I awoke the other morning to discover Roy Scheider waiting on my doorstep. Not the actual Roy Scheider, mind you, but a 1:16 scale representation forged in plastic and encased in a synthetic bubble atop an 8″x9.5″ blister card. Yes, that’s right, in spite of all his faults, Roy managed to find himself immortalized as an action figure thanks to his role as Captain Nathan Hale Bridger on the short-lived television drama SeaQuest DSV. That’s something he can tell Gene Hackman and a considerable number of other legitimate action heroes to stick in their pipes and smoke, as it’s a distinction they themselves have failed to earn. How does Roy stack up in the world of action figures, though? Can he establish an entirely new reputation and gain respect amongst his plasticized compatriots? I decided to put action figure Roy to the test.
Here he is. Now, while the hip thing to do these days is to preserve action figures in their original packages for the sake of posterity and value, there is also to consider the fact that this is a piece of Roy Scheider merchandise, and not exactly the sort of long-term investment slated to put one’s child through college years in the future. Sadly, I don’t think even Roy Scheider himself preserved in a box would mean any guaranteed financial return. Anyhow, the action figure wouldn’t be of much use trapped in there, so out he came.
An impressive likeness, I’d say. I’m not so sure about these accessories, however – they seem to have included a number of miscellaneous hunks of plastic posing as scientific equipment in addition to a spring-loaded rocket launcher for the sake of keeping the kids interested. Now, I never really watched SeaQuest when it was on, but I’m relatively certain the show’s premise did not involve Roy toting around heavy artillery, especially heavy artillery that happened to be colored bright yellow. So it would thus appear they’d attempted to compensate for his infamous lack of “attitude” before his figure even hit store shelves. These toymakers didn’t go into things blindly – they had scouted Roy well, and knew there had to be some consolation for the young boy waking up on Christmas morning to find Captain Nathan Hale Bridger under the tree. Just to keep this on an even playing field, I stripped Roy of these meaningless accessories and sent him out to test his interactions with the action figure competition.
Roy first came across a troop of vintage Star Wars action figures. Their meeting began as a civil debate, with Roy taking credit for the first ever summer blockbuster in Jaws, and then Star Wars characters countering that Roy had been riding the outer space craze created by their films in 2010. Unable to refute their claim, Roy quickly turned things into a Pier Six brawl, overwhelming the otherworldly visitors with his slight size advantage and leaving them battered and beaten in his wake. He was unquestionably making a name for himself, but it appeared as though he’d be coming out of this with very few friends.
Roy next stumbled upon He-Man, and, somewhat spiteful at never having been offered the role of a loincloth-clad barbarian himself, thoughtlessly challenged the most powerful man in the universe to compare biceps and prove his qualifications. As might have been expected, Roy was miserably outclassed and retreated in shame to nurse his wounded ego. It’s only fortunate that he hadn’t challenged He-Man to an arm wrestling contest instead.
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