Random set of the day: The Emergency Room
Posted by Huwbot,Today's random set is 3832 The Emergency Room, released in 2008. It's one of 3 SpongeBob SquarePants sets produced that year. It contains 236 pieces and 3 minifigs, and its retail price was US$29.99/£24.49.
It's owned by 753 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
Help me come to life! If you like the set I've chosen for you today, please pledge your support for me on LEGO Ideas so I have a chance of becoming an official LEGO set!
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27 comments on this article
@LegoRobo said:
"I love it when my doctor menacingly smiles! Props to Spongebob for keeping smiling through the pain! Also, I don’t think Patrick can drive, can he? Well, he at least shouldn’t be driving ambulances!"
Spongebob probably just ran inside the Salty Spitoon and slipped on an ice cube. As for Patrick, he's just transferring Spongebob to Weeniehut General... the doctor is most likely happy to be rid of them!
The SpongeBob sets aesthetically captured the show but were so sparse
I remember as a kid my dad got this for me from Amazon for like $70 at the time of release. Why I didn't know any better, I had no idea, but man was I happy.
One of those sets you completely forget existed until it pops up on RSOTD.
@Mr__Thrawn said:
"The SpongeBob sets aesthetically captured the show but were so sparse"
I had the original 2006 Krusty Krab with happy (gasp!) Squidward. It was the best one of all the Krusty Krabs LEGO put out, size wise.... i just wished they used it better. Or included a pizza piece, as it's the pizza for u and me!
How long has this set existed?!
Hey Lego, how about putting out an actual hospital set? I'm worried that my available hospital beds won't hold up if there's a pandemic in my town.
I only bought a single Spongebob set, and that was the Flying Dutchman, just because I thought the pirate ship was so nifty.
I only own two Spongebob sets. I know I bought the spaceship because of the bubble helmets, and I think I won the superhero set in a drawing (Brickworld?). I've done some weird things with them, like turning Patrick into a Green Lantern, and this:
https://brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=6640654
But here's what I want to know: What happened with the license? They had TMNT, they lost TMNT, you could still buy TMNT keychains over a year after the license had gone to one of their rivals because they were just waiting to finish selling off existing stock. They had Spiderman, they lost Spiderman, and the sets were still available for some time after that. They had Spongebob, they lost Spongebob, and they had to recall every single scrap of Spongebobness left in the pipeline, from the factory to the LEGO Stores. All of that product, rather than being sold until it was gone, got sent back to corporate to be destroyed. This isn't how things are normally done, so what was it about Spongebob that required them to go to these lengths when they lost the license?
@PurpleDave
I have a theory about why Lego's relationship with Nickelodeon soured. Back in 2006, when the partnership started there was a wide variety of Spongebob sets and two Avatar sets. While that was unfortunately it for Avatar, there was a steady trickle of Spongebob sets until 2012. In 2012 Avatar's sequel series, The Legend of Korra, first aired. 2012 was also the year Lego launched the first full season of Ninjago on Cartoon Network. (a partner who doesn't seem to even care about Lego's shows in the US, only airing each episode once, and in the past several years has fallen several seasons behind the rest of the world)
To Nick, this must have seemed like the ultimate betrayal. Ninjago took a lot from Avatar: Asian-inspired action-adventure with episodes meant to be watched in a chronological order (uncommon for the American market of children's animation at the time) focusing on masters that control four elements. Back in the 2000s Lego sidelined ATLA to a humiliating two sets, making it the smallest Lego theme ever. To add injury to insult, when Nick was trying to launch Korra in 2012, Lego came forward with what Nick likely viewed as an Avatar ripoff, engaging in a long partnership with their arch rival cartoon channel, CN. Who can possibly blame them for terminating their relationship with Lego then and there?
Not the best set but still it's a Sponge Bob set.
I don't see Dr. Carter in it. What kind of E.R. is it?
This set looks cool outside but inside...
The Spongebob sets don't really hold up very well IMO. Blocky vehicles, and pretty bare-bones buildings make them look pretty awkward. You could argue that aesthetically it fits the world of Spongebob, but for me, they don't really work.
I never had any Spongebob sets or even got into the show itself (we only watched Free to Air in my childhood). However, a few of thesearen’t bad.
