Marcel Winatschek

Small Yellow People

LEGO’s doing Simpsons minifigures now. Ralph and Flanders and whoever else, three euros each, which is cheap enough you don’t have to think hard about buying them. Minifigures work perfectly for this show anyway—reduce these characters to their basic shapes and they’re instantly there.

I already have the expensive LEGO Simpsons house, the collector flex that sits somewhere gathering dust. But these small figures are different. They’re exactly the kind of thing I didn’t know I wanted until they existed, which is dangerous. Now I’m thinking about which ones actually matter, whether I need Ralph or whether I’m just getting him because he’s funny.

There’s a LEGO Simpsons episode coming to American TV in May, which sounds made up the first time you hear it. Probably I’ll end up with a few of these figures. That’s how it goes.