Thank you so much to everyone for the overwhelmingly positive response to this video! It's really a welcome surprise, and I can't express how grateful I am to anyone who took the time to watch some of the video, like, comment, or subscribe. I have lots planned throughout the year for the channel, with many videos focused outside of Lego as well. I hope you come along for the ride!
You know I watched so many videos on this topic over the span of years and this one is the greatest of all of them good presentation overall on the video
"The Kek Powerizer was a mechanical suit of armor that enhanced one's ability to glinch", delivered completely straight, is one of the funniest sentences I've heard in a while
"The Kek Powerizer suit gives you Glinch ( gravity lynch ) an upgraded version of Darth Vader's force choke. Clear out commies in record time with Kek and the power of Glinch!"
> Be me > Put on Kek Powerizer > Start to Glinch > Turn arms and legs into whatever I'm thinking of > Get hungry, glinch arm into microwave > Feel lazy, feet glinch into wheels > 10/10 QT comes in, says my glinching is cool > P turned on > Start to glinch > MFW
@@raycearcher5794 omg, I loved Galinor! My favourite moment was when the protagonist, Gali Glinch, said "it's glinchin' time!" and glinched all over the damn place!
That's what I was thinking. It honestly looks pretty well made? Specially the articulations. Holding up to similar effects in classic series like Doctor Who, PR, etc
How did I miss this comment! Completely agree. Lego had unrealistic expectations for the tv show. One designer even expressed his disappointment that it wasn't more like the new Star Wars film. Phantom Menace had like 50x the budget.
Looking at the CG in some of those commercials really drives that point home. I didn’t mind the suits… but I haven’t watched the show since I was 12, so I didn’t exactly have “taste” at the time. Maybe it could’ve worked if the whole thing was CGI, like Beast Wars, but even then…
Seems like one of their many mistakes was not making the show animated. Would have been way easier to do the concepts justice without needing huge budgets.
I think the fact that I grew up in this era, completely obsessed with Lego, living in Canada where the show aired, and still somehow had never heard of this says enough about it.
I saw it mentioned in one issues of Lego Magazine. Saw it was on a channel I didn't get and that Bionicle just seemed less kiddy to me at the age of 12 so I locked Galidor in a memory hole for roughly 20 years before someone mentioned it again.
So I got into Lego in the fall of 2002 (when I entered kindergarten and the first friend I made was a big fan) and let me tell you, this thing had been wiped from the face of the earth by then. I have absolutely no memory of it as someone who was obsessed with Lego less than a year after its big launch. You know you've had a bad product launch when it's not just dead within a year, it's totally nonexistent
That was my thought! They're incredible works of art, but I suppose the young and impressionable eyes of early Gen Z were not able to appreciate that yet.
“The Kek Powerizer was a mechanical suit of armor that enhanced one’s ability to glinch” is just a buck wild sentence. I had to pause the video and collect my thoughts after hearing that
Well, *of course* the Kek Powerizer exists! Because although you can already turn your body into vast, anatomically unbalanced monstrosities in mere seconds-- descendants of John Carpenter's Thing and cybernetic horrors-- sometimes _you just need to push yourself farther._ And when you do, that clumsy metal suit salvaged from Emperor Zurg's trashcan will win the day! All you need is a titanic race's young hanging around, savagely shaking you from behind to accomplish some goal only it knows.
The funniest part about bad toy lines is that it had to have been at least one kid’s favorite. And when a kid likes something it is taken deathly seriously.
I commented about how my brother and I got into fist fights over these that my dad had to take them away. Meanwhile other kids had literally no clue or care about em.
Yes. Most likely a mentally challenged kid. Perhaps they have some kind of disability that makes bionicles too complex. WHen I was 5, I was building bionicles with no help from anyone.
I unironically loved those toys for their gimmick, had a blast with them, and probably still have the pieces hidden somewhere. I'd be up for the interview, but I never in my life played the games, or watched the TV Show, not even sure if it aired here.
It still amazes me how blindly ambitious toy designers were back in the early 2000's. They really thought people would put up with the most awful, unintuitive interfaces and GUI's just so long as they could enjoy some absurd gimmick. Great video man. Look forward to seeing more from you in the future. You've got the right temperament and style to cover a wide range of subjects so don't feel like all you can do is Lego videos.
There wasn't a huge saturated market with products that did it better at this time. You got this new cutting edge cool thing or you played with your old toys.
I had to check the post date halfway through the video to see if it was all an April Fools joke. I can't believe this was a real thing. A stunning example of how capitalism spins its wheels inventing plastic crap no one wants complete with horrible multimedia tie-ins.
They could have released the toys as 2 per package, that way get kids to start interchanging the parts immediately. Also it could be seen as a good deal for the parents. Even if you knew what the toys could do, imagine being a kid trying to convince your parents they need to buy you 2 toys instead of one. But only one of these is basically like buying a single Lego brick.
Literally zero memory of the Galidor toys being on store shows. Only time I saw them before this video was a very brief mention in one of our history of Lego books.
As a fun little overlap between Bionicle and Galidor one of the most popular long running bionicle fan sites, BZpower regularly ran themed contests to build the coolest bonkle, at one point this contest theme was mechs and one of the more impressive entries used the galidor egg as a cockpit. People lost their shit over this "cheating" and it led to a massive flame war of people complaining that using a massive non bionicle piece as centerpiece should disqualify it while other people hit back that it was a legitimate lego part. Unfortunately the old BZpower archive is gone so I can't find pictures.
@@blob5907 "Guys I once saw a bunch of geeks on an obscure 2000s era forum start a giant flame war over the legitimacy of mix and matching toy parts" "THAT'S NEVER EVER HAPPENED BEFORE EVER WHERE'S YOUR PROOF"
With all the 'rediscovery"of older media going on ( Inspired by the whole Star Trek:TNG holodeck use of old pulp fiction for stories, perhaps?), Galidor is a good candidate; I've seen worse SFX in TV shows shred on TH-cam as "classics" for one thing. And I, for one, applaud it. People put effort into making all this; It demands appreciation out of simple human empathy.
In an alternate universe where Bionicle had been given all the funding and promotion that Galidor got in our universe, I’m pretty sure it’d still be going today.
I kinda disagree. Throwing so much money at Galidor was likely detrimental to the project as a whole. Not only did it mean that when it failed, it failed so hard it almost took the company with it, it also meant the designers had no constraints. What I mean by that is that they could have genuinely done anything with this product. Their only limitation was that the end result be made mostly of injection-molded plastic, but that doesn't give you anything to start with. Restrictions breed creativity, and they started with basically none. Furthermore, it meant the project could afford to have multiple, entirely separate teams with few lines of communication, resulting in issues like the toy people having no idea how bad the show was until it was finished, the video game people getting iced out entirely, and the writers/character designers coming up with cringe terms like "glinch" and "kek powerizer," with nobody in any of the other design positions able to question that. Tossing so much money at this produced a too many cooks situation entirely because Lego hired so many cooks, and their output was so stupid because they didn't have any good frameworks to work within. If this had all been the brainchild of one person instead, given creative control over all the different aspects of the project, it would have been both cheaper and less scattered a product line.
you're right. It's strange that they didn't take Bionicle in the same direction during the initial launch. Almost felt like they were more cautious with the IP than they were with Galidor.
At least Galidor introduced one thing that wasn't a failure...ratcheted ball joints (as featured on the arms, legs and heads of each figure in Galidor), which would see usage in other LEGO themes, including the Knights' Kingdom constraction figures and the Exo-Force mechs.
As far as failures go, Galidor was amazing. Most companies when they fail are from a lack of willingness to change, to experiment and try what's new. Everything about Galidor was filled with a keen want to push and try. And through the process they gained what they needed to continue. Though it may not of been the IP it's self the experience still advanced lego forward. Still though, it's a shame all that creative power was spent on the body horror concept that is glinching.
Honestly I would have loved galidor when i was little and could still enjoy it now. I love making Lego characters look as ridiculous as possible it's fun.
I love when company's randomly decide: "this thing that is and has been really popular for years is suddenly out of style" based on literally jack shit.
@@CarrotConsumer less than expected sales doesn’t mean the core product and its technology is out of style and, in LEGO’s case, it was the implementation that did.
They were an old company that had been taking the same general approach to making products for decades, weathering fads and trends so well some execs might've feared the other shoe was due to drop. Then a rather flashy, dramatic youth culture shift happened as Lego started to do badly. 'Being out of touch' was a logical enough thing to believe had caused their failures. It would've been a tempting theory to believe because it was a simple, neat one and the solution was uncomplicated: just follow the new youth paradigm. But it was a *terrible* idea to lay off Master Builders with decades of practical experience figuring out the aesthetic and engineering potential of _every single brick_ Lego'd ever produced. Their skill would have been just as useful crafting sets that followed the new themes, and Lego needed all the talent it could get to help them power through if they stumbled while reinventing itself. I think their recent themed line of augmented-reality sets is another ill-considered attempt to jump on a bandwagon. The color scheme it employs is dull and unappealing, and if you don't make use of the AR gimmick the whole thing becomes underwhelming. But at least the sets can still make for decent play that way.
