Marcel Winatschek

Springfield in Blind Bags

The Simpsons house set was already a commitment—serious money for a plastic Springfield you’d display on a shelf and feel mildly embarrassed about when guests asked. The minifigure series is the low-stakes counterpart: blind bags at around three euros each, the standard torture mechanism for completists, featuring a full cast including Ralph Wiggum and Ned Flanders rendered in LEGO’s cheerful primary-colored plastic.

There’s something satisfying about the Simpsons existing in LEGO form specifically. Both properties traffic in a kind of cheerful American excess—bright colors, repetition, the same house assembled and disassembled across decades. LEGO also announced a full Simpsons-themed episode for American television in May, the kind of crossover event that exists entirely to sell both properties to the same demographic and works anyway because the demographic in question is susceptible to exactly this kind of thing.

Sixteen characters, blind bags, the near-certainty of pulling three identical Barts before getting the one I actually want. I know how this ends and I don’t entirely care.