12 October 2019

LEGO® CITY review: 60234 People Pack - Fun Fair

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
While we tend not to to focus on minifigures heavily here at New Elementary, we often look at minifigure accessories, body wear and headgear as they can often be utilised within builds completely differently than being simple minifigure elements. 60234 People Pack Fun Fair (available at Amazon.com – paid link) was released this summer and contains enough interesting, new elements for us to take a closer look.


60234 People Pack Fun Fair contains 183 elements, 14 minifigures and is priced at  £34.99 / $39.99 / 39.99€.

New Elements


Bicycle Frame, No. 2 in White (6263884|50015), bizarrely called Tricycle Frame by BrickLink, is a brand new element. It forms a cute little ice cream cart that attaches to the new frame and you can see that there are a host of new connections with a central 3.18mm cross bar through the front vertical 3.18mm bar plus a clip at the top.

This new bicycle frame is also the focus of our current contest: Recycle My Bicycle.


Go and read more if you fancy entering, with the chance of winning one of five Harley Davidson sets up for grabs!


Propeller, W/ 1.5 Shaft, No. 1 in Bright Yellow/ Yellow (6265497|54568) is the microscale propellor your tiny planes have been waiting for. In the set, it attaches on top of a minifigure baseball cap (or any headgear or hair with a 1.5mm hole) thus providing some comedy childhood photographs for their 18th birthday party.  This element also comes in 60235 City Advent Calendar (paid link) and 60233 Donut Shop Opening (paid link).

The 1.5 shaft can fit into any of the 1.5 holes of course, such as the central recessed hole on the underside of the 1x2 rounded plate, the top of a 'nipple' or the side hole in a bar clip.


Mini Toy Duck No. 2 in Bright Yellow (6269141|58039) was first seen in this set and 41384 Andrea's Summer Heart Box (paid link) both released this summer. More recently, the same element appeared in Bright Green with a Bright Red/ Red beak with the Shower Guy from CMF Series 18.

New Colours


Plate 2X8 W/gliding Groove in Bright Yellow (6267053|30586) is a new colour for this part and there are two that make up the High Stricker, or Tower of Strength.


The handy gap formed by placing this element on top of itself allows the Plate 1x2 with rail in White to be flicked upwards towards the 'bell'.


Throwing Ring in Dark Azure (Mini Accessory, No 5 - 6264071|35485) joins its Silver Metallic/ Flat Silver (6207840) companion from last year. It is used in the duck side show to try and hoop the duck and win a prize. This LEGO® version of the game seems very generous as usually the hoop diameter is barely able to make it over the head of the duck!


Plate 1X2 W/Holder, Vertical in Medium Azure (6237716|60470) appears for this first time in this colour.  This is a popular colour so I imagine it will appear in more sets in the future.


It forms part of the ice cream cart that attaches the cart to the front cross bar on the new bicycle frame, so only one is supplied in the set.


Teddy Bear in Medium Lavender (6271038|43312) joins a growing LEGO teddy bear collection, although this is a first time in this hue.

Balloon Dog in Transparent Blue/ Trans-Dark Blue (6262612|35692) also comes in other two colours with the CMF Series 18 Party Clown - Transparent Medium Reddish Violet/ Trans-Dark Pink (6223683) and Trans-Green (6223563).

Steampunk Top Hat in Medium Lilac/ Dark Purple (Mini Hat, No. 30 - 6265728|27149) is a new colour this year which also comes in one other 4+ set; 76138 Batman and The Joker Escape (paid link). This funky hat also comes in Black (6171844) and White (6212072).







Ice Lolly (aka Popsicle for those over the Pond) in Transparent Blue (6267057|32981) joins Transparent Fluorescent Green/ Trans-Neon Green (6216057) as another flavour.  I found a few more flavours when I looked through my ice lolly collection including Transparent Fluorescent Blue/ Trans-Medium Blue and Transparent Medium Violet/ Trans-Dark Pink. There are also three of the new Transparent Blue version in 40344 Summer Celebration Minifigure Pack.


Paint Brush in Reddish Brown with Bright Orange/ Orange Tip (6271042|43313) joins the three other minifigure paint brushes: plain (6046576|15232), Dark Green/ Green Tip (6047551|14428) and Medium Azure (IDs not known).  Interestingly both the Dark Green and Medium Azure versions also have a silver ring near the head of the brush but this is not present on the newest version.

Printed Elements

There are two new printed elements in this set.

  • Flat Tile 1X4, No. 141 'Fun Fair squiggles' in Bright Yellow (6269142|50841)
  • Flat Tile 2X4, No. 205 'Ice Cream Sign' in White (6269147|58042). Two are supplied, for either side of the ice cream cart.

The Minifigures

As mentioned, there are 14 minifigures in this set. I won't go through all the minifigures and their new printing as there are lots of new torsos in this set.