Galidor is one of those shows I thought was a fever dream and always longed for closure on remembering it fondly on the occasion I caught an episode. Been binging the show on TH-cam and the editing style and effects where such a charming blast from the past you can definitely tell when it was made lol.
@@slow_start yeah it was brutal lmao i thought it was my connection making it go down to the lowest resolution before i realized thats just the videos quality
I was tuning in to Fox Kids EVERY Saturday when this show was running, and I have ZERO memory of it. It's depressing how something made with so much effort left no cultural impact at all. I'm stoked for more Bonkle and whatever else you put out. This video had me deeply invested in something I've never heard of.
To be fair Galidor was the final show to air on the Fox Kids programming block in the United States before it closed down. It aired right at the tail end of Fox Kids life span, so it's understandable why most don't remember it.
I had no idea there was a show. I just knew it as this weird toy line. Part of what made it so weird to me was thinking it had no background, and was just some really random characters.
@@cerisem7727 I was a kid during this time. I loved Lego. Somehow Galidor completely missed me! Learning about Galidor now, as an adult, feels like something out of another universe. I don't remember any of the toys. Any of the ads. Anything about the show, or it's existence. I never got a Galidor happy meal toy. Nothing. Somehow it's entirely possible.
And to think, THIS is what lego put their budget into in conjunction with a show. Not Bionicle, not Knights Kingdom, not Exo-Force, but... Galidor... Now, I recognize that these mentioned themes came later, so rather it was the case that any budget for a show was put to waste earlier with Galidor.
I still find it weird that Universal Cartoon Studios named his show Exosquad instead of Exoforce for fear that Marvel would sue their pants off… And then Lego pulled this.
I played the crap out of the Galidor Quest game on the old Lego website when I was a kid. I couldn't find it for years until I downloaded Flashpoint and searched it up again. I vaguely remembered the TV show, and everyone thought I was crazy because no one ever heard of it before.
Good god, this video brought back a memory I have form literally 20 years ago, of me rummaging through a friend's toy box and finding a bunch of parts of these things, specifically the poweriser and the wing arms. I had absolutely no idea at the time what they were from until now.
These toys were a piece of my childhood that I would trade for something else. I live in the Philippines and my parents bought the complete set since they were being sold EXTREMELY CHEAP despite their apparent "lego quality". That really shows this toyline tanked so bad since it was being sold in bins in a third world country. The bonus was my cousins also was able to buy theirs and were able to play together with four Kek Powerizers. I remember watching the TV Show too, but it was dubbed with local language so the Kek didn't exactly work. While I praise these toy's quality. I admit my little kid brain didn't really have fun with them, except turning that grey robot into a spider scorpion thing my Bionicles would fight against. I just went back playing with my hotwheels a week later, with the Kek occasionally being a "giant robot" prop.
No conflict here. If you enjoy something, more power to your elbow. Heck, I've spent the last few months following the 1949 to 1962 radio show "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar" with great pleasure, how could I criticize?
4:30 godamn. I went into this video, heard the name of the product, and nothing rang a bell. But the INSTANT I saw those shoulder joints, I remembered that I wanted the ENTIRE TV series and played far into the online browser game for this brand.
This unlocked a long buried memory from my childhood. I used to watch this before school back in the day, but i couldn't remember what it was called. Or even what it was about - except there were cool aliens and a kid in an egg shaped spaceship. I remember loving the show though, in all its cheesy nineties glory. So thank you v much for the nostalgia!
I never heard of this before! It feels like I'm looking at a bizarre alternate timeline. It's weird to think that LEGO poured so much money and ambition into a project that's now all but forgotten.
I was born a year before Galidor launched and I have zero memories of ever watching the show or playing with the toys. So imagine my shock when I discovered that I did indeed have Galidor toys as a kid. I even found a picture of me holding them next to some Spider-Man toys. Good video my guy! This definitely deserves more views!
@@RazorsharpLT I must've played with them after the toy line ended. My father says that he found a bargain bin filled with Galidor toys that were 5 for $5 and, because he had $20 and cared for me and my older brother, got them.
You've awoken a core memory... I remember seeing a few toys like this as a kid and having now idea of the source until now. ...but man, I can see why Bionicle beat this one out.
Just tuned in but wanted to give my 2 cents as a LEGO fan with lots of memories from this era. I never got into Galidor as a kid but over the years Galidor became a more and more prevalent meme throughout the convention scene. At its peak Brickfair Virginia even had the actor who played Nick Bluetooth appear (I met him, he's really nice). I distinctly recall seeing in stores and reading all about it in LEGO Magazine and even got a few Happy Meal toys, but only ever had one friend who got one of the toys for a birthday. Looking back it was surreal how prevalent the franchise was, but how little anyone seemed to care.
I vaguely remember stumbling upon this franchise in advertisement when I was a kid. One thing that struck me was some of the names, notably Jens and Gorm (apparently the main bad guy). Those are perfectly common Danish names and that struck me as odd, being a Danish kid. For what seemed to be a far out sci-fi concept those, to me, quite mundane names seemed out of place. It's like naming your main villain "Bob" or something like that.
Honestly this sounds (on paper) like the greatest toy/TV show line of all time. I mean, a toy line like this that interacts with the TV show and allows play outside of the show... if I were in the age group of roughly early teens at the time I'd have eaten that up.
I gotta be honest, as a tween at the time, even one with access to YTV and FOX, and one who dearly loved Lego, I thought Galador sounded cheesy and the toy and character designs seemed very generic? I understand that I didn't like action figures very much, but Bionicle managed to be far more interesting and engaging to me from a design and lore/setting perspective.
I really have to applaud you for making possibly the most in-depth and well-researched videos on Galidor out there. Information on this obscure series is nearly impossible to find, so its great to have much of it in a single spot. Definitely subscribing for more videos and essays from you!
I do find it so weird and funny that galidor actually has had one major impact on lego from then. The joints are still used today albeit with tiny updates over time.
Weird. When I first saw Galidor videos being recommended to me, I thought: "What is that? I've never heard of those LEGOS" Then the childhood memories came rushing back! I had a friend at the time, who got REALLY into this franchise... like, immediately. I think he had bought every single one of the sets, and collected all the happy meal toys. To be fair, he was really into LEGO, and did the same with Bionicle. I remember I had the "Ooni" set (had to look up the name) and the "Gorm" happy meal toy (looked that up too). I don't remember if I bought the set myself because he convinced me to try to get into the franchise, or if it was a gift from him. I never watched the show, played the games or kept the toys I had, but I still remember him telling me that the robot wasn't really a robot, but was a sentient plant living inside a robot body. He was quite enthusiastic about it.
Man, it's like Bionicle's evil twin in every sense. ConstrAction figure line? Yup. But Bionicle (at least in its golden years) had way more space for creativity and MOCs, while Galidor... had swappable limbs and heads. Cool characters? Bionicle has them up the wazoo. Galidor... looks like it was designed by someone who wants to appeal to kids despite never being one himself. Cool setting and out-of-toyline material? Well, I feel like Bionicle got it right with borrowing from Maori culture and others and then coming up with its own vocabulary for stuff that all sounded mysterious and cool. It's not just the masks, it's the Kanohi. It's not just a beast, it's a Rahi. And so on, and so forth. Galidor... had a cringey-looking TV show you'd watch if there wasn't anything better on the air at that time and terms like "glinch" that just make you cringe. No wonder their fates were mirror opposites and yet strangely the same - Galidor almost bankrupted Lego, while Bionicle saved it... and now they both are forgotten and some hack of a writer makes jokes at Bionicle's expense in the Toy Story ripoff movie.
