96 Fun Facts About Archer

Who created Archer?

Adam Reed wrote nearly every episode of the first ten seasons himself, working at his kitchen table rather than in a writers' room.

Who voices Sterling Archer?

H. Jon Benjamin never auditioned: he was offered the part because the show's creator wanted Archer to sound exactly like Coach McGuirk, his character in Home Movies.

In Archer's early seasons, what does the acronym ISIS stand for?

International Secret Intelligence Service: the agency was simply called ISIS until the end of season five; from season six (2015) the show quietly dropped the name after the real-world terrorist group made the initials notorious.

Which actress voiced Malory Archer until her death in 2021?

Jessica Walter's farewell came in the season 12 finale: Malory retires to a beach beside Ron Cadillac, voiced by Walter's late husband, in a scene pieced together from their old recordings.

The creator of Archer also voices which character in the show?

Ray Gillette fakes paralysis for months, then loses the use of his legs for real when Archer interferes with a spacecraft landing.

In 2017, Archer moved from FX to which sibling network?

FXX was being built up as the company's home for animation, so Archer joined The Simpsons repeats there from season eight; the move had first been announced for season seven and quietly put off.

What was Archer: Into the Cold, which aired in December 2023?

The series finale was announced as a three-part special two days after season 14 ended with what had been billed as the last episode; it picks up just after the UN outlaws private spy agencies.

In Archer's early seasons, which rival spy agency is run by Len Trexler?

ODIN meant its job offer for Lana, but Archer took it as his and defected, and his mother drunkenly put out a burn notice on her own son.

What is Sterling Archer's codename?

Duchess was also the name of Malory's late, adored Afghan hound; in the pilot she insists the agency computer chose the codename at random, and Archer does not believe a word of it.

In which country was Sterling Archer born?

Morocco: Malory went into labour in a bar in Tangier, and the owner who helped deliver the baby went on to become the family's valet.

Sterling excelled at which sport at boarding school before a gunshot wound ended his playing days?

Lacrosse brought him the offer of a full scholarship to Johns Hopkins, but a stalker shot him in the stomach before he could take it up.

Which handgun is Sterling Archer's weapon of choice?

Walther PPK: it is James Bond's pistol, fitting for a character built as a boorish 007; Bond himself only switched to it after a firearms expert told Ian Fleming his old Beretta was a lady's gun.

What does Sterling call the black turtlenecks he insists on wearing during operations?

Tactilenecks are his tactical turtlenecks: he concedes he did not invent the garment, only that he was first to see its tactical potential, and a licensed real-life version later went on sale.

Sterling has a fondness for going undercover under which first name?

Randy is his cover so often that when two colleagues finally complain about it on the way into a job, the fresh alias he comes up with is Rando.

Which real actor, idolised by Sterling Archer, turns up in the series playing himself?

Burt Reynolds voiced himself in the season-three episode 'The Man from Jupiter' (2012), dating Malory to the horror of Sterling, who idolises the star of Smokey and the Bandit.

In Archer, which word gets shouted whenever a remark sounds like innuendo?

Phrasing is, by its creator's own admission, the most economical way of ripping off 'That's what she said'; the show dropped it for a stretch and brought it back in season seven.

How did Lana Kane get her job at ISIS?

Malory recruited her at an animal-rights protest outside a furrier: Lana was about to throw red paint on her fur coat, Malory drew a gun, and Lana alone stood her ground.

Lana Kane usually carries two of which gun in shoulder holsters?

Tec-9s suit her style: she empties them on full auto without stopping to aim, which earned her the nickname 'spray and pray' back in training.

Which of Lana's features do her Archer colleagues mock with nicknames like 'Truckasaurus'?

Her hands get likened to steam shovels and cricket bats, to her mounting frustration; Aisha Tyler, who voices Lana, insists her own are long and delicate.

Lana's parents, Claudette and Lemuel, are academics at which university?

UC Berkeley: her parents thought she was still pursuing the science career she began at Columbia, and only learn she is a spy during a season-six visit with the baby.

In Archer, how did Lana come to be pregnant with Sterling's child?

Sperm he stored during cancer treatment: Lana took it without asking and only tells him once the baby is born, in the Archer Vice finale; he reacts by running off on a six-week bender.

When Archer begins, what is Cyril Figgis's job at ISIS?

