The Virginian-Pilot
                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 

              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.



DATE: Monday, August 7, 1995                 TAG: 9508050024
SECTION: DAILY BREAK              PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Maddry 

                                             LENGTH: Medium:   83 lines


TANGLED UP IN A WEB WITH ARCHIE MCPHEE

THE INFORMATION highway has detoured up my alley at last.

For some time now, I have had serious doubts about whether to link with Internet. I guess e-mail was the turnoff. E-mail is like a national bulletin board for computer users. The questions placed there all seem to have been written by Kato Kaelin:

``Does any one out there know how to get peanut butter out of Afghan dog hair?''

And the answers seem to have been written by Gillikin right after an island coconut dropped on his head:

``Oh, wow! Who makes afghans out of dog hair? Do they come in colors other than peanut butter brown? Please send sales brochure to Weemus in Beverly Hills. . . .''

So, I figured, who needs to enter a web that has ensnarled people with the IQs of insects in its threads?

Little did I know.

Last week I was in the newspaper library going through some old clippings when Peggy Earle, the librarian, interrupted my heavy research on the history of the Pungo Lotus Festival.

``Boy do I have some good news for you,'' she said. ``The Archie McPhee Catalog is on the Internet.''

She had to be kidding, right?

``No, it's for real,'' she said. ``Follow me to the computer, and I'll show you.''

``Oh, wow, heavy,'' I said, falling effortlessly into e-mail cyberspeech.

She pecked at the computer keyboard for about a minute. Suddenly, an image in living color appeared on her screen.

It was too beautiful for words. There, before me, was the cover of the Archie McPhee catalog. The photo was of an Alfred E. Newman look-alike wearing one of McPhee's most expensive and luxurious offerings: a Gourd King Hat!! (And a nifty item it was too, with its charming suede chin strap to hold it firmly on the head.)

I was overcome with emotion. My tear ducts discharged fluid the way they do when I hear Gershwin's ``Rhapsody In Blue.''

Never before had I seen an Archie McPhee catalog in living color. And this one was being transmitted all the way from McPhee headquarters in Seattle.

The transmission was so clear - and lifelike - that Peggy and I felt we could almost reach into the screen, remove the gourd hat and wear it. Something we both longed to do.

The Gourd King Hat - and there is a Gourd Queen Hat, natch, because McPhee thinks of everything - was faintly redolent of the popular cone head formerly featured in the catalog. But it was brown and had a nifty 3-inch stem sprouting from the top that was authentically chic.

To our mutual delight, all of our old favorites were in the Internet McPhee. The Fighting Nun Punching Puppet was so realistic I felt she might fly off the hand up her habit and use my nose for a punching bag.

``She doesn't carry a crucifix, but she does pack a righteous left cross,'' the text read. And only $9.50 each.

Every page of the electronic catalog was filled with interesting items as amusing as they were useful: troll with blow-out tongue, rubber brain suitable for dropping into punch bowls, urine specimen bottle to be used as juice glass or tooth brush holder, potato gun that fires plugs from real spuds.

And some were very educational, of course. The wind-up hopping earth hops in a vaguely elliptical pattern that McPhee observes, ``is how we orbit the sun.'' A steal at only $4.95 with no extra charge for the plastic sneakers at the bottom of the earth that are used for hopping!

I finished looking at the McPhee catalog on Internet with a sense of shame and remorse for having undervalued the web's usefulness.

``Did you like the Internet McPhee?'' Peggy asked.

``Like it? If it were a woman, I would marry it and elope to Disney World,'' I replied.

What a fool I've been. We are talking really important informational conduit here. I can't wait to sign up on the Internet tomorrow. . . right after I order three of those Cricket Lick-Its, which have a real cricket trapped inside a sugar-free, creme-de-menthe-flavored sucker for only $5.95.

Link me up. I've tasted the future and it's here. Raht now! ILLUSTRATION: The Monitor Lizard made of hard, hollow rubber, is only $28.50

in the Archie McPhee catalog.

by CNB