Lego Galidor: The Toy that Almost Bankrupted Lego

hello everyone and thanks for stopping

by i know you're here for galadore so

i'll make this quick i just wanted to

give a brief thank you for the

overwhelming amount of support i've been

given over the past month i know it

sounds funny coming from such a small

channel but the amount of positive

comments i've received from my videos

have been truly inspiring especially for

my latest video on the making of

bionicle which covers lego's early

development of the product line

for those of you who have subscribed for

part 2 of that series you'll be glad to

know that it is on the way

in the meantime i'd like to cover a

different side of lego a side that

revealed itself to me during my research

for the bionicle video

i came to learn that while the bionicle

team was busy working away on the iconic

toy line that arguably saved lego there

was another team far off in a dark

corner of lego headquarters building

something

far

far stranger

let's start with some pretext the year

was 1998 and lego had just experienced

their worst financial loss in history

due to an unfortunate series of bad

business decisions lego was flying full

tilt into the new millennia with each

blunder building off the other with so

many issues piling up legos struggled to

pinpoint the root of the problem and

that made it that much harder for them

to get a grip on the situation

one problem lego thought they had was

that they were growing out of touch

they started to think kids just weren't

into lego bricks anymore and who'd

blamed them

everything in the late 90s was high

octane edgy and ridden in limp bizkit

font

maybe lego just wasn't cool anymore

maybe they needed new blood new ideas

from younger minds to help usher lego

into the new millennia yeah that was it

lego wasn't showing up to y2k and old

hand-me-downs no sir lego was showing up

with frosted tips jinko jeans and a

brand spankin new razor scooter

i really wrote that in okay well

let's go with it the point is lego

didn't think they were cool anymore they

thought they needed a change and this

led the company to lay off their top

designers we're talking old danish guys

who'd been working there since the late

70s guys who knew their stuff and how to

create amazing products with lego

in their place lego hired 30 new

designers all young minds with fresh and

inventive ideas

now there's no doubt lego hired talented

new staff but designing with lego was a

completely different beast than

traditional toy development

how would their ideas compete with the

years of experience lego's previous

designers had with the company

that was the moment when lego asked who

said anything about building with lego

what ensued was one of the most

questionable phases of experimentation

lego ever underwent

of course the vast majority of lego

products were still made with lego but

after the turnover that was no longer

really at the top of their checklist

maybe this will put it into perspective

in 1998 there were high-level marketing

executives that genuinely believed that

the lego brick had gone out of fashion

essentially proclaiming it to be

obsolete

this was an observation made by niels

milan peterson one of lego's design

veterans that thankfully got to keep his

job

now it's important to note niels was not

one of the employees that thought this

but he was eventually forced to

participate

just before the turn of the millennium

lego approached niels with a brand new

project the company challenged niels and

his team to design a prototype line of

toy animals and action figures

the challenge was to design them to look

more organic with more lifelike parts

aka without traditional lego bricks

turns out the marketing team was getting

excited over a new product concept that

was working well in test groups

this concept incorporated the idea of

buildable action figures with

interchangeable parts a concept

popularized by chris faber who had

proposed something similar to the

company in 1995.

