Albert springs to action!

With Thanksgiving upon us, the real news is that the holidays are just around the corner (notice, window-shoppers, the brown and orange arrangements being displaced by gaudy red and green displays). This holiday season, rather than disappointing a younger sibling, cousin, niece/nephew, child, etc. with the wrong action figure, achieve gift-giving immunity through obscurity. To aid your quest for unknown action figures, this list from What Life Has To Offer, presenting the Top 5 Ridiculous Action Figures:

5. Hurley (of Lost)
4. The Force (of Star Wars)
3. Albert Einstein (of E=mc²)
2. Sigmund Freud (of psychoanalysis)
1. God Almighty (of Creation)

Pretty good, but what about more contemporary, real life action heroes?

The Sarah Palin Schoolgirl, also available in normal and superhero versions.

The humor in What Life Has to Offer’s list issues from two poles: giving action figure status to people whose achievements involved very little physical action (Freud, Einstein), or manifesting, in the action figure medium, previously unrepresentable entities (The Force, God).

But what about today’s heroes? HeroBuilders.com has answers, in the form of a line of election figures including Sarah Palin (pictured), John McCain, Joe the Plumber and Barack Obama.

For history buffs, meanwhile, Accoutrements, the makers of the Freud and Einstein figures, have a toy line that includes Oscar Wilde and Mozart, as well as character types like the Obsessive Compulsive, the Lunch Lady and the Librarian (available in regular and deluxe editions). As a long-time cafe employee though, my favorite everyday hero is the barista action figure.