Follow the Plastic Brick Road

The red team was having a panic attack. Gov. Pete Wilson had long been obsessed with making sure that Legoland, a proposed $130-million venture, be built on a mesa in the San Diego suburb of Carlsbad. And for good reason. Not only would the theme park boost the regional economy, it would send a signal that the recession-beset Golden State, knocked to its knees by military-base closures and the dismantling of the aerospace industry, was back in business. There were, however, many other suitors nationwide. So the Wilson administration had formed a “red team” beeper-and-cell-phone squad to arrange a package of million-dollar inducements and stand ready 24 hours a day to answer queries from Lego’s corporate headquarters at Billund, Denmark.

Then, the day before Wilson was to meet with Lego World executives at a Carlsbad resort, the Rodney King riots broke out. Just 81 miles up the coast bullets were flying, television sets were being “liberated” and grocery store shelves stripped of goods. Would the Danes, coming from a tidy land where murder is rare and mayhem unknown, be scared away like innocents fleeing a slobbering giant in some postmodern Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale? Would the nearby chaos renew concerns that the quiet, thoughtful attraction Lego envisioned might not fit in a culture that tends to be raucous even on riot-free days?

Taking a moment from his duties directing the California National Guard, Wilson called the worried Danish businessmen to reassure them that California was indeed the ideal spot to build a park dedicated to the childhood cult of red, white, blue and yellow plastic bricks.

For the Danes, deciding where to put their first American theme park was the riskiest decision in the history of the carefully controlled company. True, Lego parks opened at Billund in 1968, and in Windsor, England, in 1996, have been big draws. Their gentle rides and Lego models and pastoral ambience are a hit. But that’s Europe and this is America.

If you have children, or know any children, or have a flicker of childishness left inside, you know Lego bricks. They’re plastic and they’re ubiquitous: 80% of the world market for toy building materials, 189 billion of the little devils sold since 1949. “Lego isn’t just a toy, it’s a way of life,” explains one San Diego accountant as he patrols the Lego aisle at PlayCo, his 8-year-old son, Billy, tugging at his sleeve in a fit of “buy-me-buy-me.”

Stroll the aisles of your local toy store and there they are, bright and appealing: multilingual Lego boxes, Lego buckets, “free-style” Legos (up to 1,200 pieces) that can be snapped together into the shape or fantasy of your choice, and other Lego sets where the bricks are designed for specific tableaus: Lego System Underwater, Lego System Cowboys and Indians, Lego System Pirate Ship, Lego System Samurai Swords, Lego System Sea Hunter, Lego System Chopper Cops, Lego System Bug Blaster, Lego System Outback Airstrip, Lego System Armada Flagship, Lego System Emergency Evac., Lego System Lunar Rover, and more--300-plus Lego designs, growing daily.

There are big Legos-Duplos--for toddlers keen to put toys in their mouths, and Lego Technic toys with micro-motors. There are Lego Scala dollhouses, Lego CD-Roms and Lego computer games. Is Lego, you ask, on the Internet? Bet your bottom kroner. Plus a magazine, Lego Mania. So many Legos were embedded in so many carpets (and so many adult feet) that in 1994, responding to parental demand, Lego began offering the “Brickvac,” a parrot-shaped vacuum cleaner.

Lego’s product may be small, but its corporate vision is not. Still owned and operated by relatives of founder Ole Kirk Christiansen, Lego Co. endowed a chair on the faculty at MIT to help in the design of its products. It celebrated its 65th anniversary by naming a star after itself in Ursa Minor. Despite a recent downturn in the company’s fortunes, which led to the first layoffs in company history, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, chief executive officer, has Lego’s sights set on becoming, by 2005, the world’s most powerful brand name among families with children.

That would require dethroning Mattel, Disney, Hasbro and several other household names.

Which brings us to Lego’s decision to jump the ocean and see if a modest-sized theme park dedicated to low-tech, hands-on fun can survive in an entertainment market increasingly driven by the need to satisfy the demand for things that are taller, faster and scarier. As a corporate entity, Lego is tightly controlled. It is collegial but not palsy, neither boastful nor diffident, quietly confident about its values and exceedingly reluctant to make fundamental or quick changes--in sum, what the outside world considers quintessentially Danish. Can a Lego park succeed in a land that awaits “Lethal Weapon 99”? Will the Danes discover something rotten in America has spoiled the market for childlike entertainment that does not go kaboom, ka-thump or whirl about at death-defying speeds?