more on that in my bionicle video

the project was initially titled project

genesis and went through a rapid series

of developments during the concept stage

the initial idea of toy animals quickly

evolved into creatures and creatures

quickly evolved into aliens somewhere

along the line the name galador was

thrown into the mix and now lego had a

brand new sci-fi theme in the works

unfortunately the process around the

toys development phase really is that

blurry and there aren't many in-depth

details about the product's early stages

what is known however was lego's near

manic level of optimism towards the

project

big plans were being put in place to

make gallador success including a tv

show video games and comics

pressure was building for niels and his

team to make the toy a hit and it proved

to be quite stressful although the toy's

initial success in test groups helped to

ease the team's fears

interestingly galador sheds some light

on how large of a company the lego group

really is

while an entire promotional campaign was

being built for bionicle a completely

separate multi-million dollar budget was

being carved out for galador

it was quite impressive actually

two somewhat similar action figure toy

lines releasing at almost the exact same

time by the same company i mean

what could go wrong right

right that wasn't important lego was too

busy planning the next big move for the

project and that was the tv show

from early on it was decided that the

galadore tv show was going to be just as

much a part of the franchise as the toys

were and for that to work production

needed to start yesterday it was late

1999 when all these decisions were being

made and lego wanted to release the toys

with the show by 2002 at the latest so

they had better get a move on

lego ended up hiring a producer by the

name of tom lynch known well throughout

the industry for his diverse portfolio

of tween kids shows including the secret

world of alex mack kids incorporated and

the journey of alan strange

tom's original pitch for the show truly

impressed lego and captured the

company's vision for what the galador

theme could be

this gave the company a new surge of

confidence all over again and in january

of 2000 production began for galador

defenders of the outer dimension

now it's important to note that lego was

only partially invested in the

television show which is to say they

weren't the only company funding the

production with big players like disney

throwing their hat in the ring as well

regardless this was still quite the

financial risk for the company producing

television shows wasn't cheap and

finding networks to pick up the show

wasn't simple either

thankfully tom was an industry veteran

and was committed to making the show a

success

right out the gate tom became directly

involved with the lego team working

alongside designers to build the story

and characters in tandem as to somewhat

sink the production of both the show and

its toys

after a flurry of brainstorming sessions

tom would emerge with the story a wide

array of characters and of course its

main protagonist

galadore centered around a 15 year old

boy named

nick bluetooth who utilized

interdimensional travel by means of a

spaceship called the egg

but he didn't travel alone joining him

on his journey was the skittish robot

jens a furry blue alien named nepal an

anthropomorphic frog named europedis and

his human sidekick allegra zane who in

typical 2000's fashion used karate as

her secret weapon and as for nick

bluetooth's special skill

well

allow me to show you

[Music]

