Recently, I made myself a promise: I would not buy any more Lego for at least a year. That plan has quickly been foiled. Lego’s first-ever Peanuts set is just too good, too iconic, too beautiful (plus, my son loves Snoopy and Woodstock.) This perfect brick rendition—with the classic red doghouse and even the campfire and marshmallows to toast—is too cool pass up.
Lego’s addiction to licensed intellectual property—the company now sells 25 IP-based themes out of 45 total, often burying the open-ended, creativity-first sets that built the brand—is still a problem, but this Snoopy’s Doghouse set proves exactly why these licenses work so extraordinarily well to burn your credit card.
The magnetism of that simple beagle silhouette, combined with Lego’s three-dimensional engineering and the bricks’ intrinsic attractive power, is a perfect formula to trash all my financial constraints. Plus, Charles M. Schulz created something so visually strong, clear, and emotionally direct that translating it into 964 plastic bricks feels less like exploitation and more like homage.
Snoopy debuted on October 4, 1950, just two days after Peanuts launched, and he spent decades evolving from a puppy shuffling on four legs into the anthropomorphic dreamer who sleeps on top of his doghouse and imagines himself as the “Red Baron,” a World War I flying ace. Schulz based him on Spike, his childhood black-and-white mixed breed who was unusually intelligent and could understand about 50 words.
The name Snoopy came from Schulz’s mother, who once suggested it as a good name for a future family dog. (Fun note: Schulz had considered Sniffy before remembering her advice). Over 75 years, Snoopy became more than Charlie Brown’s pet—he became a vehicle for fantasy, playing shortstop on Charlie Brown’s baseball team, typing novels as the “World Famous Author,” and strutting around as “Joe Cool.” He ascended the cultural ladder enough that even NASA adopted him as a mascot, naming the Apollo 10 lunar and command modules after him and creating the Silver Snoopy Award for astronaut achievement in 1968.
Woodstock, the small yellow bird who first appeared in 1966 but wasn’t named until June 22, 1970, cemented Snoopy’s status as a character who operated in his own emotional universe. Schulz named Snoopy’s avian pal after the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival, whose logo featured a bird perched on a guitar. The origin story is pure Schulz sentiment: A mother bird built a nest on Snoopy’s belly, then abandoned it, leaving Snoopy to raise the hatchlings—one of whom became Woodstock. Schulz never specified Woodstock’s species (fans guess canary or goldfinch), and he once drew a strip where Snoopy gave up trying to identify him.
Like many of us, Atlanta-based designer Robert Becker is a die-hard fan of the characters, so he spent about a year developing the concept before submitting it to Lego Ideas, the Danish company’s program that accepts designs made by anyone who signs up for an account and submits a build. Submissions get considered for mass production after they receive 10,000 votes by other Ideas members. That’s when they may get approval by a company committee to be refined by Lego’s own designers in a long collaborative process.
“This set has so much character,” Monica Pedersen, marketing director at the Lego Group, says in the set’s press release. “We were delighted that the Snoopy Campfire product idea received over 10,000 votes on the Lego Ideas platform.” I’m glad, too, Monica.
At 964 pieces and a $90 price tag, the set also hits the Lego complexity-affordability-granularity sweet spot, unlike many of the huge sets the company has produced in the past few years. Snoopy legs and neck are adjustable, letting you pose him and Woodstock in multiple display positions. The red doghouse opens to reveal a typewriter inside, which you can move anywhere. And the campfire scene—which can also be hidden inside Snoopy’s home—is set against a starry sky backdrop. The set is already available for preorder; it will be sold in stores starting June 1.
And yes, my kid and I will be counting the days till it ships to us.