Comptroller, the agency's accountant; he also holds a law degree, so when the gang opens a detective agency in season seven he alone qualifies to own it, and it carries his name.

Cheryl Tunt is an heiress to a fortune made in which industry?

Railroads: the office secretary turns out to be a railroad tycoon's descendant, splitting a billion-dollar inheritance with her brother Cecil, which only comes out when kidnappers come after her.

What kind of animal is Babou, the pet Cheryl keeps at her mansion and hates?

An ocelot: Cheryl regrets ever buying him, while Sterling is thrilled to meet a real one. Babou shares his name with the pet ocelot Salvador Dalí paraded around in the 1960s.

In Archer Vice, Cheryl reinvents herself as a country singer under what name?

Cherlene's album was real: FX released it in 2014, sung by Jessy Lynn Martens, who was first hired to play fiddle and mandolin and had to sound like Judy Greer's Cheryl.

Pam Poovey grew up on her father's dairy farm in which state?

Wisconsin: the family dairy is Poovey Farms, and she goes back in season six for her sister Edie's wedding to a man Pam once had a crush on, with Archer as her date.

How did Pam finance her college education?

Bare-knuckle street fights paid for college and left her with a startling tolerance for pain: when kidnappers beat her in season two, she shrugs it off and keeps insulting them.

Which poet wrote 'The Destruction of Sennacherib', the poem Pam has tattooed across her back?

Lord Byron's 1815 poem has an Assyrian army struck dead overnight; Pam wears its third stanza, and when she bares it in season two and asks who wants a piece of her, nobody does.

Ray reveals he won an Olympic bronze medal in which event?

Men's giant slalom: Ray protests that bronze means third in the world, Archer insists third is last, and once alone Ray admits it actually was a huge disappointment.

In Archer, what is the name of Sterling's long-suffering British valet?

Woodhouse hides a fearsome past: as an officer's servant in the First World War he avenged his captain's death by killing some fifty German soldiers with a knife, and he holds the Victoria Cross.

Archer's second season suggests Dr. Krieger may be a clone of whom, in a nod to The Boys from Brazil?

Adolf Hitler: in The Boys from Brazil it is Mengele who breeds the clones. Krieger, raised in Brazil by a fugitive Nazi scientist, protests that a clone of Hitler would surely look like Hitler.

In Archer, Dr. Krieger is an obsessive fan of which Canadian rock band?

Rush albums give each of Krieger's vans its name and mural, 'Van By Night' among them, and he keeps a drum kit at home to master 'YYZ', conceding only that Neil Peart stands alone.

In Archer, what is Krieger's girlfriend Mitsuko Miyazumi?

A hologram, and a convincing one: Archer claims she is so real that New York State was ready to let Krieger marry her. Judy Greer, who voices Cheryl, plays her too.

In Archer, which organization rebuilds Barry Dylan as a cyborg?

The KGB picked him up after Archer, whom he had been sent to rescue, let him fall from a fire escape; rebuilt as a bionic man, his first job was to kill the agent who had defected for Archer.

In season five, Archer Vice, what are the former ISIS staff trying to sell?

A ton of cocaine turns up behind an office wall once the FBI shuts ISIS down, and the gang prove hopeless dealers: Pam gets hooked on the very first job and eats her way through much of the stock.

In Archer, who shoots Sterling at the end of season seven, leaving him in a three-year coma?

Veronica Deane, the Hollywood actress the Figgis Agency was working for, shot Sterling in the season-seven finale, leaving him face down in her pool; seasons eight to ten play out inside his coma.

Season eight, Archer Dreamland, reimagines the cast in what setting?

A 1940s film noir Los Angeles: it is 1947, private eye Sterling is hunting his partner's killer, and he lands between the city's rival crime bosses, one of whom is his own mother, known simply as 'Mother'.

In Archer: Danger Island, what does Lucky Yates voice in place of Dr. Krieger?

A wisecracking parrot: Crackers, a scarlet macaw, is pilot Archer's sidekick. Pam even tells the camera the idol they are after is 'not a gold monkey', a wink at Tales of the Gold Monkey, the 1980s show the season borrows from.

In Archer: 1999, Sterling and Lana are co-captains of a salvage spaceship with what name?

M/V Seamus shares its name with the Wee Baby Seamus, the child Sterling ends up paying support for after a paternity test goes against him, even though the boy turns out not to be his.

