CATS

The Finger Cats are the tallest and most self-domesticated of the Finger Animals. With four different breeds, there are endless opportunities for knocking pens off of your desk. Get to know Ozzie, Fiona, Carlos and Hazel while causing mischief around the house and in the neighborhood. 

Lift them up next to your face and let them whisper secrets into your ear. Keep them in your pocket, or even dangle them from your drinking glass. They're so cute that you'll never feel a crushing sense of loneliness ever again. I know it was all over for me once I saw their tails. If you're trying to have a truly wild time, introduce them to their real-life cat doppelgänger. Be warned though, doing so may cause both cats to question their own reality. 

Here's when Carlos met Oliver Beans, his real-life cat lookalike:

RATS

We looked into the void and the void said: "Finger Rats." They will be your constant companion while cooking dinner… unless of course they insist on cooking for you. Specializing in tomato-based pasta dishes, they come highly recommended from chefs in Paris. Just make sure to clean up in the kitchen, as any scraps left out past midnight will be taken as offerings and used to summon Mega Rat, who will materialize inside the walls of your home. Myron, Shortie, Kevin and Lefty are bound to become your closest dining companions! 

SQUIRRELS 

These Finger Squirrels are extremely talented. Their arms are perfectly sized to hold an acorn perfectly, but don’t let their abilities distract you from their true motives. They may or may not try to steal underpants from the dryer… but only after cranking the heat as high as possible in an effort to shrink them down to squirrel size. If you stand too still while holding them they will assume you’ve turned into a tree, so watch out.

A cool thing you could do is pretend to let them to snack on seeds from any and all bird feeders in sight. Not only will Austin, Earl, Nutter and Pearl become well fed, but you will become known as the neighborhood nut; freaking out humans, birds and real squirrels. 

   

UNICORNS

Sometimes all you need in life is a magical pal to gallop alongside you. Finger Unicorns will be your eternal companion. Personally, I choose to carry them around in my pocket and whip them out to help me make decisions while running errands or choosing clothes to wear in the morning. Luckily Unicorns are well known for their impeccable style; and well-groomed hooves, mane and tail. They will energetically influence you into making the right choice. They come in four different personalities to match any outfit: Raoul (pink), Stella (blue), Marty (green) and Avery (purple). 

PIGS

Just what you always wanted, a pig pal to bring into to the city! Finger Pigs are smart as heck and will dazzle you with their extensive knowledge on local arts and culture while you take a walk around town. They graduated at the top their class from St. Oinkers Academy, so you know they're the real deal. Pigs are well known for representing good fortune so you’ll want to have these by your side. They’re also the perfect pal for when you haven’t cleaned in a while because they will not judge you for dishes left in the sink or unwashed clothing. Collect all four: Poppy, Quincy, Tilly and Digby.

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Collect each finger puppet to keep yourself company and show off to all your friends and family while video chatting! 

Vibe Check: Passed ✅

Shana, Heff, David, and Mark talk about the latest Archie McPhee products. From Meditating Bigfoot to Racing Tardigrades to the Dad's Joke Drawer Puzzle, we've got opinions and we're ready to spill. Bigfoot's cleft has never looked so good!

Heff offers his apologies to the Wallingford Beast:

So many of my friends in one place! Proud of you all making it into this sweet puzzle 😭 https://t.co/DwBGZctynn

— Wallingford Beast (@archiestore) November 17, 2020

Our Seattle store is open for curbside pickup and in-store shopping, but it has been hard to get the word out. 

We're very excited that Seattle Met magazine has named Archie McPhee one the Top 20 Essential Seattle Shops. We're right there at the top alongside great businesses like Easy Street Records, Elliott Bay Book Company, and Scarecrow Video. 

Here's what they had to say about us:

The Madison Square Garden of Seattle novelty shops boasts an impressive collection of inspired creations, like a squishable “stress tardigrade,” “handerpants” (yes, hand underpants), and an Edvard Munch–inspired electronic noisemaker that emits all this year’s pent-up screams for you.

The Madison Square Garden of Seattle novelty shops? Wow!

Please stop by and shop!

We do require a mask while shopping and are following all Washington State safety guidelines. 

