Industry Novelty dealer Products Assorted novelty items Founded 1983 | Key people Mark Pahlow, owner Type of business Private | |
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Handicat from archie mcphee
Archie McPhee is a Seattle-based novelty dealer owned by Mark Pahlow. Begun in the 1970s in Los Angeles as the mail-order business Accoutrements, in 1983 it opened a retail outlet dubbed "Archie McPhee" after Pahlow's wife's great-uncle.[1]
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The company's line expanded from rubber chickens to glow-in-the-dark aliens, bacon-scented air freshener, and hula-girl swizzle sticks among other items. It became a popular Seattle tourist destination[2] while maintaining enough countercultural credentials that Ben & Jerry's Wavy Gravy ice cream was introduced at a party on the premises in 1993.[3]
Its kitsch appeal received further national attention from the Librarian Action Figure. In 2002, Nancy Pearl told Pahlow over dinner that librarians like herself "perform miracles every day."[4] Pearl later posed for a 13 cm hard plastic doll,[5] and librarians from all around the world registered their dismay at its "amazing push-button shushing action!"[6]
Archie McPhee has since been featured in Scientific American's "Technology and Business" review[7] and Time Magazine's fifty coolest websites of 2005.[8] In June 2009 Archie McPhee moved from its Ballard location to Wallingford, a Seattle neighborhood on the other side of Phinney Ridge, west of the University of Washington.