Archer's season four premiere 'Fugue and Riffs' is a crossover with which other animated series?

Bob's Burgers: an amnesiac Sterling has grown a moustache, married Linda and is flipping burgers as 'Bob', a gag that works because one actor voices both leads.

In Archer's first season, Sterling tells Lana to call which 1980s soundtrack star, starting a long-running gag?

Kenny Loggins: 'Call Kenny Loggins, 'cause you're in the danger zone' is Sterling's Top Gun gag; Loggins played himself at Lana's baby shower in Archer Vice, only for Lana to reveal she never got the reference.

Archer's animation studio, Floyd County Productions, is based in which US city?

Atlanta: the studio's artists build each character from photographs of real people posing in costume, and the models are mostly not the voice actors.

Archer's creator conceived the show shortly after the cancellation of which Adult Swim comedy?

Frisky Dingo was cancelled in 2008 after two seasons, the second series he and partner Matt Thompson had lost after Sealab 2021; the spy comedy that came next ran for fourteen.

Archer's creator dreamed up his spy hero during a 1,000-kilometre walk across which country?

Spain: halfway along the Vía de la Plata he rested in Salamanca and spent three days on the Plaza Mayor, too shy to greet the women around him, imagining a man who would have sauntered straight over.

How did FX first air Archer's pilot, months before the series officially began?

As an unannounced sneak peek: on 17 September 2009 the pilot simply followed the season premiere of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, in a slot the listings marked 'To Be Announced'; the series proper began in January.

In Archer, which Soviet spymaster is Malory's old flame and a possible father of Sterling?

Nikolai Jakov may be Sterling's father, but nobody ever finds out: soon after he defects, Barry blows him up at an ISIS safe house, leaving no DNA to test.

Why did Archer stop calling its spy agency ISIS from the sixth season onward?

A jihadist group shared it, so the acronym was dropped in 2014 and the team spent season six as freelance agents on trial for the CIA.

Which magazine featured Archer's Lana, Cheryl and Pam in a 2016 spread promoting season seven?

Sports Illustrated drew the three women for its Swimsuit Issue, two years after an Esquire advertisement had dressed Sterling in designer menswear.

Which actor, the producers' pick for a live-action Sterling, voices Captain Murphy in Archer's Sea Tunt episodes?

Jon Hamm plays Murphy as an unhinged commander who threatens the East Coast with nerve gas from an undersea lair. The producers later named him their ideal Sterling for any live-action film.

The ISIS headquarters in Archer sits above which kind of business, reached by a secret entrance?

A laundromat hides the way in, behind a wall of fake washers, and a shady character called Popeye later buys the place.

Where do Pam and Krieger meet aliens that nobody else on the Archer team believes they saw?

Area 51 is where a missile forces the Tunt family jet down after it strays into restricted airspace, on the way home from a drunken Las Vegas bender.

Which substance is Malory's secretary Cheryl Tunt often caught sniffing in Archer?

Glue is the least of it: the heiress also has a pyromaniac streak and, by her own account, several stays in sanitariums behind her.

Sterling Archer, fearless in a firefight, is famously terrified of which animals?

Crocodiles and their alligator cousins terrify him, a phobia he has to face when a crashed jeep leaves him wading through a jungle river in season five.

Which Hollywood actor voices an arms dealer turned CIA contact in Archer who bears the actor's own surname?

Christian Slater plays a character modelled on himself, one who insists that his single name is a mononym. He also wrote the foreword to the book The Art of Archer.

What is the name of the daughter of Lana Kane and Sterling Archer, born at the end of season five?

Abbiejean, AJ for short, arrives in the last episode of Archer Vice. Malory later offers Lana more than $25,000 for the right to choose the baby's middle name.

Which defecting Russian agent does Sterling Archer nearly marry twice, once after Krieger rebuilds her as a cyborg?

Katya Kazanova dies saving him from Barry Dylan at their first wedding. The second ends when she runs off with Barry instead, one cyborg with another.

Malory Archer's husband Ron owns the biggest dealership around New York for which make of car?

Cadillac also gave Ron his surname: he was once a car thief called Kazinsky. He was voiced by the real-life husband of the actress who played Malory.

In Archer's first season, Malory fakes a bomb threat to get free tickets for the maiden voyage of what?

A luxury airship named Excelsior is the prize, and the scheme turns on her when Sterling finds a real bomb in the cargo hold.

