New King Penguin In Town

The Penguin Post has learned that a King penguin that hatched on April 9 was shown off at The Aquarium at Moody Gardens in Galveston, Texas yesterday. The still-unnamed chick is the second to hatch this season. A blood test will be done to determine the sex of the penguin chick and then it will be named. The chick weighed 20 ounces at birth and will grow to about 35 pounds and 36 inches tall. It will join its parents named Petty and Chilly Willy and 31 other King penguins in the exhibit. It is the 14th King penguin to have been successfully bred at the aquarium. The public can also see the penguins on the Penguin Cam .

The Latest Lone Star King.

Knit Penguin Hats and Mittens

Sometimes you can’t get enough of a good thing, and what can be better than lots of different knit Penguin Hats and Mittens to choose from?  Right now we should be able to say that Penguin Place is the official knit penguin hat and mitten capital of the world, with 5 different adult sized knit penguin pilot hat styles, 4 kids styles, two different pairs of knit mittens (although one is presently sold out) as well as one kids sized knit penguin mittens. They include everything from your basic penguin, to penguins wearing bow ties, to Chilly Willy.

 

Chilly Willy Kids Hat

A funny thing happened when Penguin Place tried to order more Chilly Willy knit pilot hats today.  We found out that ZooZats™ is now offering kids Chilly Willy hats available for kids age 1-4.  Personally I can’t wait to get my 4 year old Rose in one of these.  Because of their construction and materials the adult Chilly Willy hats are said to fit kids as young as 5 all the way up to adults, and I can attest that they fit my 7 year old last winter as well as myself.

Adult and Kids Chilly Hat use the same cute design.

Chilly Willy Makes A Return

After a long hiatus our Classic Chilly Willy ringer t-shirt is finally back in stock in all sizes.  The shirt is a 90% pre-shrunk cotton (10% polyester) heather grey, heavy duty tee.  Printed using an environmentally friendly, oil based silk screen that will keep Chilly happy and smiling for many a molting season. Also, back in stock in all sizes (and just in time for graduation season is our University of Antarctica t-shirt.

Chilly Willy Birthday Cake

This in to the Penguin Post from Debbie in Austin, Texas. My little girl loves to watch penguins whenever we go to the zoo, so I thought a penguin-shaped cake would be good for her 4th birthday. To make this cake I simply baked 2 13″ x 9″ pans with chocolate cake mix. Once cooled I laid the two cake next to one another and cut out the design as best as possible. After I was done cutting, I frosted the entire cake with white icing. The rest of the cake was decorated with colored frosting and edible dye.

Might be too cute to eat!

Did Someone Say Chilly Willy Knit Hat?!

It may be the middle of December, and we’re all waddling around in fast motion trying to get our orders out our Penguin Place Igloo door, but that doesn’t seem to deter us from continuing to bring in a steady stream of new penguin goodies.  Perhaps we should be sent on a boat to an Antarctic asylum for insane penguin lovers, as this week alone we’ve brought in Penguin Nesting Dolls, Christmas Stockings, Ornaments,  Penguin Umbrella, Knit Penguin Pilot Hats in adults and kids sizes, Boxed Cards,  Pill Boxes, a Penguin Clarinet Player, an Eye Glass Holder, a new Penguin Zibby Plush, a Birthday Penguin Figurine, and even a Penguin Plush Floggle (don’t ask).  That’s 13 new penguin items!  But of course we’ve saved the best for last, as today marked the arrival of my personal favorite item on 2010!   Something I’ve been waiting for since I was a kid.  Something I only dreamed about, but never thought I’d live to see it.  A super cool, knit Chilly Willy Winter Hat, and if you ask my humble opinion, they couldn’t have done a better job as it’s  one of the cutest pieces of penguin apparel ever to be stuck in the gravitational pull of our planet.  Obviously, I’m partial to Chilly Willy.  But, I pity the fool who isn’t.  What’s also very cool about this hat is it’s not wool, but acrylic, and this being 2010, this is not your mom’s acrylic.  Plain and simple, this looks and feels like a knit hat, but it gently stretches and will fit just about anyone just fine.  From my 7 year old daughter to my big headed 75 year old dad (now if I can get a picture with him wearing it that would be something).  Take my word for it.  It’ll fit just about anyone and raise the cute factor on anyone wearing by 75%.