“We’re focused on where the family wants to be, which is together,” says William P. Haviluk, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Lego Global Family Attractions. “The ‘Me Generation’ has grown up and now has ‘My Children’ and wants to spend time with them.” So Lego sees the world as its pastry.

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As it happened, the los Angeles riots didn’t scare off the Danes. By early 1993, the competition for the Legoland site was down from 25 hopeful U.S. locales to Prince William County, Va., and Carlsbad.

Struggling to overcome the national recession, both states were unashamed to use tax money and other inducements to lure out-of-state companies, and each had a governor with presidential aspirations: Wilson, a Republican, and Douglas Wilder, a Democrat, in Virginia.

Wilson’s red team rounded up a list of promised goodies that included a new freeway interchange and marketing expertise. The Legislature cooperated by changing the state’s unitary tax law that slapped heavy taxes on out-of-state corporations doing business in California. Virginia responded with even more expensive promises. A Danish American employee of Prince William County began monitoring the Danish press for clues about the Danish character and Lego’s thinking. In Carlsbad, a Danish American bakery owner, Peter Norby, volunteered to play the role of Scandinavian go-between. “Danes are not glad-handers, but they do enjoy being entertained,” he observed.

When both sides were invited to send delegations to Billund, Team California took a chance. Lego had asked for 10 representatives from each side to make the sales pitches. Virginia chose to send all suits. Carlsbad reserved a spot that might have gone to a state official or econometric expert for 10-year-old Paul Murray, a dedicated Lego-maniac. “When Paul made his speech to the Danes about millions of California children wanting a Lego park of their own, I knew we had it won,” Norby said.

Months later--after dozens of transatlantic phone calls, faxes and bargaining sessions--Lego announced that the decision would be unveiled at noon, Billund time. Both sides were sworn to secrecy. Wilder broke the embargo first, suggesting to reporters that Virginia had won the big competition. When word of Wilder’s confidence was relayed to Sacramento, Wilson’s chief of staff, Bob White, had a quick response: “(Bleep) Doug Wilder! There’s only going to be one press conference tomorrow, and it’s going to be in California!”

And indeed there was, in a ballroom at La Costa Resort and Spa, featuring Wilson and Lego executives, who said the balmy weather and the governor’s all-out pursuit had made the difference. As an added touch, a guy hired by the Carlsbaders--he stood about 6-foot-6, wore a horned Viking helmet and called himself Olaf--cried out joyously: “Mange, mange, tak.”

Loosely translated, that’s a Danish-Norwegian blend for: “Thank you for bringing us a theme-park attraction that will mean jobs, sales tax and property tax revenue, and a significant boost to our tourism industry, restaurants, lodging establishments and civic self-image.”

The good wishes of Olaf notwithstanding, there remained significant differences between the Danish and the Southern California beach town approaches to business (and life) that would have to be confronted before concrete could be poured and plastic bricks snapped together on the stunning 125-acre site just off Interstate 5.

For their part, the Carlsbaders may have given off an aroma of suspicion bred from bad experiences. The bones of a half-finished hotel remained on a hilltop for several years. An enticing plan for a Medieval Times restaurant had fallen flat after getting civic hopes high. A proposal for a Captain Nemo’s Submarine Ride sank. “Carlsbad has been burned, like a lot of cities, by developers,” says Norby. “But the Danes couldn’t understand how anyone wouldn’t trust them to do what they promised. They had to Americanize their thinking.”

Faced with opposition from homeowners worried that Lego would mean the “Disneylandization” of upscale Carlsbad, with budget hotels and fast-food places, the council put the matter to an advisory vote. Lego won but by a much smaller margin than Lego and its local boosters had hoped. Before final negotiations began, the Carlsbad city manager and others turned to the Danish Consulate in Los Angeles for a cultural preview. It was an eye-opener. Expect none of the faux fellowship that is common when Southern California land developers come knocking, they were told. No jokes, no small talk about football, no offer to continue negotiations over golf and margaritas.

At one social gathering, a Carlsbad official, chatting up a friendly Dane, attempted a compliment: “You’re so friendly, it’s hard to believe you’re Danish.” Soon, though, the Carlsbad contingent saw the company’s business side. “They were much more focused, more prepared than we expected,” says Carlsbad’s city manager. “They are very much power-book planners. They don’t rant or rave.”

Bill Haviluk, an American who worked for Six Flags Theme Parks Inc. before joining Lego, says simply, “I think we drive a hard bargain because we know what we stand for.”