Chima has constraction sets. it has amazing character design. it has a stunning setting, world building, ideas and plot. It just had *bad* execution. Thanks, tommy. After thinking for a little while, I decided to edit this comment, summarizing how amazing Chima is. Chima is a lego theme about anthropomorphic animals living in a distant society. Their society is technologically advanced thanks to Chi, a naturally occuring chemical that can be used as an energy source for oneself or their machines. However, its abundance AND secondary effects, that are similar to drugs, were one of the reasons a civil war broke out in Chima. It is also the reason most villains came to life. Legends of Chima has a very deep story, with amazing character designs and sets, although its writing is unfortunately an abomination because of its writer Tommy, in favor of Ninjago. The fact that anthropomorphic animals were used in this theme is incredible, as not only does it synergize with the story itself, but it helps create this otherworldly feel. Creating new, fictional cultures is very hard; humans have been existing for a long while, and with the abundance of different real-life cultures comes the pressure of either making your story set in stone on said culture (like Ninjago, which failed miserably on setting its world) or mixing real-life cultures to make a new one. With anthropomorphic animals, you have creative liberties with the cultures, because anthros will *never* exist in real-life. It was a smart play, and one that showed how characters CAN and WILL affect the world in itself. The writing may be abhorrent (as a Chima fan, I really do mean it), but everything else about Chima is a piece of art. It tried to do what most themes didn't, but because of circumstance and bad writing, *it was swept away as either f*rry (look at the thread), which is blatant misconception, or as a "Ninjago copy" by children* . Also, please, ignore the bait comment in this thread. I seem a little salty, but this happens a lot because these types of comments are basically used as a way to underappreciate and discriminate franchises, cultures and etc. that use anthropomorphic animals, especially because these types of baits (who sometimes aren't baits, shockingly enough) use an *infamous* fandom as a comparaison, with drama that has nothing to do with the culture that the fandom is based on. I could write a long comment on this subject, too. Sorry for the long comment, but I seriously could ramble on and on about what Chima tried to do, what it is, why is it the best unlicensed theme (some people would say Bionicle is better, but I digress) and etc. Legends of Chima is a work of art, with love and care put onto it. I wished people treated this franchise fairly.
Also the name is terrible, "Galidor" does not sound sci-fi at all out of context, honestly it sounds almost Arthurian and would fit a high fantasy series better (honestly something like "The Knights of Galidor" where you had knights taking on aspects of the fantasy monsters they fought would have been a way better concept). Like I wouldn't say Bionicles is a self explanatory name, but it's one that feels right in context, whereas Galidor feels like they came up with the name first and then everything else second.
Back in the day (like 10 years ago) I tried posting on the Lego message boards a thread essentially saying “hey, anyone remember Galidor? I really liked that theme.” They didn’t approve the thread lol
I can't believe a video this well researched, written and presented is coming from a channel with only 6k subscribers. This is the kind of quality I would expect from someone with 200k at LEAST, and if you keep making bangers like this you're gonna be there in no time
It helped that Bionicle was kinda-sorta part of the Technic line. It was building off something that was already proving that it worked instead of tossing all previous successes of the LEGO brand out the window.
@@timmyreobed5043 100%. Being rooted in technic meant that Bionicle's customisation ability was unparalleled. I would eye technic sets as a child thinking of them in terms of parts I could use on my bionicles. It did lost a lot of that in its later years as the parts began having fewer and fewer technic holes and axle slots though. Who designed that dumb hand piece?! I WANT NAMES!
I feel like the show should have been a cartoon. No rubber suits, no Y2K-level cheap CGI, and cheap cartoons could still look good. That being said, I might have been willing to watch this as a kid, if I had known about it. I did get a McDonald’s toy, and I thought it was actually pretty fun. I had no idea that it was a LEGO product.
Marketing perception back then was that young kids watched cartoons, but older kids favored live action shows like _Power Rangers_ and the like. Since the target market for this toyline was kids 10-14, they consciously avoided an animated cartoon. _The Simpsons_ and _X-Men The Animated Series_ were really the only two cartoons at that time which were considered acceptable for teens and adults to enjoy. Lego would've been taking an even bigger risk by making this an animated series.
I remember seeing a few episodes of Galidor when I was younger, and I was honestly surprised to see LEGO made toys for it. Before this video, I didn't realize that LEGO was behind it from the start, or why it disappeared so quickly. Thank you for this closure!
I am astounded that I have no memory at all of this, because 2002 was the peak of my Lego obsession, and I remember getting all the magazines and everything.
Holy shit, this just unlocked some repressed memories. My neighbour had a bunch of these growing up and I had a few of the McDonald's tie ins and remember seeing an episode or two of the show. It always seemed really weird to me aesthetically
I had the robot toy from the McDonald's line and until today had absolutely no idea who he was, what he was for, or why he could come apart the way he did. I had never heard of this show or the fact that it was Lego. He was just another action figure that I had to play with. I actually think I know where the toy is at my parent's house. Thanks for making this video and finally shedding some light on what this toy I played with a lot as a kid was.
the front page algorithm sent me. this felt like a documentary someone with 500-900k subscribers would make. i know keeping at the same thing for a while can be draining, but if you continue to bring this level of quality, it won't be long for your sub count to match.
I gotta say, the costumes of the aliens in the TV Show look pretty good and lifelike And the way the Kek powerizer reacts to the TV show is pretty neat
Man this unlocked a memory, growing up my aunt gave me Galidor toys, I remember very well being able to take all the figures apart and mix and match parts they were fun as a kid even tho I had no idea about the show
“Glinch” is just a terrible-sounding word to hook your franchise around. It sounds like either a euphemism for a body part (“ooh, right in the glinch!”) or an STI (“Crap, I think I got the glinch.” “Dude, go to the doctor. Glinch is easy to treat if you catch it right away but it can get real bad if you don’t.”)
I think that a big part of why Galidor never took off was its severely limited compatibility with the rest of Lego's products. I was in pretty much exactly the age demographic that Galidor was targeting when it came out, but I never had any interest in the toys specifically because they didn't allow for much building in the way that normal Lego did. Contrast it with Bionicle and it's easy to see why it lost in sales. Bionicle was built on the same proven engineering as earlier Technic themes like Throwbots and Robo Riders, and felt like a natural extension of those themes, except more realized and with a story behind it. The fact that Bionicle's parts were designed to be fully integrated with Technic meant that there were plenty of opportunities for building right from the start. Bionicle was "Lego Technic that you build as an action figure" while Galidor was "an action figure that happens to be Lego". I actually think that this is part of why Hero Factory had a harder time than Bionicle as well. While nowhere near as egregious as Galidor, it's still astonishingly difficult to integrate a lot of HF's parts into System or Technic builds. That kind of limitation really hurts when you're trying to sell a building toy like Lego.
Holy shit -- it's insane seeing Tom Lynch mentioned in a youtube video. His brother, John Lynch, is an excellent guy and was one of my former professors in film school. My parents used to tell me about their time working on Kids Incorporated with Tommy and Johnny Lynch. Damn, feels like I'm in the twilight zone rn
I am still steadfast that Galidor got heavy inspiration from Doctor Who. A blue ship that travels to random and new places thats bigger on the inside? Hell, the controll room with the center console is basically a Tardis control room.
I used to have one of these toys as a child! I had gone for so long not seeing anything about Galidor that I was beginning to think I had made it all up in my head
This is actually sounding very similar to Roblox's avatar design as of late, thinking that very detailed set are wanted more over more simplistic, but customizable blocky avatars
The best way I can describe my thoughts on Galidor is that it's the Jack Stone of constraction. In the best and worst way possible. I find some of the highly-specialized pieces fun to incorporate into MOCs, though this does little service to the sets as a whole... On the plus side, it paved the way for that ratcheted joint system used in later constraction themes like Knights' Kingdom 2 that are still used in Lego mech builds to this day.
I know what you mean about the Jack Stone thing. So many main or minor characters in poorly selling lines seem suspiciously like the same guy... a survivor claiming different identities to blend in, as he jumps from sinking ship to sinking ship. High-tech superspy work; planetary defense; prestige construction contract work; dinosaur hunting; fighting monsters during mining operations --- maybe even being a stunt double for the Prince of Persia-- the now-grown Nick has done it all. He can always be seen in the near or middle distance of things, having changed his name again so others won't recognize him and panic. 😂
I remember being so excited for the Lego Dinosaurs when they first came out. I thought they were some sort of Lego transformer. I was pretty confused when I finally got one, and I still don’t really get what they were going for with those toys. You couldn’t even mix and match parts to make weird creatures, because everything was so specifically sculpted and colored. It’s interesting to get the context that they’d taken on new talent when they started making all these weird sort of action figures. These were adults who had no affection or personal experience with Lego, it’s fascinating to see that they were more interested in making toys that were basically unrelated to Lego. Today, sets are designed by people who obsessively experimented and played with Lego as kids, and it really shows. It’s cool to be able to compare Lego products designed by people who didn’t understand them, to sets designed by people with deep love and experience with them.
Never heard of Galidor before but was super intrigued by this video. They made the toy line and show look pretty cool in the advertisements, but I can see why they didn't work out.
Thank you for making this video. I have an aunt who recently passed away and I remember she bought me one of these toys when I was younger. It was such a fond memory. I could remember the look of the toy but couldn’t remember the name. I thought I had forgotten, thank you!