Grieving on a tropical island at the start of Archer's third season, Sterling ends up holding which title?

Pirate King is the job he lands after pirates capture him, though he has bitten off more than he can chew and gets little help from his first mate, Noah.

Which celebrity chef voices Lance Casteau, whose restaurant the Archer agents infiltrate undercover?

Anthony Bourdain plays him in Live and Let Dine, where the team poses as staff to protect an Albanian ambassador while Malory schemes just to get a table.

Which Breaking Bad star voices Commander Tony Drake aboard a space station in Archer's Space Race two-parter?

Bryan Cranston voices the officer who hurries the team through emergency space training before a trip to the station Horizon, where they end up held captive by mutineers.

Which Arrested Development star voices Len Trexler, the rival spy chief who wants to marry Malory Archer?

Jeffrey Tambor's Trexler tries to buy ISIS as a way to win Malory, until Sterling and two colleagues brainwash him into no longer finding her attractive.

Malory Archer's unstable secretary answers to Cheryl and to which other first name?

Carol is the one that lasted after she cycled through several names in the early episodes, and when the FBI arrests her she signs her statement with both.

As human resources director at ISIS, Archer's Pam Poovey scolds staff through a puppet of which animal?

A dolphin puppet does the talking in her disciplinary meetings, which does little for trust, since she spreads confidential gossip around the whole office.

Sterling gambles away Malory's blackmail money while the Archer team is at which country's Grand Prix?

Monaco is the setting of Jeu Monégasque, where the cash was meant to buy back a compromising tape and Ray and Lana are roped in to win the losses back before Malory notices.

On an Archer mission to foil an assassination, Sterling's elderly valet serves as the decoy for which figure?

The Pope gets the stand-in on a trip to the Vatican, the same mission on which Pam, newly a field agent, shows an unexpected gift for foreign languages.

In the two-part ending of Archer's sixth season, the shrunken team enters a scientist's body to destroy what?

A blood clot is the target, and they do destroy it, but they regrow too early while still inside the patient, killing him and getting themselves disavowed by the CIA.

Which revelation during an FBI raid shuts down ISIS at the start of Archer's fifth season?

Washington never approved it: Malory had been running illegal missions for years, and she keeps everyone out of jail only by agreeing to dismantle the agency at once.

Which gadget-packed aid does Krieger give Sterling Archer when he wakes weak from his three-year coma?

A tactical cane with multiple functions props him up from season eleven, and he later uses it to drive off heavily armed poachers in Africa.

During Lana's pregnancy in Archer Vice, Sterling surprises everyone by getting certified as what?

A doula is a trained birth companion. His concern astonishes Lana, who had flatly turned down his marriage proposal when the agency was disbanded.

Archer: Danger Island recasts Sterling as a seaplane pilot who has lost what to a German flying ace?

An eye went on one of the five occasions the ace Ziegler shot him down, defeats Sterling blames entirely on the Germans' better planes.

How does Malory Archer leave the series at the end of its twelfth season?

She retires to a beach with her husband Ron, an ending written after the actress who voiced her died with her lines for the season already recorded.

Where is the whole Archer team trapped for nearly all of the sixth-season episode Vision Quest?

In a stuck elevator near the top floor they turn on each other, and are rescued just as Malory arrives to run the team-building exercise she had called them in for.

The mind-altering chip said to cure Cheryl's stage fright in Archer Vice turns out to be a sticker from what?

A Lego spaceman supplied the sticker, so the confidence that carries her singing career is pure placebo, and she later has no memory of that career at all.

The animation style of Archer mirrors mid-century comic art and the aesthetic of which television drama?

Mad Men supplied the look, while the thick, bold outlines come from comic artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko rather than the fine lines of most prime-time cartoons.

Sterling Archer appeared in a 2017 animated short promoting which spy film series?

Kingsman: The Golden Circle was the sequel being promoted, with Sterling crossing paths with Eggsy Unwin, the gentleman spy who goes by the codename Galahad.

Which Adult Swim cartoon, built from 1970s Hanna-Barbera footage, did Archer's creator make with Matt Thompson?

Sealab 2021 recycled footage from an earnest 1970s children's cartoon, and its commander, Captain Hazel Murphy, lent his name to the villain of Archer's Sea Tunt episodes.

