While Egypt is an awesome place to explore, Playmobil also brings it back to basics with their ‘Life in the City’ collection, released in August of 2009. By the way, no tiny Cleopatra, Playmobil? Possible expansion set?
Playmobil has been releasing bits and pieces of urban and suburban life for as long as they’ve been around, and there have even been a small variety of houses for the Playmopeople to live in, but the recent ‘Life in the City’ set, with its focal point firmly on the gargantuan ‘Suburban House’ playset, is probably the most impressively comprehensive of any of their sets to date.
While the basic $160 playset has two floors that can be augmented significantly with various smaller sets, you also have the option of adding extra floors to the set, extensions onto the house, and even electrical lights to place around the house, all with the intuitive ease that Playmobil capitalizes on so smartly. Even as an adult male, the prospect of the perfect miniature house appeals to my desire for tranquil domesticity and love of scale models of things.
A basic floor extension costs $45, but the construction of the set indicates that these can be added indefinitely, giving you a potential for a ten story suburban home that you can populate with all manner of stuff. Create a kitchen floor well stocked with Re-Ment miniature foods, or a whole superhero hideout for 3 3/4 scaled Justice Leaguers. Maybe have a floor for your Undersea Explorers to chill in, while the time travel booth on the 5th floor keeps on cranking out warriors from who knows when. I’ll let you know when my mind catches up to my actual age.
Subsequent sets are intended to fill these rooms with people and accessories, but should have a universal appeal to any properly scaled dollhouse. While I don’t have the full Suburban House at my disposal to model these things, I was able to play with some of the excellent, smaller room-themed sets. It’s always great to get these quiet, everyday items that can be used a wide variety of interesting situations. Most of these situations, I admit, involve a tiny Batman.
First, we have the ‘Kitchen with Dinette Set‘. I’ve loved kitchen playsets since the Muppets line, and this set comes with so much stuff that it can barely contain it all (as well as a piece or two meant to augment the larger playset). A fridge / freezer combination with working doors and storage space is definitely a highlight, and a good place to keep all of the extra food pieces. The kitchen also includes a range and an array of oven and stove tools which hang from it, a sink with an opening dishwasher, and a stark, modern kitchen table and chairs. Shelves and a coffeemaker are also included. Here is where some of the cultural divergence comes in, as the exceedingly modern dining accommodations are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Gone are the usual warm woods and cushions of the US dining room, and in their place is stark, modern design. What I find even more interesting, however, is the miniature food that is provided with the set. This family is on a fast track to heart disease with a delicious meal of meat with a side of meat. Also, sounds delicious. The set retails for around $30.
On the next tier down is the Living Room, at around $20. It’s another set with a crazy number of pieces, filling up its own set of four shelves with videos, books, a stereo with speakers, a large TV, plants, a lamp, a couch with a fold-a-bed, a table, and an aquarium encased in clear plastic to create the illusion of depth behind the glass. This set also includes a woman and a little girl. The cubbies are also modular, allowing for countless configurations and usability in all kinds of house situations.
The Master Bedroom set is another interesting bit of home life. For one, it includes a dude with bare feet – an interesting rarity in the Playmobil world. In this set are two beds, two night stands, a little clock, a plant, and an armoire deal with some highly mirrored doors. It’s a very simple set at $18, and it’s curious that the bed isn’t one large, master bed. I’m now also curious about the sleeping habits of the average German, as these include a kind of sleeping bag atop the regular mattress, instead of a blanket. Putting the little Playmoguy in there feels like I’m preparing him for a burrito.
The Family Bathroom also presents an interesting cultural divide. Sure, it includes the typical sink, shower and toilet, as well as various other toiletries – but the one aspect that I find strange is that the toilet is partitioned from the rest of the bathroom using a translucent screen. This can only imply that one would have company in the bathroom, as being bashful about the judgmental eyes of the toothpaste isn’t normal or sane. Who are we protecting our functions from, Germany? If I don’t have three feet of concrete around me in all directions, nothing’s gonna happen. Needless to say, a scaled toilet is perfect for every situation.
Among the many other available sets, there’s the Laundry Room, which is decked out with a washing machine, some great shelves, a vacuum, a collapsible ironing board and iron, a whole bunch of fabric pieces in various colors, and best of all : a spinning clothes rack with a bunch of working, mini clothespins. As usual, everything is solid and beautifully simple. While these sets would all suit a dollhouse far better than some kind of adventure through the billowing grass of the backyard, they have their place and function, and they do it well.
Even as general dollhouse accouterments for a playset that you already have, no matter the maker, would benefit from these things pieces. They’re so practical that they’re easily overlooked in everyday life, but given a new and interesting context in this strange little world.