When I saw the thumbnail, it unlocked some hidden memory inside the darkest corner of my mind. Now I remember this monstrosity existed. And I'm not sure I should.
I remember seeing Galidor toys on the shelves as a kid, promptly walking past them and picking up various actual lego sets instead. I didn't even give it a chance lol
Lego picked up the glinching mechanic again with the modern jurassic world toyline. They turned the mix and match of dinosaur parts into a main feature and an incentive for collecting all sets. My kids love it!!!
The failure with Galidor shows the importance of aesthetics at the time of presenting a product specially when dealing with character transformation aesthetics (making the “superpower of the character” cool looking and power imposing which will create something that the kids want to emulate and therefore sell the product )
@@LordVader1094 Sure, it wasn't marketed that great, but the costumes and effects were perfectly serviceable for the time. Hell, I was pretty much convinced by them as a kid!
I was a little past toy age when Bionicles came out, but I had a younger brother who loved them. I cant lie, I used to look forward to helping him put them together when he got new ones... would do anything to go back in time.
God I wish Galidor came out just a few years later. I was born in '03, so I completely missed out on this series. Had this been a thing when I was in my adolescent years, I'd have absolutely loved it.
In 2002 I was the exact perfect age for Galodor; I had the toy, I read the comics, I loved the TV show on CBBC, I was really disappointed when it ended honestly Looking back now, I can see it's pretty terrible, but man I have so much nostalgia for this
Fascinating. I grew up building LEGO space stuff (yeah, I’m that old). I still have every set I ever owned. I really don’t see my childhood self abandoning the diversity of things that one is able to build for interchangeable body parts. I had never heard of this line of toys, and looking at the current LEGO omnipresence, (movies, games, toys etc.) I’m glad the company got back to their roots. Thank you for a very interesting video.
I played that first online game a bunch when I could barely use a computer. It actually had a sort of pvp to it as well, where you could park your character in a training area and have other players take a crack at beating you and taking your stuff. I think it was done via Lego's online login system at the time. You could also unlock 2 upgrades for your base character that basically made you op and auto win every fight. Some mini games too, and one was required for the story and crashed often.
Yeah I remember that game. I thought it was pretty neat iirc. Then I saw the toys in the store and thought they looked so lame I wound up buying Megablocks instead (It was a pretty cool area 51 themed set) for the first and only time in my life.
Thank you so much to everyone for the overwhelmingly positive response to this video! It's really a welcome surprise, and I can't express how grateful I am to anyone who took the time to watch some of the video, like, comment, or subscribe. I have lots planned throughout the year for the channel, with many videos focused outside of Lego as well. I hope you come along for the ride!
Nice work on this video!
Oh my god, I had that green lizard thing! I never even knew there was anything more than that with it.
69K views
@@EpicTH-camHandle a gamer moment no doubt!
You know I watched so many videos on this topic over the span of years and this one is the greatest of all of them good presentation overall on the video
"The Kek Powerizer was a mechanical suit of armor that enhanced one's ability to glinch", delivered completely straight, is one of the funniest sentences I've heard in a while
The moment I heard it, I felt some small part of my soul die. I may never be able to forget this line.
"The Kek Powerizer suit gives you Glinch ( gravity lynch ) an upgraded version of Darth Vader's force choke. Clear out commies in record time with Kek and the power of Glinch!"
> Be me
> Put on Kek Powerizer
> Start to Glinch
> Turn arms and legs into whatever I'm thinking of
> Get hungry, glinch arm into microwave
> Feel lazy, feet glinch into wheels
> 10/10 QT comes in, says my glinching is cool
> P turned on
> Start to glinch
> MFW
@@jpar6031 Note: Glinching is universally recognized as a war crime, even in peacetime.
@@raycearcher5794 omg, I loved Galinor! My favourite moment was when the protagonist, Gali Glinch, said "it's glinchin' time!" and glinched all over the damn place!
There's no way CGI from 2002 could have held up nearly as well as a classic rubber suit honestly dodged a bullet with that
That's what I was thinking. It honestly looks pretty well made? Specially the articulations. Holding up to similar effects in classic series like Doctor Who, PR, etc
How did I miss this comment! Completely agree. Lego had unrealistic expectations for the tv show. One designer even expressed his disappointment that it wasn't more like the new Star Wars film. Phantom Menace had like 50x the budget.
Looking at the CG in some of those commercials really drives that point home. I didn’t mind the suits… but I haven’t watched the show since I was 12, so I didn’t exactly have “taste” at the time.
Maybe it could’ve worked if the whole thing was CGI, like Beast Wars, but even then…
Seems like one of their many mistakes was not making the show animated. Would have been way easier to do the concepts justice without needing huge budgets.
I think those costumes were great.
I think the fact that I grew up in this era, completely obsessed with Lego, living in Canada where the show aired, and still somehow had never heard of this says enough about it.
No wait I do remember this actually but literally just the name "Nick Bluetooth"
I saw it mentioned in one issues of Lego Magazine. Saw it was on a channel I didn't get and that Bionicle just seemed less kiddy to me at the age of 12 so I locked Galidor in a memory hole for roughly 20 years before someone mentioned it again.
Agreed
So I got into Lego in the fall of 2002 (when I entered kindergarten and the first friend I made was a big fan) and let me tell you, this thing had been wiped from the face of the earth by then. I have absolutely no memory of it as someone who was obsessed with Lego less than a year after its big launch. You know you've had a bad product launch when it's not just dead within a year, it's totally nonexistent
I loved my Galidor toys... But not nearly as much as I was obsessed with my Bionicles and the media around it.
Every single name in the Galidor universe is completely insane.
Including Nick Bluetooth.
Bluetooth makes sense though. Bluetooth is a Danish king or something. 🌈 @@normanclatcher
@@robertschnobert9090 just because it makes some sense doesn't mean it's not also very unhinged.
i swear glinch just SOUNDS foul
It all looks and sounds like a fake toy line in a movie or TV series.
Those rubber suits look seriously impressive. The frog-dude's range of expressions is near-Henson level.
That was my thought! They're incredible works of art, but I suppose the young and impressionable eyes of early Gen Z were not able to appreciate that yet.
@@werewolf1301Gen Z would’ve been like 1-2 at the time galidor released
@@werewolf1301"gEn Z bAd" hey dumbass gen z wasn't even a thing back in 2002. They were literal babies.
@@spencerknapp915 i think i was born later that year
That's because Jim Henson Studios was involved.
I had a Kek Powerizer as a kid and am just now learning it did all of that extra stuff at 26. Shows how successful that was...
Can it run doom
@@LocalPixelArtistprobably! 🤣
I had completely blocked all memory of this toy out of my brain until this video.
I don’t remember anyone having the suit of armor. I just remember people had the characters
I had one too, yet I had no idea what it was from or what it could do.
I'd just like to point out that one of the toys was, by coincidence, in all seriousness, called the KEK POWERIZER.
I... I just realized that XD
You kind of glaze over it when you're doing research for the video and forget how absolutely hilarious it is.
I mean, there’s also a toy named Nipple. Who is a member of the main cast.
An ambitious project, I'm sure. But in the end, it was more cringe than kek...
Nick Bluetooth Glinched Allegra Zane with Kek Powerizer
“The Kek Powerizer was a mechanical suit of armor that enhanced one’s ability to glinch” is just a buck wild sentence. I had to pause the video and collect my thoughts after hearing that
Well, *of course* the Kek Powerizer exists!
Because although you can already turn your body into vast, anatomically unbalanced monstrosities in mere seconds-- descendants of John Carpenter's Thing and cybernetic horrors-- sometimes _you just need to push yourself farther._
And when you do, that clumsy metal suit salvaged from Emperor Zurg's trashcan will win the day! All you need is a titanic race's young hanging around, savagely shaking you from behind to accomplish some goal only it knows.
Smoking that 90s shit my guy
That's certainly one of the statements of all time.
aye xD
I forgot it was a lego video at that moment
The funniest part about bad toy lines is that it had to have been at least one kid’s favorite. And when a kid likes something it is taken deathly seriously.
If only it were easier to find them, I'd love to see an interview with Galidor's #1 fan.
A 100% true
Im that kid with my beloved Olocoons O2 haha
Nobody cares, nobody likes them, but they are just the coolest thing ever for me
I commented about how my brother and I got into fist fights over these that my dad had to take them away. Meanwhile other kids had literally no clue or care about em.
Yes. Most likely a mentally challenged kid. Perhaps they have some kind of disability that makes bionicles too complex. WHen I was 5, I was building bionicles with no help from anyone.
I unironically loved those toys for their gimmick, had a blast with them, and probably still have the pieces hidden somewhere. I'd be up for the interview, but I never in my life played the games, or watched the TV Show, not even sure if it aired here.