that's right nick's superpower granted

him the ability to transform his limbs

into parts of machines and organisms

gaining their abilities in the process

this mutant power was dubbed the glinch

and apparently gallador invited you to

experience it

glinching was the driving force behind

galador not only did nick utilize this

power throughout the tv show but it also

served as the main gimmick behind the

toys

all galador figures had detachable limbs

and heads allowing kids to mix and match

parts to create their own glitched out

action figure unfortunately that meant

you could do things like this

and this or this

and that's not even the worst of it

galador's own commercials showed off the

glitch and even that looked ridiculous

it was almost as if the producers saw

sid in toy story and just said that

let's let's do that but who were we to

judge apparently the concept performed

flawlessly among test groups and lego

was fully confident in moving forward

with the project having mapped out 15

unique toys for its initial release

meanwhile somewhere in montreal canada

production for the television show was

well underway

tom lynch approached the project with an

extraordinary level of enthusiasm laying

out multiple story arcs intended to span

five seasons

it was quite an ambitious and optimistic

undertaking considering the show was

starting off with just two seasons under

quite a conservative budget

those two seasons would span 26 episodes

with an air date set for sometime in

2002

production of the show leaned heavily on

green screen with an emphasis on cgi for

the show's visual effects

turns out much of tom's enthusiasm for

galadore translated into rather

enthusiastic writing making for some

pretty expensive scenes

one of the challenges of screenwriting

fantasy shows is developing an

entertaining body of work that still

adheres to the limits of a predetermined

budget it's akin to walking a tightrope

with entertainment on one side and

bankruptcy on the other there's a

balance to it and once tom's colleagues

got a hold of the scripts for the first

few episodes they realized what

direction tom was leaning

when they tried to push him in a cheaper

direction tom assured his team that he

could make it work

ultimately the galadore show was forced

to cut corners in a few places certain

scenes eventually had to be reworked and

the budget was set quite low for

character costumes

this meant that many of nick's alien

companions and his enemies would be

accomplished with actors in rubber suits

something that the production team

thought nothing of at the time

besides power rangers was filled with

rubber suits and that franchise was

pulling in hundreds of millions in

revenue every year

and as a matter of fact galador actually

had something power rangers didn't turns

out tom and the lego team had one final

piece of movie magic up their sleeve

during production of the television show

a sound engineer by the name of lao

kirsten worked closely alongside

galadore's audio department

lao's goal was to embed discreet bursts

of white noise into certain parts of the

show

this white noise was actually an encoded

audio signal hidden strategically

throughout galadore episodes and

surprisingly enough this was not a

sequence of well-placed subliminal

messages

turns out lego was utilizing

cutting-edge technology to send signals

to an electronic toy they were

developing for the galadore theme

this strange new toy was dubbed the keck

power riser

the keck powerizer was a mechanical suit

of armor that enhanced one's ability to

glinch

the toy however was a sort of multimedia

action figure and in a weird way lego's

first and only ever game console

along with swappable limbs and

headpieces the toy also came with a tiny

screen embedded into the figure's back

the cat came pre-loaded with 22 games

many of which needed to be unlocked as

kids played with the toy

the games were played by utilizing the

keck's arms and legs as a sort of

controller there was also a sensor that

detected when the toy was being rotated

which served as a function for many of

the games as well

essentially the toy would pick up the

encoded audio signals hidden throughout

the tv show and trigger an appropriate

response whether it be by unlocking a

new game that went along with the

current scene or activating a voice clip

ready

these vocal responses would even change

depending on which parts were connected

to the toy kids could attach the head of

jens one of nick's companions or attach

the head of gorm his sworn enemy this

would make it so the toy either cheered

nick on during the show or shouted evil

bad guy lines when he was in trouble

this proved to be a genius move by the

marketing team because it encouraged

children to tune in to every galadore

episode to unlock new prompts for the

toy

kids could even log onto galadore.com

and download new games directly to the

keck power riser as demonstrated in this

astoundingly cheesy commercial

download new missions from the web

reach higher levels

win new missions

[Music]

