The Lego Simpsons House has been released and LegoGenre is here with a full review. Every photo can be clicked on to see a larger image, so if you want to find every stray dog hair, that is the way to do it.

Name: The Simpsons™ House
Number: 71006
Pieces: 2523
Minifigures: 6
Release: January/February 2014
Price: US: $199.99, CA: $229.99, DE: 199.99€, UK: £179.99, DK: 1,699.00, DKK: 1,699.00

Official Lego Description: 

Recreate hilarious scenes from the classic animated TV series with The Simpsons™ House. Taken right out of Springfield, this amazing model is crammed with tons of LEGO® brick detail. Lift off the roof and open up the house to discover Homer and Marge’s big family bedroom including bed and Maggie’s crib, Bart’s room with his skateboard and Krusty the Clown poster, Lisa’s room with her favorite books, jazz poster and more, and bathroom with shower, toilet, sink and mirror. Lift off the top floor to reveal the fully-fitted kitchen with dining table, chairs, yellow and light-blue tiled floor and lots of pots, pans and other accessories. Then it’s into the living room with couch and TV playing Itchy and Scratchy, purple piano and more. Next to the house is the detachable garage, complete with workbench, tool rack, vacuum cleaner, broom, toolbox, tools and the family car, complete with dent (because only in a LEGO world are dents a plus!), opening trunk and ‘radioactive’ bar from the nuclear power plant. Step outside onto the terrace and you’ll find loads of cool items, including a grill, wheelbarrow and air conditioning unit with ‘Property of Ned Flanders’ decoration, sausages, 2 garden loungers, flowerpots, a shovel, 2 fruit cocktail glasses, Lisa’s camera, Bart’s skateboard ramp with ‘El Barto’ graffiti and an antenna on the roof. The Simpsons™ House is the perfect collector’s item for fans of all ages. Includes 6 minifigures: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Ned Flanders.

• Includes 6 minifigures: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Ned Flanders
• First floor includes yellow and light-blue tiled floor, sink, oven and stove, drawers, cups, pot, pan, bowl, mixer, plates, cake tins, cutlery, dining table and 4 chairs 
• Living room features TV playing Itchy and Scratchy, couch, boat painting, telephone, carpet, purple piano and staircase to the second floor with family photos
• Bart’s room features a bed, night lamp, desk with pin board, chair, Krusty the Clown poster, skateboard, shelves with books, radio and a cap
• Marge and Homer’s bedroom features a bed, 2 side tables, Maggie’s crib and Marge’s bag
• Lisa’s room features a vanity mirror with hairbrush, stool, bed, table with lamp and cup, shelves with books, magnifying glass, backpack and a jazz poster on the wall
• Bathroom features a shower, toilet, sink and a mirror
• Detachable garage features the family car, tools, workbench, tool rack, vacuum cleaner, toolbox and a broom
• Family car with space for 4 minifigures features a dent in the front and an opening trunk to store Homer’s suitcase and a ‘radioactive’ bar from the nuclear power plant
• Outside area includes a grill, wheelbarrow and air conditioning unit with ‘Property of Ned Flanders’ decoration, sausages, 2 garden loungers, flowerpots, a shovel, 2 fruit cocktail glasses, Lisa’s camera, Bart’s skateboard ramp with ‘El Barto’ graffiti and an antenna on the roof
• Can you spot all the items Homer has “borrowed” from Ned Flanders?
• Remove the roof and top floor to access the different rooms inside
• House is hinged in the middle for easy access
• The perfect set for fans of LEGO® brick building and The Simpsons™!
• The Simpsons™ House measures over 9” (23cm) high, 16” (42cm) wide and 9” (24cm) deep

No photo of the box here, it is so large that it wouldn’t fit onto the fancy blue background. The first photos revealed of the Simpsons House was the box. I guess it is just too hard to keep something that large a secret.

Inside you will find a whole lot of bags, numbered up to 7, three instruction manuals, and a sticker sheet. The Simpsons House actually has a combination of printed images and stickers. Most notably, a stereo system, Radioactive Man comic, and Lisa’s Homework are printed. Everything else is stickers. I decided to leave them off for now. Some of the Simpsons charm is missing without them…

Simpsons Minifigures!

