SEATTLE — EDITOR'S NOTE: This segment of KING 5's Evening first aired in August 2019.
It's a question you'll ask over and over if you find yourself perusing the Big Top Curiosity Shop in Seattle's South Park neighborhood: what IS that?!
From an alien in a jar to drawers full of teeth to a Six Million Dollar Man you can get for 90 bucks (negotiable), it's part store, part attraction. Most people love the place, the experience that just celebrated one year in business. But not all. "There's a mixed bag really. I mean I've had people come in and turn around and walk right out like offended, you know?" says founder Todd Hewitt.
Shop Dog Gibson may growl, but not at you. He's snarling at the stuffed bobcat looking right at him above. Gibson and founder Todd Hewitt are warm and welcoming as we amble about.
Yes, those ARE the elephant man's shoes in a glass case just to your right as you enter. They are NOT for sale. So far. "Everything has its price I guess. Yeah." So, some stuff is just for kicks, like the most extensive clown shoe collection, maybe in the world. "You just believe, y'know?"
But there are plenty of finds here that do have an official price tag. Shopper and fan Tina fancies a difficult to describe window art piece with a crank below that activates a devil dancing in flames. "I like that it's interactive. And it's really weird," she says.
There's a wide selection of shrunken heads. This is the perfect place to find a street sign, including one that reads, "Parking reserved for Kathleen Noble." This former Mexican grocery store has this, that AND the other thing from all over the globe. "I was sitting with a buddy and I was like I just want to have a place, a curiosity shop. But it's like a circus, it's like a big top... and he goes, 'Why don't you just say big top curiosity shop?' And I was like, 'Wow yeah OK!'" Hewiitt says.
He recalls a childhood when he didn't have much of anything. Now he's got much of everything. "There's the Duwamish mermaid," he says, pointing to a bug-eyed fish/woman hanging above the aforementioned glass case of surprises. We both agree she's beautiful, in her own way. "Not a bad looker for coming out the Duwamish."
Right next to a cyclops skull, there's a sign in the case that says, "100% real." That's where you can also see the seven-fanged rattlesnake...and Gary Ridgway's prison entrance form, filled out and signed by the man himself. "You're supposed to shred it but my friend just pocketed it. It's so weird how a piece of paper can have a kind of an energy. It's really creepy."
Todd encourages haggling. Not heckling. Haggling. Though he seems like a guy who could handle either. "I feel like people are afraid to negotiate. I welcome it. Some items, I have wiggle room. Others not so much. It never hurts to inquire."
He directs us to a back wall, one he's most proud of. It contains artfully mounted and framed insects from all over the world, like a foot-long walking stick, 6-inch beetles and wildly-colored butterflies. In the midst of nature's beauty are a couple of examples of goofy,1970's clown art that appear to be made of hardened jello. They're not. But no one knows exactly what they're made of. "Bubbles. I don't know."
But Todd DOES know nothing here actually belongs to HIM. "I'm just fostering these items actually yeah. I vet out the buyers and make sure it's going to a good home." Interestingly enough, he doesn't even LIKE everything. He can't wait to find a friend for a gnarled, burl wood love seat/coffee table combo. "It's kind of nauseating to me. Looks kind a like indigestion or something?" He says the price is definitely up for discussion.
So come get your free popcorn. You might just see something you've never seen before...or find what you've always been looking for. "I don't really collect anything. I collect money and friends!"
Big Top Curiosity Shop | 8507 14th Ave S, Seattle
EDITOR'S NOTE: This segment of KING 5's Evening first aired in August 2019.
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