I don’t think the Sex Pistols’ Sid Vicious ever met Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh and I can pretty much guarantee the two never duked it out. With Sid’s long-term status (deceased), it will never happen. But the whole sorry scene was played out in my office by my daughter using the appropriate action figures. She’s not normally prone to violent interactions, but I didn’t want any part of a new waver meets punker meets Little Pets for shopping scenario, and these guys were cast in poses that don’t really reflect playing an instrument so much as participating in an ultimate fighter match, so…
I think collectibles, action figures -or dad’s dolls, as Natasha irreverently refers to them- can be a part of the equation posed by Mark in his What Is Geek posting. If not a requirement to being a Geek, they do seem to be a common accessory; just squint at the background of any photo of a Geek in their lair. My kids are fascinated by these things, but being kids they could really care less about the story or the significance behind any one of them; they just want to play. They mix them up so the characters interact with each other in ways that never occurred in real life, or their respective movies or comics.
I actually agree with the kids for the most part and that’s why whenever I buy an action figure (or “doll”), I take it out of the box and set it free. Serious collectors shudder at the thought, but if you can’t have fun with something, what’s the point? They do have to stay in my office- being a collectible as opposed to a toy, certain manufacturing safety rules do not have to be observed (ie., lots of small, pointy parts).
A dead giveaway that this battle was scripted by a child- you will note from the photo montage that, while Vicious was on the losing end of the fisticuffs, afterward they quickly made up and he was made an honorary member of Devo. They probably adopted a Little Pet afterward, but I turned off the camera.
