We’ve talked a lot recently about accessories, gadgets, and tools you can keep on your desk, but we haven’t really said anything about action figures. Action figures are excellent desktop additions and can often do a lot more to personalize your workspace than any cell phone charger, pen holder, or lamp can do. What’s more, action figures aren’t just superheroes anymore. There are a ton of renderings of fan-favorite characters from movies and TV shows, so if you’re looking for something a little more personal for your desktop, here are a few of our picks for action figures you can display proudly.
Heisenberg
We’re not exactly lacking good TV right now. Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, Atlanta, Luke Cage, and The Flash (if you’re into that sort of thing) have been keeping us well entertained since Breaking Bad ended a few years ago. But even with all that top quality television programming, we can’t think of a more famous leading man. Walter White had one of the most compelling character arcs we’ve ever seen along with some of the most memorably ominous presence and dialog this side of Hans Gruber. Now we have a foot tall Heisenberg to keep us motivated and to remind us, no matter what happens, crystal meth will make everything okay.
$15
Jean Michel Basquiat
We’re on board with graffiti as art and that’s in part thanks to this guy. If you don’t know him, Jean Michel Basquiat got his start with street art in Lower Manhattan, spray painting under the assumed name SAMO. From there, he jumped all over the New York art scene, in poetry, music, and painting, appearing on talk shows, founding bands, and traveling the world. Sadly, he’s one of the many promising artists who died early, leaving an impressive legacy and sizable hole where their future would have gone. To us, having an action figure of Basquiat is more of a commemorative thing than a “look how cool” thing. But it’s important to note that if you want one of these, you’re going to have to hunt. They’re rarer than the other one’s on this list. So rare we couldn’t actually find one for sale to give you a price. It was a limited run back in ‘05, and all we can do is hope someone puts one up for auction or Medicom decides to do another run of them.
Link
The Hound
The Hound might be the fastest we’ve ever decided someone was our favorite character. From his first episode, we knew this guy was going to be a character unlike others we’d seen before, especially when he made it obvious he was pretty much the only guy Joffrey couldn’t kill out of pure spite. He might also be the only guy to go toe-to-toe with the Mountain and end up with his organs still on the inside. He’s big, he’s violent, he’s unexpectedly witty, he’s the only reason Arya is even still alive. For a guy as brutal as him, he’s responsible for a surprising amount of good on a show that’s famous for being bad.
$20
Daft Punk
Your feelings on the latest Tron movie aside, you can’t fault the soundtrack. It set the atmosphere for the movie perfectly, putting emotion inside a genre we don’t generally think of as emotional. The soundtrack was one of the main reasons we were even able to connect with the movie and we have two guys to thank for that. Although, we use the term “guys” loosely, because we’d totally believe if Daft Punk reversed Troned us. They came out of a computer instead of going into one. Also, since they never (or can’t) take those helmets off, having an action figure of one or both of the duo is pretty much like having the real thing.
$250
Indiana Jones
This is one of the more expensive picks on the list, but once we saw this was an option, we knew it had to go on here, price point be damned. This Indiana Jones figure looks so good it transcends any bit of nerdiness associated with action figures. It really looks like you have a foot tall Indiana Jones standing in front of you, ready to adventure the shit out of any Biblical conspiracy you can dream up for him. And look, we know we’re all adults here, but this looks so much like Indiana Jones that it’d be worse to never play with this thing. Just looking at it we want to chase it with boulders and across rope bridges and through Egyptian ruins. If we ever see one in a museum, we’re risking whatever jail time we’d have to to break it out.
$220
J. Peterman
Seinfeld churned out memorable lines, plots, and characters like it was the last sitcom that was ever going to be made. In fact, we wouldn’t blame you if the only comedy you watched on TV these days was Seinfeld reruns. So we knew we wanted to include something from the quintessential sitcom on this list, but choosing which one was difficult. Ultimately we landed on J. Peterman. His time on screen was always perfect. We can hear his voice perfectly in our head but we have yet to find anyone who can do an impression that’s anywhere near good. If we can get J. Peterman into our office in any form, we’ll jump on that chance.
$20
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
There are a few quintessential time travel movies that shaped our ideas about the proper way to explore history and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is one of them. Almost everything about the movie has become some kind of icon as the years have gone by: the distinctive fashion senses of the main characters, their insistence that Eddie Van Halen is the only one who could possibly teach them guitar, and their Doctor Who knockoff time traveling phone booth. This set adheres faithfully to the aesthetic and spirit of the movie, delivering Bill and Ted and their trusty booth right to your desktop. Take it all one step further and you could channel the spirit of the movie, collect a few historical figures of your own, and deliver a bodacious history report of your own.
$60
The Big Lebowski
There’s irony in calling this an action figure, since most of The Big Lebowski is stuff just happening around The Dude and him trying to react to it, but it’s too cool to not include. We don’t recommend keeping it in the office, since it could have a seriously negative impact on your motivation. This one feels more like a home figure that you prop up on the couch next to you while you watch cartoons and eat your way through two or three bags of potato chips. It has everything you’d want from a Big Lebowski figure, including robe, satchel, and bowling ball while the rug ties it all together. Plus, when you and The Dude are both exhausted from doing nothing with all of those, you can both unwind with a white Russian.
$200
Preacher
If you didn’t watch Preacher on AMC, you’re going to want to rectify that as soon as possible. We were big fans of the comic book even if we did get into it a little later than everyone else, and when we found out all those attempts at screen adaptations finally yielded something, we knew we’d found our next show. It performed well in the ratings and it’s picked up for a second season, but with a show like this you want to guarantee its future, so anywhere you can support it, you should. Granted, we’re not sure if AMC takes action figure sales into account when it’s deciding on picking up pilots or renewing ongoing series, but it couldn’t hurt. Besides, the Jesse and Cassidy figures are cool and they come with little beers
$42
Lt. Aldo Raine
Hot Toys is famous for their lifelike figures, rendering all your favorite characters in true to life detail. They’ve made figures of Heath Ledger’s Joker, Captain Jack Sparrow, most of the cast of the Star Wars and Marvel movies, and dozens more characters from pop culture. But for us, if we had to pick one, we have to go with Lt. Aldo Raine. He’s one of our favorite characters from one of our favorite movies and this figure retains all that inglorious screen presence he’s famous for. There’s cockiness in the face of the figure, which is not something we thought inanimate objects could have. And we’re not the only one’s who were surprised by how realistic the thing is, since whoever took the photos for Amazon clearly had a ton of fun with it. The skewed photo of the figure holding its knife looks like a shot from the movie.
$430+