If not, let's get you up to speed! The Wallingford Beast was discovered at the Wallingford store location back in 2010 when we moved up from our old Ballard store. Bones were found and strange sounds were heard by staff until the Beast finally revealed himself. Now he lives rent-free not only in all of our hearts, but also in his glass apartment within the store. He loves attention so he spends his days posing for onlookers. His contract requires his pod to be locked at all times during the day to prevent people from trying to pet his head (he’s sensitive!). We also require him to be on his best behavior when the store is open to the public, as he has a particular taste for flesh, sarcastic sub-tweets and scaring innocent bystanders. 

While the beast remains locked in his glass aquarium of chaos during the day, by night he is in complete control. He needs some relief as he spends his time sandwiched between the World’s Largest Rubber Chicken who squawks once per night at the witching hour and Captain Archie who can talk endlessly as long as the quarters keep coming. Part of the nightly closing ritual done by staff members involves delicately unlocking the case and bolting to the door to allow the Beast to begin his nocturnal reign.

Prior to developing a contractual agreement with the Beast, store staff quelled his hunger for mischief by providing him with cat food scented soap. After being presented with the foul-smelling bar, he would be so busy licking up every last bit that he would forget about running around scaring customers. Apparently, flesh, Cat Food and soap were the only things he'd ever eaten in his life, so the fact that we were able to combine two of his favorite foods made him begin to trust that we meant no harm. Both his capacity for emotional intelligence and his taste in food have evolved over the years. In fact, he has since developed a refined palette, often enjoying charcuterie boards with selections of cheeses and cured meats.

Even though we let him loose at night, his energy for mayhem remains unchanged. A few months ago he got hold of the Seattle Store Twitter password and hijacked the account to start the process of building his personal brand. It's alright though, instead of breaking things and bothering the rubber chickens, he mostly stays up all night tweeting about his hopes, dreams and severe lack of salami. He's quite proud of his work. He also occasionally makes an appearance on the Archie McPhee TikTok account. Check out some of his antics here: 

My afternoon cleaning routinehttps://t.co/2CCGfVaan8 pic.twitter.com/J4cEyEyCWy

— Wallingford Beast (@archiestore) November 5, 2020

Just an FYI that @PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word "tardigrade" in the product name or description. We've contacted them and they told us we should just stop using the word tardigrade. pic.twitter.com/hEihKED10g

— Archie McPhee (@ArchieMcPhee) September 11, 2020

I spent the weekend at a lake cabin with my family so I asked them to play The Fly Widow Game with me. While this is not technically a review, since I work for Archie McPhee, I thought I'd recreate how I explained and played the game with my family.

So if you can imagine humanoid flies wearing Victorian-era outfits, then you can pretty much get an idea of what the game is all about. If you can’t imagine it… just watch the 1986 movie The Fly with Jeff Goldblum and think of him as one of the Fly Widow’s husbands but in the 1980s instead of the 1880s. A couple of questions that came up were: Is the Fly Widow immortal? and Does she have special abilities? All I can say is one may only find the answer by playing the game. 

The game itself comes in a decorative tin with 55 cards. They include thematic instructions, a brief backstory, The Fly Widow herself, and all her (many) deceased fly husbands. Everyone was impressed by the creepy images of all the characters. They looked like illustrations for the book Charles Dickens would have written if he were a fly: Martin Buzzlewit or David Copperfly. 

Upon reading the instructions it became clear that years of playing Go Fish and Old Maid had prepared us for this exact moment. The goal of the game is to create pairs from the portraits and headstones of each of the Fly Widow’s murdered husbands and the loser is left with the Fly Widow. Each pair includes a poem explaining why it didn’t work out with the Fly Widow and how they were killed. They’re all entertaining to read through, here some examples of the couplets:

St John Smyth, Art Master 

"The portrait he did was not flattering...

...He fell five floors, handsomely splattering!"

The Vicar of Wiggington

"He buries all her lovers one by one...

...His grave will be empty when all this is done!"

 

Judge Hardcastle

"It was up to him to decide her guilt...

...Then he was smothered by a gifted quilt"

Sir Percivale Grandville

"She felt he preferred his stallion horse...

... Put reigns round his neck with surprising force!"

Here’s a run-down of how we played:

Cards are dealt to each player until there are no more cards left in the deck. On your turn first check your hand for pairs. Then ask the player to the right if they have a card you might need. For example, we would say something along the lines of: “do you have a fly guy wearing a red coat." We decided that if the answer is no, then you get to blindly take a card from the player to the left before ending your turn. 

