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CARLSBAD: LEGOLAND(R) Inauguration model still attracting crowds.
By Renee Ramsey - For the North County Times. Jan. 31, 2009
CARLSBAD - Ten days after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, crowds
still were lining up to see a facsimile fashioned from thousands of miniature
plastic bricks at LEGOLAND California.
“I knew it was going to be a big deal, because of the importance of the
inauguration,” said LEGOLAND Master model designer Gary McIntire. “I didn’t
think it was going to explode quite the way it did.”
At the Carlsbad theme park Thursday, McIntire signed autographs for
camera-wielding visitors at the 7-foot-tall fake Capitol building and described
his first Facebook message of the day. “It said, ‘Are you Gary the LEGO guy from
CNN?’” he said.
Kristi Klein, a toy model designer who worked with McIntire on the LEGObama
set, said she received 1,000 hits on her blog on one recent day versus a normal
10 or 12.
“It’s amazing,” Klein said, adding that some wanted tips on how to make their
own LEGO Obama.
Julie Estrada, one of three members of the LEGOLAND public relations team that
came up with the idea to create the toy inauguration, still was fielding news
media calls this week, she said. A New Zealand radio station wants an interview
in February.
“I don’t think any of us expected the international attention,” Estrada said.
The news coverage that has spread to 48 states and dozens of countries since the
faux inauguration Jan. 15 and real one Jan. 20, she said.
McIntire and Klein have adjusted the inauguration’s 4-inch-tall toy figures in
the park’s Miniland USA section to reflect clothing worn for the real event in
Washington, D.C. The original outfits had been based on guesswork, they said,
adding that the president’s dark suit and red tie proved a good guess.
Michelle Obama’s red dress now is made of yellow bricks. First daughter Sasha’s
outfit now is pink with an orange-brick scarf. An ornate letter “B” borrowed
from a Harry Potter Lego set was added to the swearing-in Bible.
Klein attached tiny gray blocks to “Aretha Franklin’s head” to mimic the hat
with a big bow that the legendary singer wore to the inaugural.
“Aretha was pretty challenging,” Klein said about creating one of the more buxom
figures on the fake Capitol steps. “She’s sort of a nonstandard Miniland shape.”
For McIntire, “the most challenging was trying to recreate Michelle Obama,” he
said. “Short girl hair on Miniland people is hard to do. Curly hair, no problem.
Pony tails, no problem. But shoulder-length female hair is the most difficult.”
Finding the Oprah figure on the set has become a Where’s Waldo?-style pastime
for many visitors, McIntire said.
“She’s up on the left side of the balcony,” he added.
Klein said she had the most fun creating the uniformed Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“It was fun to get each one right, and on such a small scale,” she said.
Estrada said she’s having fun trying to keep a straight face at the critical
reviews that began appearing on Web sites this week.
“One blog said they didn’t have Dick Cheney in a wheelchair, and this fellow
wasn’t bald enough. I said, ‘Seriously?,‘” Estrada said, smiling.
In addition to building 500 new figures for the elaborate set, hundreds of
other figures are on loan from other areas of Miniland USA. The borrowed cast
includes Las Vegas tourists, hundreds more children than appeared at the actual
event and even a banana-selling vendor.
Estrada found a way around a failure to add a minifigure of House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi to the set.
“We’ve had people ask, ‘Is that Pelosi?,’ and we’ve said, ‘Sure,‘” Estrada said.
“Minilanders don’t have faces, so they can be anyone.”
LEGOLAND Obama inauguration will remain on display through Memorial Day.
Monday, May 25, 2009
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/01/31/news/coastal/carlsbad/z7ac5dd79c5d0b3b98825754e0073f5eb.txt
-end of report-
If LEGO is reading this. Just a small thought, to management at LEGO Group &
LEGOLAND California invite President Obama, and his family a private visit to
LEGOLAND California. If he plans to visit California before Memorial day. If
he is not able to visit. It would a nice gesture and gift to send the small
model of the Obama’s miniland figures to the White House. Think of it... LEGO
in the White House and in the future in the Presidential Library.
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