IMHO, this isn’t one of them. Too open for my liking.
By the way, very interesting theory @Norikins .
@PurpleDave
@Norkins
This is why I still read Random Set articles even when the theme doesn't interest me; the discussion sparked here and the history known in the collective community never gets old.
Kudos all
Cool set, want to start a spongebob collection now
One of my best charity shop finds was the SpongeBob set with the pineapple house. £2.99 I think I paid.
Isn't the IP with MegaBloks now? At least it's among those LEGO famously lost(or never renewed)
Any set is a better set when it has a baseplate.
As mentioned sparse on pieces, there isn't even a roof and two walls are missing so more a door in a fence. As weirdly with Lego only value is in the sponge-bob theme, making unopened sets quite valuable as unlikely to ever be repeated provided they remain unopened.
Is that an amphibious ambulance?!
@PDelahanty said:
"Hey Lego, how about putting out an actual hospital set? I'm worried that my available hospital beds won't hold up if there's a pandemic in my town."
41318 : Heartlake Hospital was sold from June 2017 - December 2018
60204 : City Hospital was sold June 2018 - December 2019.
41394 : Heartlake City Hospital is sold from 2020-Now
Maybe there will be a City Hospital again in Summer 2021.
For now under City, there's a medical building in set 60203 : Ski Resort
Love Spongebob, wish LEGO was still putting stuff out occasionally.
@Huwbot
This has appeared at the bottom of a couple of Random Sets of the Day. Is this normal or do I have weird settings set up?
“Help me come to life! If you like the set I've chosen for you today, please pledge your support for me on LEGO Ideas so I have a chance of becoming an official LEGO set!”
I genuinely keep forgetting Lego ever did spongebob sets. I think probably because neither sets nor show ever really caught my interest. They seem to have their niche though so fair play if they’re your thing
@Norikins:
That sounds logical, and I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I’ve got four green wrenches to throw into that theory: TMNT. Eastman sold his interest to Laird back when things were gearing up for the second animated run about 20 years ago. Laird then decided to sell everything off a few years later. Except for rights to some of the older TV shows, and one run of the comics, Nick ended up owning the entire IP. In 2009, they even did an early buyout of 4Kids’ master license for merchandising. Skip forward a couple years, and Spongebob’s last wave of sets is coming out in 2012, while NYCC saw the first three promo items for TMNT. In 2013, the last Spongebob item, a keychain, came out while the first wave of TMNT hit the very shelves that were being cleared of unsold Spongebob merch. Both the first reboot movie and the first Nick series were included in that license, which ran for two years.
So, if Nick was just taking their ball and going home, why wasn’t TMNT affected?
@Nordbart:
No, it really sounds like they had the license revoked. I know of no other theme where even the LEGO Stores had to send everything back to be recycled, and Clonebob sets were out on store shelves very soon after. Nick had someone else lined up before they killed the LEGO theme.
@blogzilly:
That’s been added on to RSotD for a couple months now. Huw ran a Huwbot contest, and someone posted instructions of the winning design. It’s expensive to build, though, so it ended up being submitted to Ideas, and because RSotD has a Huwbot byline, that’s been included ever since.
@Yooha:
I don't remember a Dr. Carter on E/R. There was a Dr. Sheinfeld, and a Dr. Sheridan, but nobody named Carter.
@Galaxy12_Import:
The 24-hour limit can be a problem, sometimes. For the Indiana Jones set, I had to ask for an answer to my question in a completely unrelated thread because it closed out before the other person got back to read it.
@ambr:
There were some cool parts. Besides the bubble helmet that I mentioned (and bought a bunch of on LUGBulk), I've got a bag of white tires from the orange bus. So far, I've only used them to build a snow-covered car, but I've got a few other ideas for how to use them someday. The thing is, for something weird like that, you really can't expect to get a second chance at them, so you have to stock up while you can.
@Brickalili:
I don't watch the show either, but I've picked up a few choice bits of trivia. The guy who created the show passed away a few years ago, but continued to appear in every new episode through the show's run. How? He's the mouth for the pirate captain in the intro. Also, all these characters are sentient mutants (at least according to the theory) from high doses of radiation, as Bikini Bottom is, logically, located on the ocean floor beneath...Bikini Atoll.