Overall it was a fun time! I recommend playing a few rounds in order to become more acquainted with the Fly Husbands or "Fly Guys" as we ended up referring to them as. It is the perfect game for a weekend away, a rainy day at home, or a casual afternoon in a graveyard if that's your thing. 

Get your own Fly Widow Game here.

Rejoice Seattle! (At least the parts close to our store in Walingford.) Archie McPhee is doing deliveries on Fridays! 

We are also open for in-store shopping and curbside pickup, but we realize that doesn't work for everyone. So, if you live near the store (see map below) and want your neighbors to be jealous when our sweet van pulls up to deliver a bag full of Rubber Chickens, get ready! Just call our Seattle store, 206-297-0240, any time before 6 PM on Thursday and we'll deliver your order between 2 PM and 4 PM on Friday. We’ll call, leave a message if you don’t answer, and let you know when we’re on our way. We will place the order on the front porch and ring the doorbell or knock then back away from the door for maximum social distancing.

Not only that but you'll get a FREE gift just for ordering. 

Pictures and videos of rubber chicken delivery are encouraged!

The delivery area is limited. See picture below.

The Archie McPhee store in Seattle is open for business. That means you can go into the store and peruse the over 10,000 items we have in stock! All we ask is that you wear a mask and observe proper social distancing. If you prefer, you can also call (206) 297-0240 and place an order for curbside pickup. 

Don't forget to tour the Rubber Chicken Museum and learn all about the history of hilarity! 

Check out our store website for details about current hours. 

View this post on Instagram

MUST. NOT. TOUCH. FACE.

A post shared by “Weird Al” Yankovic (@alfredyankovic) on Mar 6, 2020 at 8:36pm PST

 

We're in quarantine! Just like most of the world, we're at home doing our part to make the world safer. We talk about what we've been up to, Shana's surgical mask, and watching pop culture respond to the situation.

Here are a few links:

Alton Brown's live cooking

Ian Abramson SNL

Conan uses a selfie-stick 

The Beauty Hunters

Jon Doe on Instagram

Oliver Jeffers on Instagram

The video Shana used to make her mask, but she wants you to know it's not a protective mask, it's mostly for show. Don't think it will protect you!

In this special episode of the Archie McPhee Archives with Mr. Q, you can actually buy the items. Everything featured is about to go in the archives and we have a limited supply left. So, if you're interested, buy them before they're gone!

• Plastic Hut
• Safety Monitor Fez
• Top Hat Espresso Cup and Saucer
• Despair Pennant 
• Vinderpants 
• Happy Birthday Tongue Scraper 
•  Modest Urns
• Jinx Removing Spray
• Gag Box
• Batstache

Weird, incomplete transcript:

Hello and welcome to the special Almost Archive show with Mr. Q! 

These are 10 things that are about to be in the archives, so you know what that means. You know what to do. Check it out. 

The first thing you should check out is the Plastic Hut. How cool is the hut, the whole thing. Everything you see here comes in this little box and it's all stuffed into this hut. You got chickens, you got cows. The farmers had the whole farm and they're all in here. That's so cool. One of the coolest sets I've ever seen and they even have these scary rabbits. Ah, love that plastic hut.

I'm quite partial to this as you can probably tell. The Safety Monitor Fez comes in fluorescent yellow, has a little tassel. Lets me stand out in a crowd. So any office that has a safety monitor, probably good to get one of these. 

You've got the Top Hat Espresso Cup and Saucer. It looks like a top hat, but in fact, it's a little espresso cup. Cool. Is that it's a good thing that Mad Hatter didn't have this. It would've made him even more mad. Put them together. Top hat. Very cool.

We like funny pendants that we've come up with different things to put on them and this one is the Despair Pennant. Woo. Got the little cloud there. Celebrate despair. That's all right. That's a good thing for the office. That's my opinion. 

When you go to a party and you bring some wine, you don't want to just put it in a regular old wine bag, so put it in some underwear - Vinderpants. Some people see this and it freaks them out, but not our kind of people. Your wine needs underwear. It's right there. 

