Tag Archives: 4565

25 Days of Holiday “Trainvertising” #13: The polar bear who ate Steven Spielberg

You may recall the post featuring Steven Spielberg (shared on December 4th). I later discovered that the UK Winter 2000 Shop-at-Home catalog had a similar holiday cover illustration…but with slightly different artwork.

The UK catalog replaces Steven Spielberg and his crewman for a football (soccer) player and polar bear. Given the popularity of football in the UK, the design change makes sense. As for the polar bear, I smell a conspiracy involving a Spielberg snack.

The UK catalog image (top) comes from BrickLink’s image library, as I do not personally own this variation myself.

25 Days of Holiday “Trainvertising” #4: A Very Spielberg Christmas

Today’s catalog comes to you straight from 2000. The cover art of this U.S. holiday catalog prominently features the engine from “Freight and Crane Railway” (set 4565), originally released in 1996.  This time, Santa takes charge of the controls and ditches Rudolph in favor of everyone’s favorite little astromech droid, R2-D2.

A lot of memorable characters are here, including Johnny Thunder (aka: Joe Freeman & Sam Grant). Emperor Palpatine uses force lightning to shake a package, while Darth Maul is left with nothing but coal to sort through. The Sith may be causing trouble, but Steven Spielberg is calling all the shots.