30 Rejected LEGO Licenses

(*photo courtesy of Tommy Williamson)

At the epicenter of nerd culture — Comicon 2011 in San Diego — one announcement trumped all others and hit me right in the center of my little lizard brain.

DC and Marvel superheroes LEGOS are coming.

Sadly, not all properties that LEGO considers are like this one, golden home runs hit by Darth Vader wielding a light saber that has been sprinkled with the ground up bones of Skeletor.

Here are thirty of licenses that, for one reason or another, have been rejected. Have you heard of one not on the list? Leave it in comments.

1. Donald Trump LEGOS. Made of solid gold, this set proved prohibitively expensive to produce. Even though they would have been the best, classiest fucking LEGOS you’d ever seen.

2. Canadian National Curling Team LEGOS. Enough said.

3. Great Authors LEGO Set. Company engineers were unable to find an efficient way to affix the tiny Jack Daniels labels to the tiny Jack Daniels bottles.

4. KISS LEGOS. Sadly rejected, this remains the last, great remaining frontier of KISS-related merchandise.

5. Justin Bieber LEGOS. A shame, as all LEGO hair looks like Bieber hair.

6. The NRA’s Lil’ Gun Club LEGO Set. LEGO was uncomfortable with the NRA’s proposed tagline: LEGOS don’t kill kids. Kids do.

7. Mad Men LEGOS. LEGO refused to include cigarettes. AMC walked.

8. Sarah Palin LEGOS. A blockhead, made from blocks. Palin thought the word LEGO sounded communist.

9. American IDOL LEGOS. Ryan Seacrest threatened a lawsuit and more Kardashian programming when he saw that LEGO Seacrest was as tall as he was.

10. Pong LEGOS. All the fun of Pong, in LEGO form.

11. Snorks LEGOS. All the fun of LEGOS Smurfs, but underwater.

12. GoDaddy.com LEGOS. LEGO refused to sell an ‘uncensored’ version of the kit online. Pictures of ‘uncensored’ LEGOS remain unobtainable.

13. Nature LEGOS. Proposed by a middle manager at the Department of Parks and Recreation, focus groups of children could not find the fun in using LEGO blocks to build real rocks.

14. Government LEGOS. Kids could build both houses of Congress and … watch them sit there and do nothing. Just like real Congress, only smaller and blockier.

15. OJ Simpson LEGOS. Hoping to cash in on his post trial notoriety, OJ pitched a series of building sets based on his adventures. His proposed tagline: If the blocks fit, you must buy it.

16. Waterworld LEGOS. Kevin Costner pushed hard to secure the first-ever LEGO movie license. Thankfully, he did not push hard enough.

17. Twitter LEGOS. Kits would come with 140 blocks. Kids could build things that would be instantly forgotten.

18. Play-Doh LEGOS. Long at war with one another for the hearts and minds of generations of children, these two giants of playtime could not come to terms on what the blocks should be made of: plastic or Play-Doh.

19. Apple LEGOS. Steve Jobs designed kits would be pre-built to his specifications and permanently assembled, allowing no customization or tweaking by kids. His cut: 90% of the revenue.

20. Public Domain LEGOS. A junior level brand person was inspired by the high cost of obtaining licenses and proposed that LEGO should issue building kits inspired by songs and literature in the public domain. He mocked up a “Happy Birthday” kit and presented it during a Thursday afternoon brainstorm session. His current whereabouts are unknown.

21. Design-Your-Own-Clothes LEGOS. Build your own shirts, socks, shoes, hats and underpants!

22. Charlie Kaufman LEGOS. Building kits based the screenwriter’s most iconic film moments, including a tiny John Cusack inside a giant yellow John Malkovich head.

23. McDonald’s LEGOS. While technology that would inject the smell of fries, Quarter Pounders and McNuggets into actual LEGO plastic has been perfected, the partnership was scrapped for fear of children eating more blocks than they already currently do.

24. Up! LEGOS. Encouraged by the success of its Toy Story and Cars lines, PIXAR looked to turn all their films into building kits. The idea was rejected by focus groups of children, who just wanted to talk about whether a dog could really talk or not, even with one of those devices on his neck.

25. Lost LEGOS. LEGO took issue with the title, as lost LEGOS remain the number one complaint about playing with LEGOS. LEGO building engineers could not figure out how to construct a smoke monster or an ending to play time that made sense.

26. LEGOS My Eggo Kits. Because kids want to make waffles out of LEGOS.

27. LiLo LEGOS: On the plus side, her car crashes would have been a spectacular explosion of plastic blocks and small plastic pills.

28. Friday Night LEGOS. Clear eyes. LEGO Blocks. Can’t lose.

29. Stephen King LEGOS. While these kits would scare the crap out of you, they required wayyyyy too many blocks to build each scene.

30. Saved by the LEGO: It took 100,000 blocks to build Zack Morris’ enormous cell phone.

Thank you for taking all of my money, LEGO.