when the inevitable video games were

released for galadore kids could play

alongside their keck powerizer which

would interact with the game in much the

same way as the tv show keck power

risers could even communicate with each

other allowing kids to play two-player

competitive games

on paper the idea actually sounded quite

interesting but in reality it was

somewhat disappointing for starters the

screen was incredibly small and in order

to play the games kids needed to

actively swing the toy's arms and rotate

the keck to control it many users point

out that the toy isn't incredibly

responsive and this can result in having

to perform exaggerated movements to get

the game to register your inputs

trying to accomplish this while playing

a mini game on a postage stamp size

screen just makes for a frustrating

gaming experience

early on it was clear that the ambitious

nature of the product was a risk for

lego

not only did the keck powerizer use

electronic components it also had a

multimedia feature that needed to embed

itself into all aspects of the franchise

for it to be effective

most importantly the keck had to release

alongside the tv show which wasn't due

to air until 2002

with so much of the franchise's success

relying on the release of the show lego

had to find creative ways to promote

galador until its official launch

this was around the time when the

galadore website would go online

after securing the domain for

galadore.com lego moved in quickly to

start promotion

this kicked off with a fairly new

marketing tactic for the time known as

the arg or alternate reality game

args were quite popular throughout the

2000s and were primarily used to build

anticipation for a certain release

they were some of the first viral

marketing campaigns and were used by

multiple franchises including halo to

promote their ips

the idea behind the arg was to use a

platform like a website to craft a world

that appeared as though it truly existed

in real life

let me explain the website for galadore

was designed to look like a computer

terminal with prompts that users could

enter to discover images of newspaper

clippings strange schematics and journal

entries this was meant to give the

impression that users were exploring

someone's personal computer and

discovering clues to a secret story

the site would be updated a handful of

times to reveal more clues as galadore

neared its official launch

eventually users would learn that most

of the clues were in reference to a man

named dr bluetooth and his plans to

travel to an alternate dimension via a

spacecraft called the egg

this would segue into the tv show's main

story where nick dr bluetooth's son

would inherit the egg and embark on

adventures of his own

development of the ark went smoothly and

was released in late 2001 by producer

gabriel walsh with the help of tom

lynch's visual direction

sometime after the launch of the

promotion gabriel would start exploring

external links to see how the website

was being received

while gabriel was exploring these links

one very peculiar website caught his eye

it appeared to be some sort of internet

forum and many of the users were

conversing strangely referring to

something known as phase 3

they appeared excited stating that they

were ready to begin their travel into

the alternate dimension and that users

should be ready

upon further investigation gabriel

learned that the forum was regarding

another alternate reality game called

ong's hat

turns out aung's hat was one of the

first args ever created and felt so real

and true to life that many users

believed it was

coincidentally many of the themes

surrounding long's hat coincided with

galadore's story

both args mentioned a spaceship called

the egg and both spoke to the topic of

interdimensional travel

these eerie similarities sparked a

frenzy among conspiracy theorists

leading them to believe that this was

some sort of sign and that the idea of

the egg and interdimensional travel had

made its way into popular culture this

became one of the factors that led to

aung's hat being shut down as many

internet fanatics would take the story

so seriously to the point of camping

outside the creator's house demanding

answers

some but not all believed that the

creator of vong's hat was withholding

information regarding interdimensional

travel and they were starting to become

aggressive this eventually led to a

threatened lawsuit by the creator of

aung's hat which for reasons unknown was

never filed thankfully the bad publicity

didn't find its way into mainstream

media and gallador could proceed with

the launch

it was late 2001 at this time and

galador was steering steadfastly towards

a release for february of 2002. as

production was wrapping up for the show

the lego company and roughly 150 team

members were treated to a private

screening of the first two episodes

and this was the exact moment when

things started going downhill

to put it bluntly the show was bad

galadore's special effects and wow

factor were not to the level that lego

had anticipated with one of the main

issues being the rubber suits

product designer niels milan peterson

describes his initial reaction to seeing

one of the characters he created on the

big screen quote

it was the first time we saw him the

character and it was this man in a

rubber suit it really looked like some

of those old horror movies from the 50s

we really felt like oh this is not what

we expected end quote to add to the hurt

tom lynch had recently been informed

that disney a partial investor in the

galadore show had just purchased the

family channel

this was catastrophic news for tom and

his team because at the time family

channel was airing power rangers a

franchise that was pulling in 150 to 200

million a year in licensing revenue tom

being an industry veteran knew this

meant disney was going to pour the vast

majority of their promoting power into

power rangers and galador would be left

to fend for itself

this news was received only two months

prior to the show's airing and would

severely impact the outcome of the

launch

regardless of the fact lego trudged

forward and on february 9th of 2002

galador released to the world to add to

the promotion of the launch an online

game called galador quest was released

which had players roam across dimensions

solving puzzles and completing tasks to

further glinch their character

there would also be a promotional set of

mcdonald's toys which looked

nightmarishly bad but still cleverly

incorporated glinching into their play

features

as for the television show the first

episode of galadore would air on ytv in

canada and on the now defunct fox kids

in the usa

reception for the show was less than

favorable

critics were confused by the story's

plot and the visual direction made the

show look cheesy and amateur

it wasn't long before galadore was being

moved around in the programming schedule

which was a very bad sign for any

television show

additionally lack of significant

promotion from disney didn't help the

show's chances either and it was slowly

becoming apparent that galadore's launch

was not what lego expected

to make matters worse the toys were

simply not selling this was most likely

due to a multitude of different factors

for starters lego launched galadore near

the peak of bionicle's popularity this

resulted in a competition that gallador

would ultimately lose

since both toys were in development at

roughly the same time it was difficult

for lego to anticipate bionicle's

success which would ultimately leave no

room on the shelf for the galadore theme

additionally the toy lines were just too

similar with both products incorporating

science fiction themes along with

buildable action figures

it quite literally put lego in

competition with itself

another issue was the way the toys were

marketed on shelves

not only did the packaging cover half

the toy with box art but it also failed

to explain the toy's driving gimmick

strangely enough the back of the box

never actually showed that the toys had

interchangeable parts

leaving kids to wonder why the figures

looked disjointed and broken inside the

packaging

looking at some of these images now it

wouldn't be a stretch to think this the

presentation is quite poor and fails to

explain what makes the toys fun in the

first place it's especially unfortunate

because the idea behind galadore was

actually pretty unique

most online reviewers enjoy the

glinching gimmick finding it to be

clever and fun to mix and match with

some of the character designs are really

creative as well with nepal and his pet

shimmel commonly being a crowd favorite

but the damage had already been done

unfortunately lego ended up making a

series of big marketing mistakes that

wound up costing them dearly with the

toys selling poorly and the show

receiving less than favorable reviews it

was starting to become clear that the

launch wasn't what lego had built it up

to be

they could only hope galadore's debut

video games would come to the rescue and

save some of the company's profits

the galadore series was set to release

two games published by ea one of which

was a home console title by asylum

entertainment and the other a game boy

game by tier tech studios both titles

would incorporate the keck powerizer as

well with dozens of unique audio cues

hidden throughout levels

unfortunately since the games weren't

slated for release until late 2002 the

development teams got a front row seat

to galadore's flop

nick ferguson a producer for the