Archie McPhee is a

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

-based

novelty Novelty (derived from Latin word ''novus'' for "new") is the quality of being new, or following from that, of being striking, original or unusual. Novelty may be the shared experience of a new cultural phenomenon or the subjective perception of an ...

dealer owned by Mark Pahlow. Begun in the 1970s in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

as the

mail-order Mail order is the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote methods such as: * Sending an order form in the mail * Placing a telephone call * Placing ...

business Accoutrements, in 1983 it opened a retail outlet dubbed "Archie McPhee" after Pahlow's wife's great-uncle.

Products

The company's line expanded from

rubber chicken A rubber chicken is a prop used in comedy. The phrase is also used as a description for food served at speeches, conventions, and other large meetings, and as a metaphor for speechmaking. Description A rubber chicken is an imitation plucked fowl ...

s to glow-in-the-dark aliens, bacon-scented air freshener, and

hula Hula () is a Hawaiian dance form accompanied by chant (oli) or song ( mele). It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Native Hawaiians who originally settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of the oli or mele in a visua ...

-girl swizzle sticks among other items. It became a popular Seattle tourist destination while maintaining enough countercultural credentials that

Ben & Jerry's Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings Inc., trading and commonly known as Ben & Jerry's, is an American company that manufactures ice cream, frozen yogurt, and sorbet. Founded in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, the company went from a single ice cream ...

Wavy Gravy Hugh Nanton Romney Jr. (born May 15, 1936), known as Wavy Gravy, is an American entertainer and peace activist best known for his role at Woodstock, as well as for his hippie persona and countercultural beliefs. He has reported that his moniker ...

ice cream was introduced at a party on the premises in 1993. Its

kitsch Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly-eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste. The avant-garde opposed kitsch as melodramatic and superficial affiliation wi ...

appeal received further national attention from the Librarian Action Figure. In 2002,

Nancy Pearl Nancy Pearl (born January 12, 1945) is an American librarian, best-selling author, literary critic and the former Executive Director of the Washington Center for the Book at Seattle Public Library.Rebekah DennNancy Pearl trading the quiet confi ...

told Pahlow over dinner that

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time ...

s like herself "perform miracles every day". Pearl later posed for a 13 cm hard plastic doll, and librarians from all around the world registered their dismay at its "amazing push-button shushing action!" Archie McPhee has since been featured in '' Scientific American's'' "Technology and Business" review and ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' magazine's fifty coolest websites of 2005. In June 2009 Archie McPhee moved from its Ballard location to Wallingford, a Seattle neighborhood on the other side of

Phinney Ridge Phinney Ridge is a neighborhood in north central Seattle, Washington, United States. It is named after the ridge which runs north and south, separating Ballard from Green Lake, from approximately N. 45th to N. 75th Street. The ridge, in turn, is ...

, west of the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

. In 2018, Archie McPhee opened the Rubber Chicken Museum inside its Wallingford location.

References

# Jack Broom
"Archie McPhee expands its garden of goofiness"
''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington ...

'' (June 28, 2004)
"Seattle Destinations"

Frommer's Frommer's is a travel guide book series created by Arthur Frommer in 1957. Frommer's has since expanded to include more than 350 guidebooks in 14 series, as well as other media including an eponymous radio show and a website. In 2017, the compan ...

Travel Guide, 2005. # Brian Stephens
"A new home for Seattle's rubber chickens"
''

The Daily of the University of Washington ''The Daily of the University of Washington'', usually referred to in Seattle simply as ''The Daily'', is the student newspaper of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, USA. It is staffed entirely by University of Washington studen ...

'' # Brian Calvert,
"Able To 'Shush' All Buildings With A Single Sound?"

KOMO 1000 News KNWN (1000 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Seattle, Washington, and serving the Seattle metropolitan area. Owned by Lotus Communications, the station primarily airs an all-news radio format. It is the local affiliate for ABC Ne ...

(2005) # Jack Broom
All booked up: Nancy Pearl's fame continues to grow
''The Seattle Times'' (2004)

''

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...

'' (2003) #

Steve Mirsky Steve Mirsky is a writer for ''Scientific American'', the host of the magazine's longform science podcast, Science Talk'. and the producer of the dail60-Second Sciencepodcast. Mirsky has also writteScientific American's monthly “Anti Gravity” ...

"Check Those Figures"
''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

'' (2005)
"50 Coolest Websites 2005"
''

External links

*
Biography of the company's namesake, jazz musician Archie McPhee
{{Wallingford, Seattle Companies based in Seattle Novelty items American companies established in 1983 Retail companies established in 1983 1983 establishments in Washington (state) Wallingford, Seattle

Products

See also

Further reading

References

External links