Happy Birthday Tongue Scraper. This, the packaging alone on this is worth it. You have so many great elements. Happy tongue. The happy tongue couple. The clown. I don't even want to know what that thing's doing with it. It removes birthday germs. 

We also have Modest Urns we have or humans and Pet Urns. The great thing about these is it's all in there. You can customize it with this whole list of sayings and different lines of for the dearly departed and attach them to the urn itself. You can customize it with the stickers and it comes with your own bonus eulogy all in one. That's all you need and the pet one is very similar. Great idea, modest earns. 

We also have the Jinx Removing Spray removes jinxes, hexes or curses. No guarantees though. Just take this, spray it, and it gets rid of all those jinxes. Everybody should have one of these just in case. Think about it. 

Here’s an awesome gag box than we designed. You put your actual present in here, but when someone opens it, they think they're getting the thing on the box. In this case, the Shrunken Head Ham Sculpture Kit. This box is just amazing. There are so many awesome details. It shows the making of shrunken heads out of ham, kids playing with it. And the finest part of it is the instructions. You've got all these details. 

Most of the time, we're excited about what Mr. Q discovers in the Archie McPhee archives, but sometimes it's scary! This time he comes back with a horrifying bagel, a real version of an urban myth, and a frilled lizard. Archie McPhee has a long history with the Jesus lizard. We used to have one on the exterior of our Seattle store bursting through the wall. But, after we moved, we put it inside the store. It's fun to try and find it when you visit. 

As usual, there are a few surprises and questions for the ages. For instance, why is that skeleton holding a magnifying glass?

Here's a picture of our frilled lizard covered in snow!

It's the Super Awesome Show! David and Shana are your guides through the first batch of new Archie McPhee products in 2020. They'll give you the scoop on everything from our super realistic Finger Alien Hands to our hairless Bald Bigfoot. Just watch the video above!

Here's a weird, incomplete transcript!

David: So you may have noticed already how warm my thumb is. Well, it is wintertime. And you can see this Thumb Hat is available on the website and at our Seattle store. This is the thumb hat and it's for cool people. And then at the bottom, it says “no losers allowed.” 

Shana: I can really tell you're a winner. 

David: Thank you. A winner with a warm thumb. One warm thumb.

Shana: Oh, what's next? Okay. Playing cards. How about those? We have some new playing cards. We're classy like that. And they're beautiful. Pickle Playing Cards with pickle texture, the Pickle King and all of the pickle face cards. It cracks me up. I don't know why it's just so ridiculous. 

David:  I think in the end there's a picture of the pickle casino as well. 

Shana: Here's Pickle Joker.

David: The pickle casino that's become a running joke here at the office. Everyone loves the pickle casino. We have rubber chicken playing cards. Here's the joker from the Rubber Chicken Playing Cards. These are fun, funny, hilarious chickens. Scott King had fun designing the faces on these as well.

Shana: Available also at our Archie McPhee store and in the Rubber Chicken Museum. 

David: The Rubber Chicken Museum gift shop is the best place to buy Rubber Chicken Playing Cards. And what else do we have here?

Shana: We also have Bald Bigfoot. So this is, these are magnetic shards, you know the game, right? And you can turn him, you can put lederhosen on him. He can be kilt dude. And your favorite, which is space monkey. I love space monkey because he looks strangely familiar.

David: One thing you should know about this is this is the third draft bald Bigfoot cause first draft of it. We just removed all the hair from Bigfoot and left what was underneath and it was incredibly disturbing. Was it not? It was super disturbing. 

Shana: Cause I think that was called Naked Bigfoot, that would be the name of that product rather than bald Bigfoot, right.

David: Bigfoot all of his hair fell out via, you know, via male pattern baldness. Alien Finger Hands left and right! Alien hands, these glow in the dark. They are actual alien hands that appeared to a staff member while they were sleeping. They tried to abduct them. I won't mention any names. They are rather frog-like, And every time we would suggest a small change to the design to improve them the person who saw the alien hand was like, that's not what they look like. So these are authentic. They're authentic. They're not exactly the way we would have designed them, but they represent reality. Right? Exactly. Yeah. We had to go with reality on that one.

Shana: Okay. So what about this? We can do reality. Nothing's more real than leeches. Yes. This is the Leech Bandage and I'm going to say a special shout out to my friend Sarah and she knows why about leeches. We both watched the show Botched. Yes. About bad plastic surgery. They use leeches.

