| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Novelty dealer |
| Founded | 1983 |
| Key people | Mark Pahlow, owner |
| Products | Assorted novelty items |
| Website | http://www.mcphee.com |
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]
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, and librarians from all around the world registered their dismay at its "amazing push-button shushing action!"[5]
Archie McPhee has since been featured in Scientific American's "Technology and Business" review[6] and Time Magazine's fifty coolest websites of 2005.[7] 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.
The head of the Punching Puppet Nun (from Archie McPhee/Accoutrements and American Science and Surplus, primary Punching Puppet Nun suppliers) is the same head from the older Margaret Thatcher Punching Puppet, prompting a claim of Anti-Catholicism by the Catholic League.