I created these props with LEGO bricks for an episode of NBC’s 30 Rock with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. (Episode #309 “Retreat to Move Forward”, originally aired January 22, 2009). The episode featured a scene where Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) and Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) must build a LEGO train in a timed building competition.

#309 press release at NBC.com Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) and Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) must build a LEGO train in a timed building competition during the Six Sigma executive retreat at Croton-On-Hudson. LEGO train created with thousands of LEGO bricks by New York artist Sean Kenney.

(Above 2 photos ©2008 NBC Universal)

I was on-set for the duration of the filming. I would hide behind a table in the room and fix things up between takes. I made 8 copies of the train in various states of completion for each competing team. I also made a “broken” train, used in a shot where Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) was scripted to have cracked the train in half.

The steam train was made entirely with basic shapes in primary colors, to look as “LEGOish” as possible for the episode. Tina Fey told me she wanted it to look like a classic “Choo Choo Train”.

It’s about 2 feet long and contains over 2500 LEGO pieces.

In the original script, one of the wheels was removable, so that Liz Lemon was to confuse it for the circular front of the train. But after I designed the model, Tina Fey told me it wouldn’t work — the wheels were red and the front was blue, and her character wasn’t that dumb.

We quickly came to a last-minute change of plans: I grabbed some spare parts and made a smokestack that looked like one of the wheels. Perfect!