My First Lego Set?

Barney Bear 3629

I mentioned in my previous post a Lego set that I remembered pretty well from my 7th birthday. However, that wasn't my first experience with Legos. While fishing through the 1000's of pieces in the old Lego collection, I found a bear minifig that was very different from the standard Lego minifigs. It had a big wobbly bear head, a blocky red body, black legs, and yellow arms. There were several other pieces in my collection that didn't match the typical Lego pieces, like a full black car chassis with grey wheels on metal axels. I vaguely remembered seeing the pieces before, but I had no real memory of them. After doing a little investigative work on Brickset, I tracked the little bear down to a specific set, the Barney Bear set from the Fabuland series. It's obviously a set that was designed for small children, and it debuted in 1981. I myself debuted in 1978, which means I was somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 years old when my parents got this set for me. As you can see, I apparently got started with Legos at a very young age, before I can remember, even.