Which Shaun of the Dead star voices Aleister, the suspiciously perfect new valet in Archer's eleventh season?

Simon Pegg's Aleister turns out to be an assassin sent to kill the world's greatest spy, which, to Sterling's horror, means Cyril.

Which Saturday Night Live alumnus voices Gustavo Calderon, the dictator smitten with Cheryl's singing in Archer Vice?

Fred Armisen's dictator is such a fan that he buys up enough copies of her album to send it platinum by himself, then divorces his wife to marry her.

Which muscle car does Malory give Sterling as a birthday spy car, then have stolen, in Archer's third season?

A Dodge Challenger in black, modified for spy work, is the gift. Malory has it stolen within hours to teach him to look after his things, and his quest to get it back drags in the Yakuza.

Which medal did Sterling Archer's elderly valet earn for his service in the First World War?

The Victoria Cross came after his squad leader was shot by a sniper and he tore through more than fifty German soldiers armed only with a knife.

In Archer's final season, the mind of Barry Dylan returns housed inside which household appliance?

A mini-fridge holds the reformed Good Barry, who teams up with the agency to drop his evil double into a vat of acid.

The golden idol everyone seeks in Archer: Danger Island turns out to be carved from which material?

Uranium is what makes the idol worth chasing for the villain Fuchs, who wants it to build a superweapon for Germany.

The look of Sterling Archer was modelled on a real local man who worked in which trade?

An electrician lent the spy his face: the producers dressed local residents in period clothing as models, and the creator remembered this one as exactly that handsome and also really nice.

Besides two rival spy chiefs, which real jazz drummer is among the possible fathers of Sterling Archer?

Buddy Rich was one of Malory's lovers in her black-ops days. Unsure who the father is, she raised Sterling on a tale about a decorated ace pilot called Black Jack.

A serial number on a computer screen in Archer's sixth season secretly led curious viewers to what?

An online scavenger hunt began there: the number was hexadecimal code for a web address, planted by an animator as a side project that went on to win an Emmy.

Archer: Danger Island pays homage to which short-lived 1980s series about a South Pacific seaplane pilot?

Tales of the Gold Monkey followed a cargo pilot flying a Grumman Goose around a fictional island in 1938, and the creator of Archer has called it one of his favourite shows ever.

At a martial arts tournament in Archer, two opponents trade jibes built from which actress's film titles?

Glenn Close films supply the wordplay in a bout against Dragon Fire, a competitor who turns out to be the double-crossing former agent Conway Stern.

An Archer episode set at an Alpine climbing resort borrows its title and plot from which thriller?

The Eiger Sanction, filmed by and with Clint Eastwood, sends an assassin up a mountain to work out which climber is his target. Sterling's version starts with him forgetting the dossier.

What is the name of the fictional French-ruled Pacific island where Archer: Danger Island takes place?

Mitimotu is a French colony with a volcano at its heart, and Sterling makes an early mark on it by crash-landing his seaplane in the middle of town.

Which veteran actor, honoured with a dedication in season eight, voiced Sterling Archer's elderly valet?

George Coe, an original member of the Saturday Night Live cast, played the valet in the early seasons, and after his death in 2015 old recordings of his voice returned for a cameo in Archer: 1999.

In Archer Vice, Krieger builds an exact copy of which American Civil War submarine at an indoor swimming pool?

The Hunley was the first combat submarine to sink a warship, and went down three times itself. Krieger's copy also fails, taking the last of the gang's contraband with it.

Archer Vice ends in which fictional Latin American republic ruled by the dictator Gustavo Calderon?

San Marcos is in the middle of a civil war against rebels secretly backed by the CIA when the gang arrives, and American forces invade it soon afterwards.

In Archer's later seasons, which spy conglomerate run by Fabian Kingsworth buys out the agency?

The IIA overtook the old rivals while Sterling lay in his coma, and its chief wants the team remade as a boutique outfit for discerning clients.

Which Justified star voices Lucas Troy, the disgraced former agent Sterling Archer calls his best friend?

Timothy Olyphant plays the friend whose name Sterling sets out to clear in The Wind Cries Mary, only to learn there is far more to Lucas than he believed.

On which island does Sterling Archer meet a Japanese soldier who believes the Second World War is still on?

Borneo is where Sato Kentaro has been marooned ever since. He attacks Sterling on learning how the war ended, then helps complete the mission and is reconnected with his family.