The most controversial design in this set are the minifigures. Lego opted to use sculpted heads instead of the standard Lego head (kind of like the recent Toy Story line). The Simpsons have always had a tough time translating into 3D. These sculpts are extremely similar to the massively popular action figure line from a decade ago. Good news first, these minifigures are all made out of the normal Lego plastic. No squishy plastic here. The most difficult design decision here is the eyeball treatment. Only 2 of the minifigures have their eyes open. The other 4 have been sculpted with unique expressions. This works okay for Lisa Simpson, but for Marge, Bart and Homer Simpson the half open eyes make them look tired or high. Here is to hoping that open eye versions of them will be available in the future.

The painted details are all extremely clean, with well defined lines and good color control. I would expect nothing less from Lego. When appropriate, the minifigures have back printing, and leg printing. Lisa features a cloth skirt, and has red pants on underneath. Marge features a cloth green apron, but interestingly is not wearing pants. Meaning that unless you have lime green pants, Marge will be keeping her apron on.

A really interesting detail is that Lego is doing something new with their sculpts here. The small minifigure legs that Bart and Lisa have are made out of two tone plastic. There is no paint here, meaning that the color on their legs matches the rest of their body. This is an excellent solution to the color consistency problem Lego has with printing light colors on dark plastic. These look great. Also, Maggie Simpsons torso is a whole new sculpt. She comes out smaller then the other children, but the sculpt may not be that reusable. The trademark onesie is very specific to the show.

The Simpsons Family Car

The Simpsons House (71006) comes with the famous pink family car. The car is six studs across and feels large (when compared to other Lego vehicles). When finished the scale is actually a bit on the small side when compared to the minifigures and house. It would be nice to have a 7 or 8 stud wide car, but the window shields only go up to 6. The final result is a good compromise. The car antenna and dent in the left side are all great details.

The Simpsons car doesn’t have a sun roof in the show, but one is present here. It is to make room for Marge’s famous beehive hairstyle. Lego would have to re-sculpt Marge’s hair to fit in the car, which they understandably didn’t. This is another good compromise that works well.

All five of the Simpsons can fit in the car. It is an extremely tight fit, but they do fit!

Lego Simpsons House Review!

After many hours the Simpsons House is complete, and the first impression is that this thing is huge. The volume of the house is larger then you would imagine. The final result is wider then the modular buildings and about 2/3 of the height. There a whole lot of pieces here.

A general note about he design of the house. This successfully captures the spirit of the Simpsons House from the television show. It is amazing. But, note that the floor plan does not match up with that from the show. It is missing the dinning room, living room, Maggie’s room, a bathroom or two, and the rumpus room. The accuracy of this set does suffer because of the floor plan, but the final product is better for these changes. If Lego were to offer an accurate Simpsons House, they would probably have to be double the size and double the price of this set.

The garage is completely detachable. This is done with the help of 4 pegs, just like in the modular homes. No worries on sturdiness, these connect the garage extremely well. Maybe too well, because it takes a lot of work to pull them apart. The roof is also detachable in two pieces and the beautiful orange garage door opens. The family car fits in the garage with room to spare.

Lego didn’t just create a beige box for the garage. They fully furnished it with a work bench, and tool rack. The bin full of Lego tools is awesome. A broom and shovel are included too. Believe it or not the tool box does not open. Lego cheated a little bit here and used some of the large panel Lego pieces to fill up space. This cuts down on the total piece count, and Lego only did this in the garage. Easy enough to replace if you have extra beige bricks.

The Lego Simpsons House opens up with a pull on the swamp cooler, and can be opened up even when the garage is attached. The roof pulls off in three easy pieces. This means that every nook and cranny is easy to access and adult hands should have no trouble getting into the house.

