ARCHIE MCFEES WINDOWS

No matter - the Librarian is here and still selling briskly.įor every manufactured-for-irony item, you'll still find a true pop culture cast-off. They didn't want to end up on the Stereotype Shelf with the likes of Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Jesus (three popular McPhee action figures). Its 'amazing push-button shushing action' stirred up librarians around the world. A local librarian, Nancy Pearl, posed as the model in 2003. So the very popular Librarian Action figure isn't an artifact from a 1950s Mental Hygiene teachers' convention, but a self-conscious attempt to cater to an audience that would desire such a thing in the first place. Today, many items are created expressly for Archie McPhee. As the cash register rings up our radiation bags, it electronically notes they came from the 'Science Section' - time to restock!ĪP built up in the early days by relabeling factory rejects and failed game pieces as must-have home decorations. One reveals, with a look of sadness, that shrunken heads have been discontinued, and there are no complete anti-radiation suits on this day.Įverything has been neatly organized into categories. They are helpful, and extremely knowledgeable about every odd piece of chem lab tubing or injection mold diety with misaligned eyes. The staff stands at an elevated checkout, lifeguards calmly observing the kitsch rip tide. While there is a sprinkling of odd arcade games and other not-for-sale displays, almost everything else is about commerce.

ARCHIE MCFEES WINDOWS

Under the Thunder Lizard head, the storefront windows hint at the world within - a Robot Monster gorilla in a space helmet, a centurion, Parasite Pals (kids love'em). At the turn of the century it moved to larger digs in the Ballard district. The store is an outgrowth of the Archie McPhee catalog business operating from Seattle since 1983 in the Fremont district. You can buy stuff through the mail or via the web, but it's not the same as seeing this much nonsense tightly packed in one place.

Defunct hero figures and heretical dolls. Mark Pahlow with Gibson Holub and David Wahl, Who Would Buy This? The Archie McPhee Story, Seattle: The Accoutrements Publishing Co., 2008, ISBN 978-0-978.Archie McPhee, a long-dead real person, is the vaguely related figurehead of a booming mail order business selling pop culture discards.In 2018, Archie McPhee opened the Rubber Chicken Museum inside its Wallingford location. 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. 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!' Īrchie McPhee has since been featured in Scientific American's 'Technology and Business' review and Time magazine's fifty coolest websites of 2005. In 2002, Nancy Pearl told Pahlow over dinner that librarians like herself 'perform miracles every day'. Its kitsch appeal received further national attention from the Librarian Action Figure. 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. 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. 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. Archie McPhee is a Seattle-based novelty dealer owned by Mark Pahlow.

Archie mcfees