanted to sell sunglasses and call them Shadowfax, you absolutely would be able to do so legally. There is nothing the Tolkien Estate could do in law to stop you. In 1986, Empire Pictures released a modern fantasy movie with a boy protagonist called Harry Potter. When J.K. Rowling later came out with her own Harry Potter, the character was sufficiently different that there was nothing Empire could do to stop her and her publisher (Bloomsbury, I think). By itself, the name Harry Potter is not and cannot be subject to copyright.
@Mr__Thrawn said:
"He appears to have forgotten to put tires on his wheels. I imagine you can here the sound of Metal on pavement from miles away."
If you look closely, there are tires, they're just the same color as the wheels. Unless they're not just the same color but the same material, in which case we're back to horrible design choices.
@Zander said:
" @LegoDavid said:
" @Zander said:
" @CarolinaOnMyMind said:
"Bernard Bear specializes in delivering creepiness and dead-eyed stares. "
Nobody beats 3220 My Dad in a staring competition. Nobody.
@LegoDavid said:
"Too bad LEGO didn't get a copyright for all those brilliant animal names... "
You can’t copyright a name.
"
I am pretty sure you can copyright characters though. Isn't Darth Vader a copyrighted character, for instance?"
You can copyright a character’s ‘expression’ in writing or graphical representation (drawing, painting, digital representation, photograph, film). However, when Fabuland was current, you couldn’t copyright a 3D representation. That would come much later which is why LEGO at the time was mostly protected by patents.
As for names, if you wanted to sell sunglasses and call them Shadowfax, you absolutely would be able to do so legally. There is nothing the Tolkien Estate could do in law to stop you. In 1986, Empire Pictures released a modern fantasy movie with a boy protagonist called Harry Potter. When J.K. Rowling later came out with her own Harry Potter, the character was sufficiently different that there was nothing Empire could do to stop her and her publisher (Bloomsbury, I think). By itself, the name Harry Potter is not and cannot be subject to copyright."
The name “Harry Potter” can be trademarked not copyrighted (you cannot copyright a name; LEGO could however trademark the Fabuland names) but the trademark only protect the name from being used in similar contexts. For example, a kid’s fantasy book series with a protagonist called “Harry Potter” is in violation of the trademark, however a pottery company with the same name is fair game. Trademarks are to prevent market confusion, so as long as your usage of the name, term or phrase is unlikely to mislead consumers, it’s fine.
Copyright, meanwhile, applies to the work itself. With Harry Potter, the copyright would protect the specifics of the plot, world and other aspects that make Harry Potter unique.
In reference to an above comment, the name “Darth Vader” is copyrighted not trademarked. What’s trademarked is the design of Darth Vader.
One of my first Fabuland sets when I was a kid, still have it! Fabuland was the best!
As one of the lesser known Space themes, Fabuland often gets overlooked for MOCs.
Fortunately Mark Stafford corrected that somewhat years ago, but I’m not sure anyone has really followed in his footsteps.
So this is what happened to the bears that drive cars when the major circuses closed down.
This is not 109 parts
Aside of my previous 'thoughts', two other thoughts popped into my head on Fabuland:
-TLG (or whatever it was back then) missed an opportunity back then; they could've gotten a contract with Richard Scarry, and may it 'Busytown', or something like that.
-TLG really could and should bring this back, and modernize it as a '4+' series; and that already have an 'in': Repurpose the 'antho' characters from 'Vidiyo', and more. Retooling 'Chima' characters would work too, esp. if their heads got simplified (turned into one-piece, instead of a head-on-a-head...).
Just some thoughts...:)
@brick_r:
Revisiting this question, this guy definitely becomes the Road Bearrior of Chima.
@Zander:
You could always hand a 3D representation of the character to someone in the company and say, “Here, draw this.” You could then submit the drawing for trademark registration. The reason so many things were patented was to protect their shapes and function. To a company like this, the minifig design is far more valuable than any single original character that has been released as a minifig. You can protect it with patents for a time, but by nature they eventually expire. Trademarks do not, but can be revoked if you don’t defend them to the Court’s satisfaction.
It’s also worth noting that patents, trademarks, and copyrights work differently across national borders. What protections they provide in the US are very different from what they provide in China.
When Apple Corps sued Apple Computer for trademark infringement, the outcome was not a sure thing. Following at least three other legal battles, the end result was that Apple Inc (formerly Apple Computer) bought the rights to all Apple-related names and logos from Apple Corps and licensed them back to Apple Corps, which allowed them to establish “first use” over a musician who had used the name “Apple Jazz” and register Apple Music.
What you can legally get away with also depends a lot on how deep your pockets are, and how good your lawyers are. Steve Jobs announced the impending release of the first iPhone at a time when another company was still selling a product named the “iPhone”. Apple then proceeded to throw money at the problem until they owned the iPhone name, and could effectively claim ownership of the “iNaming” convention. Now, if anyone else tries to market an iProduct, they will be buried under lawyers.
A few years before the first Harry Potter book was published, DC’s Vertigo imprint released a miniseries called The Books of Magic, which introduced a character named Timothy Hunter. Tim was British, had dark hair, glasses, a troubled home life, and soon learned that he was a wizard of considerable talent. I’ve read that Rowling once made a comment acknowledging that she was aware of, and perhaps inspired by this depiction, before publishing her first book, but nothing ever came of it. I do wonder if this played any role in WB being awarded the film rights, perhaps to abandon any expensive legal challenges.
@TheRightP_art:
I think you reversed that last bit about Darth Vader. Otherwise it contradicts the first part of your post.
@Lego_mini_fan:
Bricklink lists it as 26pcs plus one “minifig”, which appears to ship as a single piece. So that would be 27pcs plus 82 tears from the child who opened this.
@brick_r:
Prior to 1999, they showed little interest in licensing deals. At the time Fabuland was shipping, they may not have been able to afford them.
@Brickalili said:
" @brick_r said:
"Hmmm...'continuity wise'; did Chima happen first, then 'evolve' into this once everyone got 'civil'...or was Fabuland first; then things got a little post-cataclysmic, and then broke-down... "
I think it has to be Fabuland first, then Chima. All the kitschy aesthetic the Fabuland stuff has, it’s like pre-nuke Fallout"
This turned dark quickly, LEGO Fabuland, rated M for Mature?