It still amazes me how blindly ambitious toy designers were back in the early 2000's. They really thought people would put up with the most awful, unintuitive interfaces and GUI's just so long as they could enjoy some absurd gimmick. Great video man. Look forward to seeing more from you in the future. You've got the right temperament and style to cover a wide range of subjects so don't feel like all you can do is Lego videos.
There wasn't a huge saturated market with products that did it better at this time. You got this new cutting edge cool thing or you played with your old toys.
^ Yup it was either these bad boys or Rescue Heroes. (Not to shit on Rescue Heroes OFC)
never before have I seen a product that feels so much like a fake toy/show for an actual kids show
Dude, you absolutely hit the nail on the head, LOL.
I had to check the post date halfway through the video to see if it was all an April Fools joke. I can't believe this was a real thing. A stunning example of how capitalism spins its wheels inventing plastic crap no one wants complete with horrible multimedia tie-ins.
It's real. I have some. The black-masked dude was named Gorm, like my friend from school at the time.
@@TheDanishGuyReviews your buddy's actual name was GORM?!
@@slow_start Yes. It's a somewhat uncommon name here in Denmark, but yeah. It's actually the name of the very first King of Denmark, Gorm the Old.
They could have released the toys as 2 per package, that way get kids to start interchanging the parts immediately. Also it could be seen as a good deal for the parents. Even if you knew what the toys could do, imagine being a kid trying to convince your parents they need to buy you 2 toys instead of one.
But only one of these is basically like buying a single Lego brick.
That's a genius idea, surprised no one on the galidor team thought of that
@@hilariousskullnamedcatzo647 I had a pack that came with the blue guy and his horse thingy
The toy is too dumb to be successful
Literally zero memory of the Galidor toys being on store shows. Only time I saw them before this video was a very brief mention in one of our history of Lego books.
Yeah as a kid I just assumed these toys were about a guy with jet arms
I remember getting a couple of the McDonald’s toys as a kid and having no idea what they even were or how they qualified as Lego.
I remember. I always got Jens
Same, and later when I got obsessed with Bionicle, I thought it was a Bionicle TV show.
Yup. Now I know
As a fun little overlap between Bionicle and Galidor one of the most popular long running bionicle fan sites, BZpower regularly ran themed contests to build the coolest bonkle, at one point this contest theme was mechs and one of the more impressive entries used the galidor egg as a cockpit. People lost their shit over this "cheating" and it led to a massive flame war of people complaining that using a massive non bionicle piece as centerpiece should disqualify it while other people hit back that it was a legitimate lego part. Unfortunately the old BZpower archive is gone so I can't find pictures.
so you lied and have no way to prove it?
Looked up “Bionicle Galidor egg” and one of the first images is a blue mech, originally from Brickshelf and posted on Reddit. Any chance that’s it?
@@blob5907 i'm mundane = everyone else must be mundane
@@blob5907bro has serious trust issues
@@blob5907 "Guys I once saw a bunch of geeks on an obscure 2000s era forum start a giant flame war over the legitimacy of mix and matching toy parts"
"THAT'S NEVER EVER HAPPENED BEFORE EVER WHERE'S YOUR PROOF"
I feel like we're eventually going to get a year where there's an ironic obsession with Galidor, and how it's the most successful thing ever made
With all the 'rediscovery"of older media going on ( Inspired by the whole Star Trek:TNG holodeck use of old pulp fiction for stories, perhaps?), Galidor is a good candidate; I've seen worse SFX in TV shows shred on TH-cam as "classics" for one thing.
And I, for one, applaud it. People put effort into making all this; It demands appreciation out of simple human empathy.
the best part of Galidor was when he said "IT'S GALIDIN' TIME" and galied all over those guys
@@HellBuzzsaw THAT LINE WAS EPIC WHEN GALIDOR SAID THAT
You have an adorable avatar/pfp. X3
RRSlugger already did that. Although he does admit it was a financial flop even though he likes the theme.
In an alternate universe where Bionicle had been given all the funding and promotion that Galidor got in our universe, I’m pretty sure it’d still be going today.
I kinda disagree. Throwing so much money at Galidor was likely detrimental to the project as a whole. Not only did it mean that when it failed, it failed so hard it almost took the company with it, it also meant the designers had no constraints.
What I mean by that is that they could have genuinely done anything with this product. Their only limitation was that the end result be made mostly of injection-molded plastic, but that doesn't give you anything to start with. Restrictions breed creativity, and they started with basically none. Furthermore, it meant the project could afford to have multiple, entirely separate teams with few lines of communication, resulting in issues like the toy people having no idea how bad the show was until it was finished, the video game people getting iced out entirely, and the writers/character designers coming up with cringe terms like "glinch" and "kek powerizer," with nobody in any of the other design positions able to question that.
Tossing so much money at this produced a too many cooks situation entirely because Lego hired so many cooks, and their output was so stupid because they didn't have any good frameworks to work within. If this had all been the brainchild of one person instead, given creative control over all the different aspects of the project, it would have been both cheaper and less scattered a product line.
@@Frommerman lego isnt really very creative this days, mosy of their products are just based on movies tv shows or games that already exist.
@@tehdouglas1 they've leaned hard imto the disney money, but that's still 100% better than bionicle/galidor
@@ClockworkAvatar Bionicle is awesome.
@@ClockworkAvatar Better than Galidor? Yes. Better than Bionicle? Bro, are you high?
Man, imagine if Bionicle had the same level of advertising that galidor. We could’ve gotten a Bionicle TV show
They do have a few movies and a Netflix show but I heard the reviews for the show aren't that good
you're right. It's strange that they didn't take Bionicle in the same direction during the initial launch. Almost felt like they were more cautious with the IP than they were with Galidor.
@@slow_start very likely. Also, considering their monetary struggles, they likely didn't want to spend too much money
Didn’t Bionicle have a show? Maybe not around the same time, but I remember seeing 3d animations at some point.
@@Elessar0wind there were 3 movies! maybe that's what you saw.
On the bright side, Galidor is probably the greatest gold mine for LEGO cursed images ever.
I love the part where Nick bluetooth said "pair me on your device" and paired with someone's ipod.
At least Galidor introduced one thing that wasn't a failure...ratcheted ball joints (as featured on the arms, legs and heads of each figure in Galidor), which would see usage in other LEGO themes, including the Knights' Kingdom constraction figures and the Exo-Force mechs.
As far as failures go, Galidor was amazing.
Most companies when they fail are from a lack of willingness to change, to experiment and try what's new.
Everything about Galidor was filled with a keen want to push and try. And through the process they gained what they needed to continue. Though it may not of been the IP it's self the experience still advanced lego forward.
Still though, it's a shame all that creative power was spent on the body horror concept that is glinching.
Honestly I would have loved galidor when i was little and could still enjoy it now. I love making Lego characters look as ridiculous as possible it's fun.
My favorite scene in Galidor is when he said "It's Glinchin' Time". Truly one of the tv shows of all time.
And then he glinched everywhere.
The moment that changed tv forever...
The fact that you just combined a toy series with a meme from 20 years after it's creation... Bravo
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Glinch moment
I love when company's randomly decide: "this thing that is and has been really popular for years is suddenly out of style" based on literally jack shit.
Less than expected revenue isn't 'jack shit'.
@@CarrotConsumer Should have built more spaceships.
Spaceships RARELY fail.
@@CarrotConsumer less than expected sales doesn’t mean the core product and its technology is out of style and, in LEGO’s case, it was the implementation that did.
@@CarrotConsumer yes it is lmao
They were an old company that had been taking the same general approach to making products for decades, weathering fads and trends so well some execs might've feared the other shoe was due to drop. Then a rather flashy, dramatic youth culture shift happened as Lego started to do badly. 'Being out of touch' was a logical enough thing to believe had caused their failures. It would've been a tempting theory to believe because it was a simple, neat one and the solution was uncomplicated: just follow the new youth paradigm.
But it was a *terrible* idea to lay off Master Builders with decades of practical experience figuring out the aesthetic and engineering potential of _every single brick_ Lego'd ever produced. Their skill would have been just as useful crafting sets that followed the new themes, and Lego needed all the talent it could get to help them power through if they stumbled while reinventing itself.
I think their recent themed line of augmented-reality sets is another ill-considered attempt to jump on a bandwagon. The color scheme it employs is dull and unappealing, and if you don't make use of the AR gimmick the whole thing becomes underwhelming. But at least the sets can still make for decent play that way.
The best part was where Nick Bluetooth said “It’s Glinching Time!” and glinched all over those guys
i love how this just SOUNDS like something dirty
@@neonthunder3261 It could be.
I mean, he could take their arms. Imagine doing "the stranger" using someone's stolen arm.
You joke, but he actually did say "It's glinch time" at one point and destroyed a giant statue with a glinch.