There are four fair vendors/workers, but only the Ice Cream Vendor with the vertical stripe short has a double-sided head (I imagine so she can see once the sun goes behind a cloud).  'Ageing Rocker' has the Mullet Hair in Reddish Brown (6271053|24072), this joins the Medium Nougat (6138399) version from 2016's CMF Series 15 Wrestling Champion.

In addition to the vendors, there are a further six adults.


You can see that Laughing Lady in Light Purple/ Bright Pink, 'Fit Gran' in Medium Lilac and 'Superman Wannabe' in Medium Blue all have double-sided heads.  Interestingly my Fit Gran had the same print both sides for her head.

All the torsos shown above apart from Laughing Lady and Boring Dad in Plaid Shirt are new and exclusive to this set.

Finally we have the four children figures including my personal favourite: the tiger face-painted child is the clear winner here. (Excuse the slightly out-of-focus image, I just couldn't get them all to stand still.)

I do think that LEGO missed out on an opportunity to have the same child with a smeared tiger face on the other side of the head. As anyone who has ever had their child face-painted will know, they wipe their nose on their sleeve or rub their face and the art is everywhere about 10 minutes later!

The Builds

As a pack of minifigures, there is not a huge amount of building required in this set, but the small sideshows at the fair are actually quite fun.

The Ice Cream Cart is a cute build even though only one ice cream is supplied which seems a little mean.  There is a popsicle as I mentioned before but a few colours of ice cream would have been nice to have in my opinion, especially if there had been a new colour provided.

My personal favourite is the shooting range where water (1x1 Transparent Light Blue stud) is fired from the pistol and very effectively knocks down the targets. The targets fall quite easily when pressure is applied to the trigger and a child perhaps moves the plate a little - it would benefit from resting on top of a larger baseplate if children are playing.


In fact, I thought it was actually a good test for peak flow as demonstrated by the effect of me huffing and puffing and blowing the targets from about 50cm away, with one strong puff.

There is a simple table with paints for face painting but the new paintbrush colour and the tiger-faced head make up for the basic table and paint set-up.


You can show your accuracy and strength with the functional High Striker although there is no victory bell when the dome at the top is struck.



Finally, the rubber ducks spin round to make it tough to try and throw a ring over their heads.

Conclusion

This is a fun set of 14 minifigures and five mini-builds that depict fairground attractions. In terms of new elements, the new Bicycle Frame and the small Propeller are interesting elements although perhaps not a generically useful as some of the new elements we see. There are a lot of connections available in the new Bicycle Frame so I look forward to seeing what our readers come up with in the our Recycle My Bicycle Contest that is currently still open for entries.

As we tend not to get too excited about new minifigures here at New Elementary, I perhaps haven't looked as in-depth as some other sites will at the minifigures but 14 new minifigures with lots of new torso, head and new hair elements makes this set attractive to fans.  I was pleased to see that many of the torsos do not have yellow necklines which makes them compatible with the 'Fleshie' minifigures that I personally prefer.

The functional mini-builds are fun for children and in fact my own children have commandeered the Ice Cream Cart and the Target Shoot for coveted positions in their bedrooms, so these were clearly popular.

If you're buying from Amazon please consider following our affiliate links; it helps us keep on keeping on! As an Amazon Associate, New Elementary earn from qualifying purchases.




Help New Elementary keep publishing articles like this. Become a Patron!

Thanks to our 'Vibrant Coral' patrons: Ryan Welles, Chris Cook, London AFOLs, Gerald Lasser, Big B Bricks, Dave Schefcik, David and Breda Fennell, Iain Adams, Huw Millington, Neil Crosby, Antonio Serra, Beyond the Brick, Sue Ann Barber & Trevor Clark, and Kevin Gascoigne. You're all awesome!

You can also help us by doing what you perhaps do already - buying from Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, New Elementary earn from qualifying purchases. Amazon USA: Amazon.com Canada: Amazon.ca UK: Amazon.co.uk Deutschland: Amazon.de

Search New Elementary


Products mentioned in this post were kindly supplied by the LEGO Group. All content represents the opinions of New Elementary authors and not the LEGO Group. All text and images are © New Elementary unless otherwise attributed.

4 comments:

  1. The "Fit Gran" (excellent name by the way) actually does have two different faces. The differences are subtle but present. The head first appeared in the NINJAGO Temple of Airjitzu.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can see a difference, too. Anyone can see a difference, if they just use their eyes...to look at hers.

      Delete
    2. Thanks Timmy, it's easier to spot when I take her hair off. As someone that avoids Yellow Heads I appreciate your comment :-)

      Delete
  2. Great selection of parts/colours/figures. I think the striped/leather jacket torso is also from the Ninjago movie set (Nya) or very very similar.

    ReplyDelete