Peppa Pig is to make her Lego debut in a new range of toys and theme park attractions, in the latest lucrative deal to immortalise a popular character in plastic brick form.
The multibillion-dollar global preschool phenomenon known for her love of jumping in muddy puddles is to be given the Lego treatment, appearing for the first time in a range of Duplo sets for children and a series of themed Lego experiences at big theme parks.
Hasbro, the US toy company behind My Little Pony and Play-Doh which acquired Peppa Pig’s owner for £3.3bn in 2019, has struck a deal with the Lego Group and the theme park group Merlin Entertainments.
“Peppa Pig is hugely popular and Lego fans have been asking us to do a partnership for years,” said Roberta Cardazzo, the design manager at the Lego Group. “It was only natural that the world’s most popular pig needed to come to life in buildable Lego sets, so we are excited to finally make that happen with the amazing team at Hasbro.”
The three-way deal also involved Merlin, which owns attractions including Madame Tussauds, Legoland and Alton Towers and is the world’s second biggest operator of theme parks after Disney.
Under the deal the Peppa universe will be reimagined as rides and attractions in Duplo-themed areas at a number of Merlin’s parks. The deal is unconnected to the Peppa Pig World attraction at Paultons Park in the New Forest.
“This is an exciting step forward for our two iconic partners,” said Scott O’Neill, the chief executive of Merlin Entertainments. “We’re really proud to bring Hasbro’s Peppa Pig to life with the Duplo brand.”
Merlin intends to debut the Peppa Pig Duplo areas at its Legoland park in Denmark and a new Peppa Pig park in Germany, located next to its Legoland site.
Since launching on Channel 5 in the UK in 2004, Peppa has proved to be an enormous hit. The show has been broadcast in more than 180 countries and become a multibillion-dollar global franchise spanning TV, merchandise and theme parks.
Peppa Pig was created in 1999 by Mark Baker, Neville Astley and Phil Davies, who became friends working in the animation department of Middlesex Polytechnic in the mid-1980s. They have become multimillionaires on the back of the success of the franchise.
The huge appeal of Peppa Pig prompted the Labour party to attempt to piggy-back on the cartoon character’s fame before the 2010 election; the trio turned down the invite.
The Peppa Pig World attraction in the New Forest was given fulsome praise by Boris Johnson in a rambling speech to the Confederation of British Industry in autumn 2021 that was criticised by business leaders as “embarrassing”.
