MANILA, Philippines — Kids at heart can live out their second childhood at 123 Sesame Street thanks to a new LEGO set birthed by Filipino artist Ivan Guerrero.
The 1,367-piece set is packed with easter eggs for longtime “Sesame Street” fans to unravel together with Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Elmo, Bert, Ernie and Oscar the Grouch.
It is available starting this week at LEGO Certified Stores and on the brand's official website for a recommended retail price of P6,999.75.
Philstar.com got to sit down with Ivan, who walked through the meticulous process of reconstructing half a century of "Sesame Street" through LEGO.
Spoiler alert: He didn’t have to crunch through the show’s more than 4,000 episodes.
“I designed the set for myself. If it’s something that I love, something that I grew up with, then I’m sure there are other people who are like me who would love the set too. And so working backward with that in mind, I researched my favorite episodes, my favorite segments from the show, and I tried to start with that first,” he said.
Ivan spent several months crafting little by little, crossing research hurdles along the way.
“The challenge also was this is a building that has never really existed in real life. It’s a set on a TV show. So like the bottom half or the back or so many details do not really exist in real life.“
This meant he had to fill in the gaps by scanning old architectural websites, as well as working out tiny details that add up like plumbing, heating systems and tiles.
There’s also the headache of fitting in all 50 years of the show into the set, which Ivan managed by combining asynchronous locations: the living room in the '70s, the facade in the '80s, Elmo's room from the '90s.
"So different decades were all highlighted in the set and I wanted to create a version of 'Sesame Street' that may not necessarily exist anymore...And part of the reason kasi why I really wanted to do 'Sesame Street' was I wanted to have like a tangible piece of my own childhood, the kind of childhood that I grew up with in the 1980s." — Video by Deejae Dumlao