Archie McPhee on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Archie McPhee is a
Mark Pahlow began selling "quirky and unusual items" in the 1970s through a
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
Archie McPhee is a Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
-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, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
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 an order by telephone call
...
business Accoutrements, in 1983 it opened a retail outlet dubbed "Archie McPhee" after Pahlow's wife's great-uncle.
History
Mark Pahlow began selling "quirky and unusual items" in the 1970s through a 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 an order by telephone call
...
business named Accoutrements that was based in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
. The company opened their first retail outlet in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
in July 1983; the store was named Archie McPhee for Pahlow's wife's great-uncle, a jazz musician and jokester. The company's main warehouse and offices opened in 1996 at a suburban business park in Mukilteo. The Archie McPhee store relocated in 1999 to a larger storefront in the city's Ballard neighborhood. The company later bought a neighboring liquor store
A liquor store is a retail business that predominantly sells prepackaged alcoholic beverages, including liquors (typically in bottles), wine or beer, usually intended to be consumed off the store's premises. Depending on region and local idiom ...
that it converted into a home decor store named "More Archie McPhee". In 2009, the store moved to a smaller space in Wallingford.
Products
The company's line expanded from rubber chickens to glow-in-the-dark aliens,bacon
Bacon is a type of Curing (food preservation), salt-cured pork made from various cuts of meat, cuts, typically the pork belly, belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central in ...
-scented air freshener, and hula
Hula () is a Hawaiian dance form expressing chant (''oli'') or song (Mele (Hawaiian language), ''mele''). It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Native Hawaiians who settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of the oli ...
-girl swizzle sticks among other items. It became a popular Seattle tourist destination while maintaining enough countercultural credentials that Ben & Jerry's Wavy Gravy 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 Naivety, naïve imitation, overly eccentric, gratuitous or of banal Taste (sociology), taste.
The modern avant-garde traditionally opposed kitsch ...
appeal received further national attention from the Librarian Action Figure. In 2002, Nancy Pearl told Pahlow over dinner that librarian
A librarian is a person who professionally works managing information. Librarians' common activities include providing access to information, conducting research, creating and managing information systems, creating, leading, and evaluating educat ...
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
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...
'' "Technology and Business" review and ''Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' magazine's fifty coolest websites of 2005. In 2018, Archie McPhee opened the Rubber Chicken Museum inside its Wallingford location.
See also
*Horse head mask
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million ...
Further reading
* Mark Pahlow with Gibson Holub and David Wahl, ''Who Would Buy This? The Archie McPhee Story'', Seattle: The Accoutrements Publishing Co., 2008, .References
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