This Moment In Penguin History

With this March 15th marking our 25th anniversary we at Penguin Place will from time to time bring you another moment in Penguin Place (Next Stop South Pole) history. In this installment we’ve come across a design sketch that we used to put together our first “real” store in 1989. Between 1985 and 1988 we went from a pushcart at South St. Seaport’s Fulton Market Building to a couple of kiosks, the later being bigger than the first. But, with the opening of the Pier 17 building Next Stop South Pole was offered a 600 square foot store on the 3rd floor of new building and our vision for an all-penguin store would finally be realized. At least as much of a vision as we could fill in 600 square feet. Our vision ( mine and my store manager and designer Robin ) was to have the shop look like the ultimate penguin collectors home. All our penguin bathroom stuff would be in a bathroom (less tub and toilet), our kitchen would feature a table with large penguins ( that we nicknamed Elvis) sitting on chairs at the table and an old 1950′s fridge with the shelves filled with penguin kitchen items as well as some plastic and rubber fish we found at a bait and tackle shop. We also stocked the shelves in the fridge door with cans of Penguin Soda which was the house brand soda of the old Grand Union supermarket. It’s only took a few hours before someone wanted to buy a can of Penguin Cola, so weekly trips to Grand Union became the norm for a few years until Grand Union sadly changed their soda branding to something more generic. The fridge stayed with Penguin Place until this past June when we decided not to schlep it up to Northampton. The store living room featured a 1950′s TV that we gutted the inside, put a new monitor and a VCR inside and played loop tapes of whatever penguin nature videos we were offering. This TV is now in my home and it always amazes people that not only does this 50 + year old TV work, but it incredibly plays in color. Sometimes I tell ‘em there’s a new monitor in the old shell and sometimes I don’t. This sketch that I have is of the penguin bathroom, and notice it features (on the right) Opus in a shower cap and towel, and a Chilly Willy mirror. There’s also a penguin toilet brush and plunger, as well as a street sign that reads Penguin Ave. The shower curtain of penguins wind surfing was never one of my favorites, but that was the only style available at the time. Sadly, although the 3rd floor Pier 17 NSSP Penguin Store was a success, three years later in 1992, the Seaport in their infinite wisdom decided not to renew my lease and replace us with a Nintendo store.  When I pointed out to Seaport management that people didn’t come to South St. for Nintendo (one could find that stuff in any mall), but for unique stores like Next Stop South Pole, and that booting us for Nintendo violates the principles that the “festive marketplace concept” was all about. They told me that Nintendo would pay them almost double what I was paying.  This short sightedness was typical of Seaport management back then and what led to the inevitable decline in popularity of South St. Seaport.  I secured another shop and moved downstairs to a tiny 240 square foot mini igloo where NSSP stayed until 1998 when I finally ended my relationship with the Seaport and moved to Brooklyn where Penguin-Place.com was born. The Nintendo shop was out of business in about a year and that space was followed by one failed business and temporary store after another. To this day I still won’t play Nintendo.

1989 sketch for the "penguin bathroom" of the Pier 17 Next Stop South Pole shop.

Penguin Place Shopping Update

The back of our new Penguin Gummies box has this great Penguin Gummies of the World map.

As we waddle into the month of December the daily penguin inventory comings and goings are hard to keep up with, but we’re trying. Here’s some of the real cool stuff that arrived just today. Match Of The Penguin Card Game, Let It Slide Shirts in tank and t-shirt styles, E-Frutti Penguins Of The World Boxed Gummies, Knitwits Little Kids Cotton Knit Hats, Quilted Penguin Tree Skirt, Boys Penguin Silk Tie, Personalized Penguin Ornaments and Elegant Mom & Chick Lamps. Here’s what we sold out of : Spanky Plush, Diving Snowglobe, Chilly Snowglobe, Chilly Willy Patch and Baseball Hat, Penguin Jack in the Box, Waddling Big Head Magnet, Chilly Plumpkin, Pip the Nutcracker Plush and we’re sad to say the Retro Penguin Bathrobe is sold out in small/medium. Also, we thought we had sold out of the Santa Penguin Riding a Motorcycle Ornament and took it off the site, then we found a case and back up it went. So, it goes at Penguin Place in December.

Our latest cute Kids Cotton Knit Penguin Hat for ages 3-8