Archie McPhee News Blog of Fun

We sure had fun making this video with our new Cat Mask and Black Cat Mask! We filmed it at our home office in Mukilteo and it shows lots of business cats going about their day. Nothing too eventful happens until a pigeon intern shows up with some files. We even wrote a song about it!  Here are the lyrics to...

In October of 1990 KOMO did this profile of Archie McPhee featuring our owner Mark Pahlow. At the time we were located in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle and have since moved to Wallingford. As always, the story is filled with amazing Mark Pahlow quotes: The first thing I tried to sell was a "how to have a child at...

In 1997, we released our most controversial catalog ever. It marked our move from black and white on newsprint to beautiful color on glossy paper. Believe it or not, we lost customers over this! Or so they said, we got lots of letters from people who said they were giving up on us because we dared to show the products...

By 1994 Seattle had become a hip place. While most of this is because of the number of amazing bands on the Seattle scene and some amazing comic artists, we like to think that we helped a bit. This catalog cover featured our store staff and one of them (Pete on the far left) still works there. The layout in...

Here's another scanned catalog - Catalog 18 from 1990. This catalog featured the muddy black and white pictures and awesome writing our customers had come to expect. Also included was a statement of purpose that is as true now as it was then. Except for the part about robots, we now welcome our robot overlords. OUR PURPOSE IN LIFEWe are...

This item has been discontinued and is no longer for sale. If you have a great memory of it or would like us to bring it back, leave a comment on this post and let us know. Memories of the Potato Gun This is a classic novelty item with a package that can't be improved upon. It was in the...

We thought you might like to see the first Archie McPhee novelty catalog from 1984! In his book, Who Would Buy This?, our owner, Mark Pahlow, describes its creation: I did the primitive layout for those first few (catalogs) myself.   I'd take bad black and white photos using my Pentax 35mm Spotmatic. Then the photos, developed by the first Costco in the nation,...

These items have been discontinued and are no longer for sale. If you have a great memory of them or would like us to bring them back, leave a comment on this post and let us know. We still have lots of weird unicorn products for sale!  THE AVENGING UNICORN AND AVENGING NARWHAL What if you had a unicorn to take care of...

  As much as we loved the art on the side of our store in Wallingford, time, weather and the inevitable turnover of products meant it was time to change it up. This time we decided to give customers a few more options for photos!  Mr. Bacon is really enjoying the ride to his new home! Here are Shana and...

Ever wonder what the creator of Archie McPhee finds interesting in Seattle? Well, Stacy Booth interviewed our own Mark Pahlow about just that! He reveals all. Talking about the best places to shop, eat and drink. Also, he describes his perfect day!  Start the morning with an enormous pot of coffee. Peet’s Major Dickason’s Blend. Work Twitter and Instagram and...