‘Action Figures’ Hits Targets With Satire

Future archeologists may one day define action figures as dolls with strangely exaggerated features from the late 20th century, made of plastic and used to act out dark fantasies and myths.

In the “Acme Action Figures,” the plastic is facial and the fantasies are strictly urban caricature in the fast-paced Saturday show by the Acme Comedy Theatre’s Main Company. True to the spirit of action-heroism, intellectual humor via barbed sociopolitical satire and witty wordplay are rejected in favor of physical humor and exaggerated character studies. Fluffy and funny, these 22 skits won’t make you think or tax even the shortest attention span, but they will tweak your visions of everyday life.

Taking aim at universal experiences, Susie Geiser’s “Wendy” simplistically lampoons the dimwittedness of some fast-food workers. Erin Ehrlich’s “Baby Jessica” and Susie Geiser’s “Li’l Miss Psycho” examine children disturbed by the hardships of modern life. Ehrlich imagines Baby Jessica (the toddler who was saved after spending 58 hours trapped in a well) as a young girl clinging to her 15 minutes of fame, while Geiser places a precocious “Star Search” junior champion (Antoinette Spolar) with a nerdy bug-torturer (Geiser) in a psychiatric waiting room.

Doug Jackson and Jeff Lewis’ “All You Can Puke” questions the economics and gastronomic consequences of all-you-can-eat dinners with sparse verbiage. Jamie Kaler effectively mimes to music and sound in “Driving the Point Home,” a cautionary piece about drinking and driving. Ehrlich and Kaler team to create a female revenge fantasy, “I’ll Call You,” where Ehrlich plays a woman who runs an informal boot camp designed to appropriately punish her former loves for their boorish faults.

M.D. Sweeney evenly balances the bill and the program really flows, driven by the beat of Jonathan Green’s musical direction (with Christian Malmin on drums).

* “Acme Action Figures,” Acme Comedy Theatre, 135 N. La Brea Ave. Saturdays, 8 p.m. Indefinitely. $14. (213) 525-0202. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.