sign in sign up
<<
Home , History of Lego, The Lego Group

Non-fiction

The Story Cloze Passage 9 – The Lego Story

The Lego Story is a film produced by Kim Pagel and to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Lego. The short film presents the many (1) ______and tribulations faced by Ole Kirk Kristiansen from Billund, , the founder of Lego. From humble beginnings, Ole overcomes various challenges, including raising his four children as a widower when his wife passed away, facing financial difficulties during the Great Depression and the Second World War, and losing their workshop to fires on several occasions.

commemorate – to mark or celebrate (an event or person) by doing M or producing something Ole was a man of integrity. When his son Godtfred started working for his father, he thought he was being clever by using less varnish on the toys. He justified his actions to Ole as saving time and money, but Ole was not impressed. Ole made Godtfred paint all the toys again, instilling in his son the belief that “only the best is good enough”. With the help of Godtfred, Ole eventually builds a successful empire and today, his grandson continues the family tradition of producing these world renowned plastic toys – Lego.

General Knowledge – The

Ole wanted to give the toys a name, so he ran a competition asking his employees to (2) ______of something. The reward was a bottle of wine. Ultimately, it was Ole himself who thought up of the name Lego. The word “Lego” derives from two Danish words, “leg” and godt”, which means “play well”. Coincidentally, it also loosely (3) ______to “I put together” in Latin. However, this was only discovered many years later.

From Furniture To Toys

Although The Lego Story started in 1932, the real story began in 1916 when Ole bought a workshop and worked as a carpenter making furniture. Miniature figurines were created as design aids, and soon Ole was making and selling toys to support the furniture business. Eventually, the business stopped making furniture all together, concentrating (4) ______on producing toys.

During the Great Depression, times were hard, and many of his customers who were farmers, could only afford to pay Ole with food in exchange for his toys. Ole was also a very resourceful and creative man. When the yoyo toy fell out of favour, used the leftover yo-yo parts as wheels for toy trucks.

The Move to Plastic

For many years, the toys were made of wood, but after the Second World War, plastic became accessible in Denmark. In 1946, Ole went to a fair in Copenhagen, where he received a sample of a plastic brick toy and saw a plastic moulding machine.

integrity - being honest and having strong moral principles M derives - to have as a root, or origin

Ole decided to invest in the machine to produce their toys. Lego also began to create modular toys – toys that could be taken apart and (5) ______– including a truck, and plastic bricks that could be stacked into building forms. Encouraging Creative Playtime

In 1954, Godtfred was on his way home from a business trip to England, when he started discussing the toy industry with a prominent British businessman, the head of a big shopping centre in England. He passed a critical remark about the toy industry lacking a system, which inspired Godtfred to innovate once more.

This led Lego to create toys that would (6) ______children’s creativity and imagination. The resulting “Town Plan” became the first Lego system of play – children could now build houses from the Lego bricks and play their toys in a town setting. Through this system of play, children also learnt (7) ______lessons, such as road traffic safety.

They also redesigned the Lego bricks with round studs, allowing the plastic pieces to hold together better, but not so tightly that they could not be pulled apart. The toys soon became wildly popular in the whole country, and eventually, across all of Europe as well.

Beyond Toys

Lego’s success was not (8) ______to the manufacturing of toys. To bring Lego to the rest of the world, Godtfred helped to design, and subsequently open the in 1964. As more guests and business partners demanded a tour of the modelling department of the Lego factory, the visiting crowds slowed the workers from making the toys.

modular – to be made up of standardized units for easy construction prominent – important or famous M innovate – to make changes in an existing method, idea or product

This led to the creation of , a theme park that would allow Godtfred to display the Lego models from the exhibition room, in a large-scale real life park. Legoland (9)______600,000 visitors when it opened its doors in 1968, and today, remains the largest tourist attraction of Denmark outside of Copenhagen.

Lego Toys Today

Lego toys today have moved beyond the traditional houses and train toys sets. From Hogwarts castle to the ’s Big Ben, from Monster Trucks to Jedi Stardriver spacecrafts, Lego toys allow children to let (10)______their imaginations based on famous landmarks and blockbuster movies they are familiar with.

Other Lego Movies

'The LEGO Story' won the Gold Award for animation at the Cannes Media and Television Awards. Since then, other Lego movies have been produced. , a computer- animated adventure comedy film released in 2014, tells the story about an ordinary Lego figurine prophesied to save the world. In 2017, another two films – The Movie, and The Movie were produced, with stories centred around the Lego characters, within a Lego setting.

prophesied – to predict something happening in the future landmark – a building or object easily seen and recognized from a M distance to help one with identifying location