Seinfeld offers action figures of himself, other comedians

A Jerry Seinfeld action figure? Here’s a guy famous for sitting around in a diner, standing behind a microphone, and eating breakfast cereal. Nonetheless, the Seinfeld action figure is coming soon to a multiplex near you. It’s just a tiny plastic Jerry (not that there’s anything wrong with that), dispensed from a gumball machine in your theater’s lobby, as part of the promotional campaign for Seinfeld’s documentary ”Comedian.” which expands this week into a handful of cities across the country.

The Miramax movie, in which Seinfeld criss-crosses the United States while trying out new stand-up material, also features appearances by such fellow comics as Chris Rock, Garry Shandling, and Ray Romano, all of whom are also represented in new gumball-machine incarnations. For good measure, the ”Comedian” pranksters have also made little action figures of Miramax chiefs Harvey and Bob Weinstein. (That’ll have kids lining up at the box office.) Alas, no word of an action figure of Orny Adams, the angst-ridden comic whose rise through the clubs to a spot on David Letterman’s ”Late Show” is also depicted in the film.

The action figures are of a piece with the ad campaign designed by Seinfeld and filmmakers Christian Charles and Gary Streiner, who also shot the comic’s parodic series of American Express commercials. The three of them also came up with a ”Comedian” trailer that uses familiar voiceover artist Hal Douglas to spoof other movie trailers, and they designed a poster that reads, ”At last, a film from Miramax that won’t win a damn thing.” But even if the action figures and the other jokey efforts make the movie a hit, don’t expect much more big-screen action from Seinfeld. He tells Variety, ”This is what they call a one-er.”