In the end, both sides were happy about the agreements--with one exception that still rankles. From the start, the park was known as Legoland Carlsbad. The Danes even gave logo sweat shirts to city officials. Then one day last year, those officials looked up and saw that the name, for marketing purposes, had been unilaterally changed to Legoland California. “I still have heartburn,” says Mayor Claude “Bud” Lewis, one of Legoland’s most enthusiastic boosters.

The snub did not go unpunished. In February, Lego asked the City Council to name the street leading to the park Legoland Drive. The council said “nej.”

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With Legoland’s grand opening looming, the reserved Danes indulged in some old-fashioned American hype. Last summer, a Lego tour hit 25 cities and the company hammered the media with a decidedly un-Lego-like celebrity attack. Donny and Marie rode a Lego car, Howie Mandel cracked wise and Conan O’Brien called Lego “my favorite toy.” Looking very sad, the comedian added: “Actually, Legoland was built last year, but an older kid knocked it over.”

In fact, on a recent sunny day, master model-builders, many of them veterans of the Lego Windsor, were busy snapping into place the last of the park’s approximately 30 million Lego bricks, including 20 million for the “Miniland” models of Washington, D.C., Manhattan, New Orleans’ French Quarter and Griffith Observatory, among other nifty places. Eight hundred-plus employees, called “model citizens,” have been hired, most of them part-timers earning $6.75 an hour. They will, of course, be held to rigorous standards of grooming and cheerfulness, a touch that could be a nod to Denmark or Disney. When Legoland’s gleaming white gates open on March 20, however, American visitors will find that the Danes have made one clear concession to American culture.

Neither Billund nor Windsor, you see, has a mascot, greeter, or cartoonesque spokes-character. It’s just not Lego. But Americans like mascots: Sea World has Shamu; Disneyland, that mouse. Since profit is as Danish as, well, an apple Danish, the Danes conceded to the culture they hope to infiltrate and came up with “Buddy,” a corporate mime and “ambassador,” who will stroll the manicured, tightly themed grounds as a life-size Lego character, followed by a companion who will do his or her talking.

For the most part, however, the Danes have shunned market research. They have, for instance, brushed off suggestions that they inject adrenaline-junkie appeal into their park to penetrate the sensibilities of jaded young Americans. Instead, Legoland’s Imagination Zone offers a Lego-built bust of Einstein and the opportunity for kids to learn about the nexus between Legos and the principles of physics. If they feel adventuresome, visitors can build their own robot. That may strike some folks as dull, admits the park’s educational programs manager, “but wait until we show the link between the physical sciences and the Three Little Pigs’ home. That can be fun. That’s Lego.”

Elsewhere in the park, visitors will stroll the Village Green and gaze at Lego-made animals and ride a leaf-shaped boat through fairy tale scenes and maybe mosey to Fun Town or Castle Hill (all within easy shopping range of stores selling all things Lego).

Of the 40 rides and attractions, the wildest is the Dragon Coaster. But even it is a definite pink-knuckler, a gentle roll compared to the bone-crushers sprouting at other theme parks. What may strike visitors most about Legoland is what it lacks: attractions for the teenage-to-mid-20s group that most other theme parks covet. Legoland will not be a place for your graduation blowout (unless you are graduating from the third grade). Rather than giving children a park-within-a-park that is otherwise preoccupied with looping, whoop-and-whiplash-inducing rides, this park will focus on the younger, less-frenetic set. Teenagers are welcome. Most will be bored stiff.

The Lego mantra is that park-goers should expect something familiar, but done in a different way: smaller, less rushed, less pizzazz-filled. Bob Montgomery, general manager of Legoland California, uses the analogy of the Canadian Cirque du Soleil, a circus wholly unlike Barnum & Bailey’s. “We’re like that,” he says. “We’re a theme park but with elements you would more likely see in a science museum. We’re a theme park, but done in Lego style.”

Lego officials predict 1.8 million visitors the first year (Disneyland gets 14 million-plus). Tim O’Brien, editor of Amusement Business magazine, thinks Legoland will fit nicely with San Diego’s two main tourist attractions, the San Diego Zoo and Sea World, both geared to families. “Lego has positioned itself to be where the entertainment market is going: back to the kiddie parks of old, but on a more sophisticated level,” he says.

For their part, Lego-ites refuse to show the slightest doubt that their low-key displays and performers can compete with the grit of American television and the lure of monster-coasters based on Jurassic Park, Batman or Indiana Jones.

With stereotypical Lego confidence, the park’s entertainment manager explains: “We have jugglers who can wow kids as much as ‘Rugrats.’ When you watch a guy juggling while rolling on a giant ball, that’s pretty impressive.”