Category:Legoland figures

The very first appearance of minifigure-like people in the Lego range seems to have happened in 1975, in sets that needed smaller-scale characters to scale with their new "tiny-wheeled" Legoland cars. Hence the Police Patrol set 659 (1975, which included one of the little cars as a police car) and the Taxi Station 386 (1976) both had very abstract, impressionistic representations of bodies, topped by a minifigure head, and a hat.

Shape

The lower body was basically just an outwardly-tapering block tapering out from ankles to waist, topped by a matching inwardly-tapering block, topped by the head. There was no attempt to represent arms or legs, and even the head was blank, with no face -- the identity of the figure being provided by the body colour and its hat. Some upper-body blocks had discernable shoulders, others didn't.

"Legoland" naming

At the time that these figures came out, Lego had moved away from the OO/HO 1:76-sh "Town Plan" designs with baseboard, and were replacing it a more freeform-scale set of buildings and vehicles that they were co-branding as "Legoland". The basic concept being that you could visit the Legoland theme parks, and then go home and build your own little "Legoland" city scene (the successor to the "Legoland" models then being "Lego City").

Referring to these armless, legless predecessors of the minifigure as "Legoland figures" feels natural, as they were designed for (and came with) the Legoland-branded sets. However, the naming isn't foolproof, as after the proper minifigures came out, one could visit Legoland and buy a minifigure with a Legoland teeshirt as a souvenir. These can be referred to as "Legoland Minifigures" rather than "Legoland figures".