Truly, one of the scenes of the show. 😂
Omg... did I go back in time?!? Is it 2021 again?!? Or was that just a really out of date joke?
Galidor is one of those shows I thought was a fever dream and always longed for closure on remembering it fondly on the occasion I caught an episode. Been binging the show on TH-cam and the editing style and effects where such a charming blast from the past you can definitely tell when it was made lol.
Hoping for a hi def re-release in the future! Ive seen a few eps on youtube too, but for the most part the low res is too low for me haha.
@@slow_start yeah it was brutal lmao i thought it was my connection making it go down to the lowest resolution before i realized thats just the videos quality
I was tuning in to Fox Kids EVERY Saturday when this show was running, and I have ZERO memory of it. It's depressing how something made with so much effort left no cultural impact at all.
I'm stoked for more Bonkle and whatever else you put out. This video had me deeply invested in something I've never heard of.
To be fair Galidor was the final show to air on the Fox Kids programming block in the United States before it closed down. It aired right at the tail end of Fox Kids life span, so it's understandable why most don't remember it.
I LOVED Galador as a kid… I didn’t even know it _had_ a toy line. Much less that it was Lego-based.
It's definitely hard to tell at first glance that it's a Lego product, that's for sure!
Like when I knew Star Wars because of the Lego Star Wars game and I didn't know it was a franchise.
How didn't you know Galidor had a toy line? Even McDonald's had happy meal toys on it.
I used to own some of the toys when it was at its peak.
I had no idea there was a show. I just knew it as this weird toy line. Part of what made it so weird to me was thinking it had no background, and was just some really random characters.
@@cerisem7727 I was a kid during this time. I loved Lego. Somehow Galidor completely missed me! Learning about Galidor now, as an adult, feels like something out of another universe. I don't remember any of the toys. Any of the ads. Anything about the show, or it's existence. I never got a Galidor happy meal toy. Nothing.
Somehow it's entirely possible.
And to think, THIS is what lego put their budget into in conjunction with a show. Not Bionicle, not Knights Kingdom, not Exo-Force, but... Galidor...
Now, I recognize that these mentioned themes came later, so rather it was the case that any budget for a show was put to waste earlier with Galidor.
Exo-Force came later, but the other two came out before Galidor
God Exo-Force was awesome
If only Exo-Force got an anime...
I still find it weird that Universal Cartoon Studios named his show Exosquad instead of Exoforce for fear that Marvel would sue their pants off… And then Lego pulled this.
@@kourii Knights Kingdom 2, which is what I assume they’re referring to, was also after Galidor
I played the crap out of the Galidor Quest game on the old Lego website when I was a kid. I couldn't find it for years until I downloaded Flashpoint and searched it up again. I vaguely remembered the TV show, and everyone thought I was crazy because no one ever heard of it before.
Good god, this video brought back a memory I have form literally 20 years ago, of me rummaging through a friend's toy box and finding a bunch of parts of these things, specifically the poweriser and the wing arms. I had absolutely no idea at the time what they were from until now.
These toys were a piece of my childhood that I would trade for something else. I live in the Philippines and my parents bought the complete set since they were being sold EXTREMELY CHEAP despite their apparent "lego quality". That really shows this toyline tanked so bad since it was being sold in bins in a third world country. The bonus was my cousins also was able to buy theirs and were able to play together with four Kek Powerizers. I remember watching the TV Show too, but it was dubbed with local language so the Kek didn't exactly work.
While I praise these toy's quality. I admit my little kid brain didn't really have fun with them, except turning that grey robot into a spider scorpion thing my Bionicles would fight against. I just went back playing with my hotwheels a week later, with the Kek occasionally being a "giant robot" prop.
FOUR Kek Powerizers?! Your ability to glinch must have been off the charts!
the only thing what would have made this whole debacle even funnier would have been if his catch phrase would have been "it's glinchin' time"
the Galidor RPG on Lego's website legit kept me entertained for HOURS. therefore Galidor was a massive success... fight me
People like to "hate" when something wasn't commercially successful. If you liked it as a kid, no one can take away those memories from you. ❤
@@salmansengul❤
No conflict here. If you enjoy something, more power to your elbow.
Heck, I've spent the last few months following the 1949 to 1962 radio show "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar" with great pleasure, how could I criticize?
Same!!!
Galidor Quest was SO much fun when I was 10!
4:30 godamn. I went into this video, heard the name of the product, and nothing rang a bell. But the INSTANT I saw those shoulder joints, I remembered that I wanted the ENTIRE TV series and played far into the online browser game for this brand.
Wait. So this wasn't a fever dream I had as a child? My brother and I had a couple of these toys, completely forgot they existed until now.
My exact thought process
I had one and had no clue what it was until watching this
This unlocked a long buried memory from my childhood. I used to watch this before school back in the day, but i couldn't remember what it was called. Or even what it was about - except there were cool aliens and a kid in an egg shaped spaceship. I remember loving the show though, in all its cheesy nineties glory. So thank you v much for the nostalgia!
I had a toy of the blue alien when I was a kid. Played with him almost daily for years.
NEVER knew what the heck he was from until now. 🙃
Same here. I was like, "Why is this familiar?"
Yeah this one ripped the memory out of a corner somewhere.
Same here dude. I’ve been trying to remember this for 20 years at this point.
I barely have any memories with it, even though I had some of the toys, bruhhh
I never heard of this before! It feels like I'm looking at a bizarre alternate timeline. It's weird to think that LEGO poured so much money and ambition into a project that's now all but forgotten.
Yea same here. At first I thought this was something that never actually released, but nope. Weird
Then again, who remembers "New Coke"?
I was born a year before Galidor launched and I have zero memories of ever watching the show or playing with the toys.
So imagine my shock when I discovered that I did indeed have Galidor toys as a kid. I even found a picture of me holding them next to some Spider-Man toys.
Good video my guy! This definitely deserves more views!
"Don't have a memory"
Dude, you were 1 year old
The toy line ended literally 6 months after it's release
How the fuck could you even remember it?
@@RazorsharpLT his whole family was into this series and is very upset baby him can't remember the power of glinching.
I was the target audience at the time. I was 11 when this toy came out. I don't remember it at all, and I have a damn good memory.
@@RazorsharpLT I must've played with them after the toy line ended. My father says that he found a bargain bin filled with Galidor toys that were 5 for $5 and, because he had $20 and cared for me and my older brother, got them.
It’s so weird that they wouldn’t promote the toys at the same time as the show…
You've awoken a core memory... I remember seeing a few toys like this as a kid and having now idea of the source until now.
...but man, I can see why Bionicle beat this one out.
...Bluetooth ?
Now I cannot unsee any Bluetooth device without thinking of lego lore
Just tuned in but wanted to give my 2 cents as a LEGO fan with lots of memories from this era. I never got into Galidor as a kid but over the years Galidor became a more and more prevalent meme throughout the convention scene. At its peak Brickfair Virginia even had the actor who played Nick Bluetooth appear (I met him, he's really nice). I distinctly recall seeing in stores and reading all about it in LEGO Magazine and even got a few Happy Meal toys, but only ever had one friend who got one of the toys for a birthday. Looking back it was surreal how prevalent the franchise was, but how little anyone seemed to care.
I vaguely remember stumbling upon this franchise in advertisement when I was a kid. One thing that struck me was some of the names, notably Jens and Gorm (apparently the main bad guy). Those are perfectly common Danish names and that struck me as odd, being a Danish kid. For what seemed to be a far out sci-fi concept those, to me, quite mundane names seemed out of place. It's like naming your main villain "Bob" or something like that.
Bob the killer goldfish
Like in Twin Peaks.
Bob Vader
It’d be like naming the supreme being in your Japanese sci-fi series Akira
Honestly this sounds (on paper) like the greatest toy/TV show line of all time. I mean, a toy line like this that interacts with the TV show and allows play outside of the show... if I were in the age group of roughly early teens at the time I'd have eaten that up.
Captain Power did it better back in 1987.
@@bobby-zx6177 I vaguely remember that show. What I remember of it... it was genuinely good at times.
I gotta be honest, as a tween at the time, even one with access to YTV and FOX, and one who dearly loved Lego, I thought Galador sounded cheesy and the toy and character designs seemed very generic? I understand that I didn't like action figures very much, but Bionicle managed to be far more interesting and engaging to me from a design and lore/setting perspective.
As a kid I felt like if I had spent actual money on a toy from a TV show I must have been severely scammed.
Pronouncing A R G as Arrrrgh like a pirate was certainly a choice that was made
I really have to applaud you for making possibly the most in-depth and well-researched videos on Galidor out there. Information on this obscure series is nearly impossible to find, so its great to have much of it in a single spot.
