I was browsing through the data base last night (bored out of my mind ;P) and I found some themes that may have been completely forgotten because nobody ever talks about them anymore or they were just never popular to begin with. If you have found other "unknown" themes please list them below ;)
#1 Prince of Persia
This theme was released in 2010 and was another one of those one wave wonders. It was pretty popular when it was around but disappeared in Lego history after it retired and none of the sets went up in value.
#2 Galidor
I don't even want to talk about this XD
#3 Znap
This theme was kind of like a cross between K'nex and Technic, it's just wierd...
#4 Avatar The Last Airbender
This theme was made during the cartoon show and the sets are pretty cool and they did go up in value, they are just never talked about.
#5 Life On Mars
This is one of the more colorful space themes with a wide assortment of weird space vehicles. The backgrounds are also obviously those cheesy early 2000's back drops.
Those are the only ones that really stood out to me but please do tell us about other weird forgotten themes :)
Comments
Even some of the less thought if ranges are still in demand. A couple of months ago I tried to buy a few different large Galidor figure part lots to make some custom action figures. I didn't get any of them as the prices went crazy. So someone still likes them.
Jack Stone
(oh, the shame!)
So while they are not an afol favourite, kids still like them.
LEGO fans would obviously prefer sets with more customization potential (even if they wanted action figures, BIONICLE would probably seem like a preferable alternative). A lot of people forget that it wasn't really being targeted at LEGO fans — like most BIONICLE sets, the LEGO logo was shunted to a humble position in the bottom-right corner of the packages while the Galidor logo took a prominent place on the masthead. The LEGO brand back then didn't have the power it does today. In some cases, it might have even been seen as a liability, with some kids thinking of it as childish or old-fashioned. So it makes sense that the LEGO Group might have wanted to distance certain product lines from their own brand's weakening reputation.
The sets were probably aimed more at the sorts of kids who would normally buy non-LEGO action figures. But casual action figure fans would want cheaper figures that wouldn't cost LEGO prices, while dedicated action figure collectors would only want to pay "deluxe" prices for familiar comic book and movie characters, not characters from a new and unfamiliar kids' show with lots of weird rubber aliens. It seems like a no-win situation.
I really do want to rewatch the Galidor TV show sometime, though. It didn't seem too bad to me back then, though I never watched much of it because it aired on a channel (Fox Kids) I didn't really watch as a kid — most of my TV time was spent either watching educational shows on PBS or cartoons on Cartoon Network and Kids WB. In hindsight, it shares several design attributes with Doctor Who, so it wouldn't surprise me one bit if that were a source of inspiration for some of the creators.
I still feel like Jack Stone gets a bad rap. The sets were simplistic, cartoony, and heavily stylized, but the same is true of Fabuland, which for some reason gets a lot more respect from the AFOL community. The main difference is that Jack Stone went for a futuristic look while Fabuland went for more of a quaint, old-fashioned look.
@CCC, if you don't think there's a lot of Ninjago discussion going on, perhaps you're just not looking in the right places. Conversation of the theme is still going strong on deviantART, the LEGO Message Boards, and even certain AFOL forums like Eurobricks. There's not quite as much discussion as there was in 2012, but there's also not nearly as much to discuss. This year boasts just eight new TV episodes and nine new sets, rather than 26 new TV episodes and over 40 sets in 2012.
What has been seen cannot be unseen! 8oX
Oh, the fun he had with Jack Stone as a wee child.