PeabodySam Posted September 23, 2021 Share Posted September 23, 2021 Apparently, this is a lot more obscure than I thought, so I figured I'd might as well post about it here. Back in 2003 (not 2002, as Vitruvius mistakenly claimed), LEGO launched the NBA Basketball subtheme of their Sports line. Promotional materials (i.e. magazine comics and online features) tended to star a pair of sportscasters named Rick and Bob. The LEGO.com Sports page even had a series of Flash animations for the "Minifig Draft" where Rick and Bob would announce which NBA players would be appearing in the sets. I don't care at all about basketball so I never found these particularly interesting, but they still had a bit of charm to them with Rick and Bob's cheesy banter. In particular, there were three "predraft" animations that were essentially bloopers, notable for starring the Director and Grip from LEGO Studios (incidentally, this has some basis in LEGO Magazine, where the Cameraman is visible in the shadows filming Rick and Bob on the cover of the January - February 2003 issue, along with a tiny Director; both the Director and Cameraman appear in the audience of the same issue's NBA comic). With more focus on comedy and no actual NBA news, I found these much more enjoyable as a kid. Granted, the comedy isn't great... but the Director looking like he's 110% done with everything (particularly in the second predraft, "Extra Large with Cheese") still brings a smile to my face, even 18 years later. It's all too relatable. Due to Flash's recent demise, you obviously can't watch these in browsers anymore. Fortunately, the SWF files are still accessible through Wayback Machine's archive by viewing the page's source, and so if you still have Flash player, then you can download these and view them offline. I have each one linked to below: Predraft 1: http://web.archive.org/web/20030422085008oe_/http://cache.lego.com/flash/sports/hair_makeup.swf Predraft 2: http://web.archive.org/web/20030420042606oe_/http://cache.lego.com/flash/sports/boom_mic.swf Predraft 3: http://web.archive.org/web/20030419130022oe_/http://cache.lego.com/flash/sports/pit_crew.swf Round 1: http://web.archive.org/web/20030420100915oe_/http://cache.lego.com/flash/sports/draft_round1.swf Round 2: http://web.archive.org/web/20030420133235oe_/http://cache.lego.com/flash/sports/draft_round2.swf Round 3: http://web.archive.org/web/20150822170605oe_/http://assets.lego.com/flash/sports/draft_round3.swf Round 4: http://web.archive.org/web/20030421044746oe_/http://cache.lego.com/flash/sports/draft_round4.swf Round 5: http://web.archive.org/web/20030421075445oe_/http://cache.lego.com/flash/sports/draft_round5.swf Round 6: http://web.archive.org/web/20030421133647oe_/http://cache.lego.com/flash/sports/draft_round6.swf Round 7: http://web.archive.org/web/20140129024319oe_/http://assets.lego.com/flash/sports/draft_round7.swf Round 8: http://web.archive.org/web/20030422052058oe_/http://cache.lego.com/flash/sports/draft_round8.swf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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