Definitely subscribing for more videos and essays from you!
Thank you for this wonderful comment! More to come, that's for sure!
I do find it so weird and funny that galidor actually has had one major impact on lego from then. The joints are still used today albeit with tiny updates over time.
Weird. When I first saw Galidor videos being recommended to me, I thought: "What is that? I've never heard of those LEGOS" Then the childhood memories came rushing back!
I had a friend at the time, who got REALLY into this franchise... like, immediately. I think he had bought every single one of the sets, and collected all the happy meal toys. To be fair, he was really into LEGO, and did the same with Bionicle. I remember I had the "Ooni" set (had to look up the name) and the "Gorm" happy meal toy (looked that up too). I don't remember if I bought the set myself because he convinced me to try to get into the franchise, or if it was a gift from him. I never watched the show, played the games or kept the toys I had, but I still remember him telling me that the robot wasn't really a robot, but was a sentient plant living inside a robot body. He was quite enthusiastic about it.
Man, it's like Bionicle's evil twin in every sense.
ConstrAction figure line? Yup. But Bionicle (at least in its golden years) had way more space for creativity and MOCs, while Galidor... had swappable limbs and heads.
Cool characters? Bionicle has them up the wazoo. Galidor... looks like it was designed by someone who wants to appeal to kids despite never being one himself.
Cool setting and out-of-toyline material? Well, I feel like Bionicle got it right with borrowing from Maori culture and others and then coming up with its own vocabulary for stuff that all sounded mysterious and cool. It's not just the masks, it's the Kanohi. It's not just a beast, it's a Rahi. And so on, and so forth. Galidor... had a cringey-looking TV show you'd watch if there wasn't anything better on the air at that time and terms like "glinch" that just make you cringe.
No wonder their fates were mirror opposites and yet strangely the same - Galidor almost bankrupted Lego, while Bionicle saved it... and now they both are forgotten and some hack of a writer makes jokes at Bionicle's expense in the Toy Story ripoff movie.
What movie would that be?
@@badbusiness2113 The Lego movie, naturally.
@@AllardRT Thanks.
Chima has constraction sets. it has amazing character design. it has a stunning setting, world building, ideas and plot. It just had *bad* execution. Thanks, tommy.
After thinking for a little while, I decided to edit this comment, summarizing how amazing Chima is. Chima is a lego theme about anthropomorphic animals living in a distant society. Their society is technologically advanced thanks to Chi, a naturally occuring chemical that can be used as an energy source for oneself or their machines. However, its abundance AND secondary effects, that are similar to drugs, were one of the reasons a civil war broke out in Chima. It is also the reason most villains came to life. Legends of Chima has a very deep story, with amazing character designs and sets, although its writing is unfortunately an abomination because of its writer Tommy, in favor of Ninjago. The fact that anthropomorphic animals were used in this theme is incredible, as not only does it synergize with the story itself, but it helps create this otherworldly feel. Creating new, fictional cultures is very hard; humans have been existing for a long while, and with the abundance of different real-life cultures comes the pressure of either making your story set in stone on said culture (like Ninjago, which failed miserably on setting its world) or mixing real-life cultures to make a new one. With anthropomorphic animals, you have creative liberties with the cultures, because anthros will *never* exist in real-life. It was a smart play, and one that showed how characters CAN and WILL affect the world in itself.
The writing may be abhorrent (as a Chima fan, I really do mean it), but everything else about Chima is a piece of art. It tried to do what most themes didn't, but because of circumstance and bad writing, *it was swept away as either f*rry (look at the thread), which is blatant misconception, or as a "Ninjago copy" by children* . Also, please, ignore the bait comment in this thread. I seem a little salty, but this happens a lot because these types of comments are basically used as a way to underappreciate and discriminate franchises, cultures and etc. that use anthropomorphic animals, especially because these types of baits (who sometimes aren't baits, shockingly enough) use an *infamous* fandom as a comparaison, with drama that has nothing to do with the culture that the fandom is based on. I could write a long comment on this subject, too.
Sorry for the long comment, but I seriously could ramble on and on about what Chima tried to do, what it is, why is it the best unlicensed theme (some people would say Bionicle is better, but I digress) and etc. Legends of Chima is a work of art, with love and care put onto it. I wished people treated this franchise fairly.
Also the name is terrible, "Galidor" does not sound sci-fi at all out of context, honestly it sounds almost Arthurian and would fit a high fantasy series better (honestly something like "The Knights of Galidor" where you had knights taking on aspects of the fantasy monsters they fought would have been a way better concept). Like I wouldn't say Bionicles is a self explanatory name, but it's one that feels right in context, whereas Galidor feels like they came up with the name first and then everything else second.
Back in the day (like 10 years ago) I tried posting on the Lego message boards a thread essentially saying “hey, anyone remember Galidor? I really liked that theme.”
They didn’t approve the thread lol
I can't believe a video this well researched, written and presented is coming from a channel with only 6k subscribers. This is the kind of quality I would expect from someone with 200k at LEAST, and if you keep making bangers like this you're gonna be there in no time
Quality brings subscribers, not the other way around.
The production quality is seriously up there, dude - not to mention well researched. This is fantastic, I hope to see more in the future!
Thank you so much, seriously. Very happy to see such a positive response with this video :)
Amazing production quality for someone with 3k subs, very inpressive
Bionicle is unironically one of those things that feels like the perfect meld of human culture and experience. To say it was art is an understatement.
Galidor on the other hand...
It helped that Bionicle was kinda-sorta part of the Technic line. It was building off something that was already proving that it worked instead of tossing all previous successes of the LEGO brand out the window.
Its a plastic toy
@@timmyreobed5043 100%. Being rooted in technic meant that Bionicle's customisation ability was unparalleled. I would eye technic sets as a child thinking of them in terms of parts I could use on my bionicles.
It did lost a lot of that in its later years as the parts began having fewer and fewer technic holes and axle slots though. Who designed that dumb hand piece?! I WANT NAMES!
bionicle was butt ugly crap with cringy backstory made of like 6 bricks in total
truly a dark age of lego
I feel like the show should have been a cartoon. No rubber suits, no Y2K-level cheap CGI, and cheap cartoons could still look good.
That being said, I might have been willing to watch this as a kid, if I had known about it. I did get a McDonald’s toy, and I thought it was actually pretty fun. I had no idea that it was a LEGO product.
With animation similar to the video game, it wouldn’t have been bad.
Marketing perception back then was that young kids watched cartoons, but older kids favored live action shows like _Power Rangers_ and the like. Since the target market for this toyline was kids 10-14, they consciously avoided an animated cartoon.
_The Simpsons_ and _X-Men The Animated Series_ were really the only two cartoons at that time which were considered acceptable for teens and adults to enjoy. Lego would've been taking an even bigger risk by making this an animated series.
it would've just been a gimped Titan A.E. might as well make that a series.
they also probably went live action because it would be much cheaper and probably a lot quicker than animation
There was a Bionicle cartoon lol. You don't need a crystal ball to know a cartoon is a better idea
Alternative title: "The Glinch Who Stoled LEGO's Bank Account"
11:08 The show having encoded signals that interact with the toy is such an insanely cool idea I can’t believe it didn’t catch on
I remember seeing a few episodes of Galidor when I was younger, and I was honestly surprised to see LEGO made toys for it. Before this video, I didn't realize that LEGO was behind it from the start, or why it disappeared so quickly.
Thank you for this closure!
same
Some people are just meant for video making, and my guy, you’re one of them, the script and editing is done to perfection. Awesome job!
what an incredibly kind comment. You made my day man, thank you!
I would never have guessed that Lego pioneered on-disc DLC.
I am astounded that I have no memory at all of this, because 2002 was the peak of my Lego obsession, and I remember getting all the magazines and everything.
The executive who saw Bionicle's pitch up and said "let's keep these tribal robots as back up in case Galidor fails" literally saved lego.
Honestly, if they'd stuck with creatures (kind of like a Spore-esque theme) I think it could've been cool.
Agreed. I wish they stuck with the animals...
Holy shit, this just unlocked some repressed memories. My neighbour had a bunch of these growing up and I had a few of the McDonald's tie ins and remember seeing an episode or two of the show. It always seemed really weird to me aesthetically
Exactly the same experience I think. It was fun for a few visits then we went back to Bionicle, or something like that.
The best part of Galidor was when Nick said "it's glinching time" and totally glinched all over those guys.
Everybody in the cinema got out of their seats, put on their kek powerizers and proceeded to clap for an hour straight.
Yeah, it certainly was one of the shows of the early 2000s. Had actors, scripts, and costumes too.
Galimorb
Please for the love of God let this meme die
He doesn't say that
i can confirm, as a 7 year old in 2001, galidor figures in the box terrified me.
