Amy Corbett and Jamie Bernard, judges on FOX’s hit show “Lego Masters,” are spilling the details on the show’s third season plus, all the crazy twists and turns fans can expect from this season.
There are new challenges, explosions, fun times with host Will Arnett, amazing builders, and so much more that leads Corbett and Bernard to call this season one of the best they’ve had so far.
In a recent episode, a new team of builders was introduced towards the end of the show, throwing off the other competitors. Corbett and Bernard promise there are more surprises to come throughout the season.
“This last episode had a real unexpected twist at the end where we brought in a brand-new team,” Bernard told Fox News Digital. “That’s kind of the mantra for the whole season is there’s just lots of stuff…that you never quite know what’s coming.”
Corbett and Bernard promised this season is full of unexpected twists and turns for the builders.
(Tom Griscom/FOX)
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Corbett added that the surprise of adding a new team really shocked the competitors, saying she thinks it will “make everyone raise the bar” because it seemed to her “a few of the teams recognize(d)” the new builders and know what they can do.
An upcoming episode features the builders being challenged to build a tree house, something Bernard found to be incredibly difficult for a number of reasons, one of them being the shape of the tree versus the shape of the Lego bricks. He explained the Legos “are wonderfully sharp-edged” while the trees are round, making it difficult for the builders.
“Normally with these challenges we give some sort of a connection point, like for the rodeo bull, they could connect on to the actual saddle, but this is one of the first challenges, maybe even the first one that we’ve done where there’s no connection points,” Bernard said. “What people have to come up with, to not only secure the model but also make it stand out in the room, is where you get some real great creativity.”
Corbett considered the challenge as a “fantastical” one in which builders were able to realize their “childhood dreams of what their tree house might have been like,” resulting in “some great designs.”
When it comes to the show’s host, Bernard calls Arnett “the biggest kid in the world” who creates chaos on set, but also knows how to get the best work out of the builders through talking to them and having fun with them throughout the show.
Corbett and Bernard called Will Arnett a great host, sharing he tries to build things every so often but mostly is a cheerleader for the contestants.
(Tom Griscom/FOX)
“He’s actually quite good at making sure that even in this stressful environment, with a giant clock ticking over your head and you’ve got to make up these amazing models in a relatively short period of time, he just comes in there as almost like a cheerleader, the coach, to tell them, ‘That’s awesome, you’re going to do great,’ but also give them a little bit of fun on the side,” Corbett explained.
Although he is the host of the show, he isn’t past trying to impress the judges with his Lego building skills, something he doesn’t quite manage to do. What he has managed to impress the judges with however, is his “talent for finding those weak points” in the models, and destroying them.
“He does from time-to-time build, build a little thing,” Corbett explained. “Jamie and I are pretty tough critics, and you see the belts that go up around the room, so I think he’s kind of given up and [feels that he doesn’t] quite reach the same standard as the team, [and instead] he’s going full on host cheerleader, and all-around funny guy, and we love him for it.”
Both Corbett and Bernard manage design teams at the Lego headquarters in Denmark and think there are a few reasons the brand has been able to sustain itself for this long, celebrating its 90th anniversary this year.
“I think one of the most amazing things about Lego bricks is that they actually haven’t changed a lot,” Corbett said. “That brick that your parents played with, that your grandparents played with is still the same. It’s really what you can do with it, what you build with it, and how we stay relevant for kids and adults that’s changed.”
“I think we’ve really been clever to try to stay with the kids is just by having so many different offerings,” Bernard added. “Recognizing that there’s not just a kid or one type of child, and I think that’s when we’ve actually shown there’s so many different ways that you can celebrate creativity.”
The judges said in order to best design new products they have to keep in mind there are many different kinds of kids out there with different interests.
(Tom Griscom/FOX)
Corbett described working with her team to come up with new designs by playing around with the bricks and “seeing what they can come up with” and just hoping the public “will like them once “they’ve chosen which products they think will work.”
Because they come up with so many ideas and release products that appeal to different kids with all kinds of interest, there isn’t necessarily one product they can think of when it comes to their best-selling item.
“We cater to the action kids, and we have the storytelling kids, but then we also have the reality based kids or the fantasy kids. So I mean, things like Star Wars are of course super popular for the kids that just love that whole story and spaceships and things. But then we have also like Lego Friends,” Bernard said. “There’s an offering for everyone, but I think you might be surprised that sometimes it’s just as simple as a police station or a fire station or a garbage truck that can really get the kids excited.”
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Looking ahead, the designers say they are always searching for ways to reinvent the popular kid’s toy, coming up with “new and exciting play experiences that will inspire kids, adults, whoever wants to play with the bricks.”
“The future is just to keep pushing ourselves to come up with new ideas and not just make the standard same thing that people expect every single time. To bring out something new, to bring out something unexpected,” Corbett said.
Bernard pointed at the fact that since he started at the company 17 years ago, people have predicted that “traditional toys” would be obsolete due to the rise of technology. He said Lego has proved this to not be true.
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Corbett and Bernard discussed what they think is the reason behind the success of Lego and what they see for the future.
(Tom Griscom/FOX)
“It’s just really listening to the kids, seeing what they’re into, and giving them their place to go to, that they can just kind of turn off the technology, or compliment the technology,” he explained. “It’s always going to be there, it seems, going forward. How do we give them that little bit of an escape with something that just works? There’s something very satisfying about having tangible Lego bricks that just fit together and work when there’s so many other things in life that just don’t work.”
“Lego Masters” premieres Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. ET on FOX.