David: They do. On that show when someone having surgery has incredibly thin skin. They apply leeches around it because the leeches exerting flow through it. So then they have people who go in for plastic surgery that end up in bandages with real leeches attached to their face, which I think is poetic. So there is an actual medical use for leeches when they went balance your humours in medieval times where they'd be like, you have too much blood. That's why you're sick. So they'd apply leeches to you until you felt better or they would just cut you and let it bleed out.

Shana: Not, not real happy times.Not good times. But it's true. 

David: We have these Monster Claw Finger Puppets, which are also very beautiful and very realistic to a monster. When I've seen monsters, this is close to what they have, although I would debate the number of fingers. 

Shana: Oh well, that was kind of a big debate. Yeah. How many fingers do monsters have? 

David: And we did, we went with four. Yeah. So and you can get them in pairs. So they look really cool when you pick stuff up with them cause the colors are so bright. And you can scare people in a tiny way. Hold tiny, scary things. 

Shana: Scare people in a tiny way. Yeah. That's my new favorite line. What about these? Oh my gosh. Okay. So what are we going to do? Racing Reapers. These are beautiful Grim Reaper's with racing numbers on them and they’re pullbacks. So we pull it back like this and they race. So you pull the Reaper back and then let go. 

David: I don't want the reapers to go off the table and hurt themselves. And we also have Racing Possums. This is one of my favorites. And this would be another

Shana: If you pay attention to the show, if you're, if you're a return watcher, you'll know about Garbage World. Yes. Everything from Fly WIdow Game to Racing Possums.

David: And return of an old favorite of ours, which is the Finger Spork. Which as our cameraman pointed out. He used to eat with them incorrectly, in a way that gave him carpal tunnel. He would do this and try and eat. But you notice the curvature of your wrist at this point? Now he does sideways. There you go. So if you have them and you would like a short seminar on how to do it half is available to teach you how to eat with Finger Sporks without injuring your wrist. 

 Welcome to 2020! We had our All Compay Meeting with the theme "We Make Weird," it snowed in Seattle which meant that we had a photo shoot, Shana helped sell pies to Nirvana, and David got obsessed with a haunted tea kettle! In other words, it's just another episode of the Less Talk, More Monkey Podcast!

What a year! Shana, David, and Heff do a quick review of 2019 for Archie McPhee. From Bibo Cornhole to Gigi Hadid, a lot happened this year. We also say goodbye to kitsch expert and musical genius Allee Willis who was one of us. 

We, and Nancy Pearl, were excited to be a Jeopardy clue! Talk about a pop-culture touchstone. Having Alex Trebeck say your name in a Jeopardy clue is like being an NYT crossword puzzle clue. The question is, "What is a librarian?"

Thank you to Sue Mewhiney who sent us centaur paintings out of the blue! What a treat!

We're not sure what box Mr. Q opened in the archives that contained nasty old teeth and creepily detailed glow-in-the-dark feet, but we're sure glad he did! Some of the items that Mr. Q finds serve as inspiration for products that Archie McPhee makes, but others are a "keep out" sign that saves us from making a horrible horrible mistake. Also in this episode, a memorable Shriner and tiny toaster salt and pepper shaker. 

We were inspired during the holiday season to get a group of five of our Biggest and Loudest Rubber Chickens and have them perform Jingle Bells. It worked out so well, we thought we'd share it with you! (Ok, so it's amusing, but not musically that great. What can you do?)

Just so you know the World's Largest Rubber Chicken is part of the Rubber Chicken Museum at our Seattle store. 

Where does Archie McPhee get their inspiration? One way is our incredible archive of old toys and novelties. Our archivist, Mr. Q, has agreed to give you a tour of some of the weirdest and most appealing toys in our collection. In this episode, you'll get to see a squishy cuttlefish, vampire teen, an electric Señor Misterioso, a family of friendly nodding pigs, a novelty tooth toothpick dispenser and more!

While these items aren't for sale, we thought that you enjoy seeing them. It's a shame for them to sit in dusty boxes like some kind of lost treasure. We find it oddly relaxing to look through them and just appreciate how awesome they are. 

You won't believe the final thing! It's mind-blowingly weird.