I had the robot toy from the McDonald's line and until today had absolutely no idea who he was, what he was for, or why he could come apart the way he did. I had never heard of this show or the fact that it was Lego. He was just another action figure that I had to play with. I actually think I know where the toy is at my parent's house. Thanks for making this video and finally shedding some light on what this toy I played with a lot as a kid was.
the front page algorithm sent me. this felt like a documentary someone with 500-900k subscribers would make. i know keeping at the same thing for a while can be draining, but if you continue to bring this level of quality, it won't be long for your sub count to match.
checking back in now that i'm using my channel to get awareness on a hit and run on my e-bike. i'm glad to see your channel grew!
I gotta say, the costumes of the aliens in the TV Show look pretty good and lifelike
And the way the Kek powerizer reacts to the TV show is pretty neat
Man this unlocked a memory, growing up my aunt gave me Galidor toys, I remember very well being able to take all the figures apart and mix and match parts they were fun as a kid even tho I had no idea about the show
“Glinch” is just a terrible-sounding word to hook your franchise around. It sounds like either a euphemism for a body part (“ooh, right in the glinch!”) or an STI (“Crap, I think I got the glinch.” “Dude, go to the doctor. Glinch is easy to treat if you catch it right away but it can get real bad if you don’t.”)
I had these! Totally forgot about it and would've never remembered the names unless I found your channel. Holy cow, what a deep deep memory unlocked.
I think that a big part of why Galidor never took off was its severely limited compatibility with the rest of Lego's products. I was in pretty much exactly the age demographic that Galidor was targeting when it came out, but I never had any interest in the toys specifically because they didn't allow for much building in the way that normal Lego did.
Contrast it with Bionicle and it's easy to see why it lost in sales. Bionicle was built on the same proven engineering as earlier Technic themes like Throwbots and Robo Riders, and felt like a natural extension of those themes, except more realized and with a story behind it. The fact that Bionicle's parts were designed to be fully integrated with Technic meant that there were plenty of opportunities for building right from the start. Bionicle was "Lego Technic that you build as an action figure" while Galidor was "an action figure that happens to be Lego".
I actually think that this is part of why Hero Factory had a harder time than Bionicle as well. While nowhere near as egregious as Galidor, it's still astonishingly difficult to integrate a lot of HF's parts into System or Technic builds. That kind of limitation really hurts when you're trying to sell a building toy like Lego.
Holy shit -- it's insane seeing Tom Lynch mentioned in a youtube video. His brother, John Lynch, is an excellent guy and was one of my former professors in film school. My parents used to tell me about their time working on Kids Incorporated with Tommy and Johnny Lynch. Damn, feels like I'm in the twilight zone rn
Tom Lynch worked on this pile?
I am still steadfast that Galidor got heavy inspiration from Doctor Who. A blue ship that travels to random and new places thats bigger on the inside? Hell, the controll room with the center console is basically a Tardis control room.
You just unlocked an obscure memory inforgot i had. I never saw galidor but i had galidor legos!! I was born in 96 and remever that blue guy
I used to have one of these toys as a child! I had gone for so long not seeing anything about Galidor that I was beginning to think I had made it all up in my head
This is actually sounding very similar to Roblox's avatar design as of late, thinking that very detailed set are wanted more over more simplistic, but customizable blocky avatars
Almost like Roblox’s developers might have been impressionable children during the Galidor saga…
The real problem becomes when they're so detailed and contoured, they can't blend in with the greater work they're part of.
The best way I can describe my thoughts on Galidor is that it's the Jack Stone of constraction. In the best and worst way possible. I find some of the highly-specialized pieces fun to incorporate into MOCs, though this does little service to the sets as a whole... On the plus side, it paved the way for that ratcheted joint system used in later constraction themes like Knights' Kingdom 2 that are still used in Lego mech builds to this day.
I know what you mean about the Jack Stone thing. So many main or minor characters in poorly selling lines seem suspiciously like the same guy... a survivor claiming different identities to blend in, as he jumps from sinking ship to sinking ship.
High-tech superspy work; planetary defense; prestige construction contract work; dinosaur hunting; fighting monsters during mining operations --- maybe even being a stunt double for the Prince of Persia-- the now-grown Nick has done it all. He can always be seen in the near or middle distance of things, having changed his name again so others won't recognize him and panic. 😂
I remember being so excited for the Lego Dinosaurs when they first came out. I thought they were some sort of Lego transformer. I was pretty confused when I finally got one, and I still don’t really get what they were going for with those toys. You couldn’t even mix and match parts to make weird creatures, because everything was so specifically sculpted and colored.
It’s interesting to get the context that they’d taken on new talent when they started making all these weird sort of action figures. These were adults who had no affection or personal experience with Lego, it’s fascinating to see that they were more interested in making toys that were basically unrelated to Lego.
Today, sets are designed by people who obsessively experimented and played with Lego as kids, and it really shows. It’s cool to be able to compare Lego products designed by people who didn’t understand them, to sets designed by people with deep love and experience with them.
I actually had the triceratops as a kid. It was amazing in my opinion for displaying next to my normal dino figures
based usagi pfp
i loved the lego dinosaur sets, i never really saw them as anything other than normal molded lego animals
I had not heard of, seen, or thought of Galidor in 20 years, until today.
the kel powerizer toy is actually a really cool idea
but the real question is...
can it run doom?
I used to have a couple of the McDonald’s toys, but never knew exactly what they were from
Never heard of Galidor before but was super intrigued by this video. They made the toy line and show look pretty cool in the advertisements, but I can see why they didn't work out.
Thank you for making this video. I have an aunt who recently passed away and I remember she bought me one of these toys when I was younger. It was such a fond memory. I could remember the look of the toy but couldn’t remember the name. I thought I had forgotten, thank you!
When I saw the thumbnail, it unlocked some hidden memory inside the darkest corner of my mind. Now I remember this monstrosity existed. And I'm not sure I should.
The PS1/PS2 era style Drum & Base music used as bgm fits this video so well. Great video! 👍
th-cam.com/video/2GgiZZhO-PA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=RLDaezvzZoMBMHxH
I remember seeing Galidor toys on the shelves as a kid, promptly walking past them and picking up various actual lego sets instead. I didn't even give it a chance lol
Lego picked up the glinching mechanic again with the modern jurassic world toyline. They turned the mix and match of dinosaur parts into a main feature and an incentive for collecting all sets. My kids love it!!!
I love the way the commercial voice hypes up “download missions win more missions”
The failure with Galidor shows the importance of aesthetics at the time of presenting a product specially when dealing with character transformation aesthetics (making the “superpower of the character” cool looking and power imposing which will create something that the kids want to emulate and therefore sell the product )
This is a truly astonishing story. I had no idea Lego once thought the block was obsolete!
I freaking loved Galidor as a kid, and even had some of the toys. It's a shame that no one else liked them, though...
It's not much of a surprise though lol
@@LordVader1094 Sure, it wasn't marketed that great, but the costumes and effects were perfectly serviceable for the time. Hell, I was pretty much convinced by them as a kid!
That thumbnail unlocked some very deeply hidden core memories for me lol
I was a little past toy age when Bionicles came out, but I had a younger brother who loved them. I cant lie, I used to look forward to helping him put them together when he got new ones... would do anything to go back in time.
God I wish Galidor came out just a few years later. I was born in '03, so I completely missed out on this series. Had this been a thing when I was in my adolescent years, I'd have absolutely loved it.
A channel with only 4k subscribers with this level of quality? Bro what? This channel is a hidden gem of TH-cam.
In 2002 I was the exact perfect age for Galodor; I had the toy, I read the comics, I loved the TV show on CBBC, I was really disappointed when it ended honestly
Looking back now, I can see it's pretty terrible, but man I have so much nostalgia for this
So this is why every show, movie, and game released by LEGO is 100% animated and in complete LEGO-form
Fascinating. I grew up building LEGO space stuff (yeah, I’m that old). I still have every set I ever owned. I really don’t see my childhood self abandoning the diversity of things that one is able to build for interchangeable body parts. I had never heard of this line of toys, and looking at the current LEGO omnipresence, (movies, games, toys etc.) I’m glad the company got back to their roots. Thank you for a very interesting video.
I played that first online game a bunch when I could barely use a computer. It actually had a sort of pvp to it as well, where you could park your character in a training area and have other players take a crack at beating you and taking your stuff. I think it was done via Lego's online login system at the time.
You could also unlock 2 upgrades for your base character that basically made you op and auto win every fight. Some mini games too, and one was required for the story and crashed often.
Yeah I remember that game. I thought it was pretty neat iirc. Then I saw the toys in the store and thought they looked so lame I wound up buying Megablocks instead (It was a pretty cool area 51 themed set) for the first and only time in my life.