The Simpsons own a two story home, with 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and family room. The floor plan looks great and actually works, no weird dead ends or half rooms here. Bart’s room is also removable, granting easy access to the trademark Simpsons couch. The other second story rooms are not modular, meaning that the rooms on the fist floor are a little bit more difficult to get into. Lego kept these rooms pretty shallow so most people will have no problems with this design.

The family room is the first room when entering from the front door. It contains the couch, an old TV, orange rug, stair case, Piano and a bay window. The whole family does not fit on the couch (as they do on the show) but a bit of creativity can get them close enough. Even though there is a lot of beige the interior is extremely colorful. Just look at that awesome staircase and telephone.

There a lot of beautiful details, such as the teal telephone, and the purple piano. This may be the best Lego piano. The master bedroom contains a big bed, and Maggies baby crib. While Lisa’s room contains a small bed, bookcase, and dresser. A magnifying glass is included in Lisa’s room, perfect for her science experiments.

Bart’s bedroom is the picture perfect room in the set. It contains a lot of details and actually feels a little bit claustrophobic. Bart’s red hat is here (doesn’t fit on his head), a stereo, bookcase, desk, Radioactive Man comic, a small bed, and a lamp (made out a sausage!). The white Lego brick should be a poster of Krusty the Clown, but stickers and me don’t go together so well.

The kitchen is actually split into two parts when opening the house. The back features a stove, sink, and cabinet. A back door and a set of corner windows bring in a lot of light. The floor is beautiful, and the whole package manages to capture the spirit of the kitchen well. Interestingly, there is no refrigerator.

The other half of the kitchen contains more cabinets, a round table, four chairs, and a bay window. The table is really cramped, and if all 4 (no chair for Maggie) of the Simpsons were sitting down it may not fit.

Finally Lego has built their best bathroom. These are becoming more common in Lego sets, and the one here is fully furnished. With a toilet, sink, and shower. The design of the toilet is great, and even comes with toilet paper! The shower features a glass door/wall and has an ingenious shower head, made up from a few clips and a pistol. Homer Simpson will be happy to spend many hours here.

The backside of the Lego Simpsons House has a small porch and is a great place for Homer to grill up some sausages on Ned Flanders BBQ. Another interesting detail is the way Lego decided to design the removable roofs. They are held in place with these white half domes which works surprisingly well. They don’t look so great from underneath, but they will almost never been seen from this angle.

Finally the Simpsons House comes with a plethora of miscellaneous part. Including a skateboard ramp, BBQ, mail box, wheel barrow, a camera and tripod, vacuum cleaner, two potted flowers, two lawn chairs, two Long Island Iced Teas, and the famous Inanimate Carbon Rod. There is also a handful of small extra pieces, and a whole lot of kitchen furnishings (Lego friends style).

Final Thoughts

• Design: 10/10 — The Simpsons House is surprisingly accurate for a Lego set, and offers a colorful explosion inside its beige exterior. This is one of the best Lego houses every released.
• Build: 10/10 — From the box, it looks like the build could be very boring. But, Lego added a lot of variety, especially on the interior. There is even some clever SNOT style building.
• Minifigures: 8/10 — The weak point for this set. The sculpts are not as bad as they appear in images, but the unique expressions are not so useful and can be unexpectedly funny.
• Playablility: 10/10 — A fully finished house, a full Lego car, and a modular design means that there is a lot of fun here. Surprisingly, no flick firing missiles!
• Price: 10/10 — 2523 pieces and 6 minifigures. A good price for a licensed set.
• Overall: 9/10 — The best Lego suburban style house ever released. Too bad about those minifigures… but, they do look good in certain situations.

The Lego Simpsons House (71006) is a huge set, with many fun details. The beige box design of the house is not repetitive, and the fully finished interior is top notch. It is just a bummer that Lego included minifigures with such unique expressions. This limits their use and if they were a more neutral design they would be much more well received. If you can accept these minifigures then this is a great set. If you are in the market for beige bricks, or some of the new colors, then this is a great set to part out.

Check out all the other coverage on the Lego Simpsons theme here: http://everydaybricks.com/tag/simpsons/

Official Lego Link: http://shop.lego.com/en-US/The-Simpsons-House-71006?fromListing=listing