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My Best Halloween Costume Ever.

It's raining. I stayed home from work today, "sick," and aside from catching up on zzzz, did some mindless web browsing that somehow landed me on Amazon. After lamenting the end of Amazon's long partnership with Toys 'R' Us, I found myself checking my Amazon account information, which makes little sense since I haven't ordered anything from there in months. Interestingly enough, they've got this section that lets you review every order you've ever placed with them, and I found myself trying to connect the dots of my itemized orders from as far back as early 2000. Lots of fun. I found all of these Christmas presents purchased for nieces and nephews, not to mention several attempts on my behalf to rape the system and cash in on Amazon's clearance sales. Twenty Emperor Palpatine figures, scored for 99 cents each! A dozen Furby Babies...5 bucks each!

There were also remnants of obsessions (mostly) past. I don't know what intentions I had for Charmander earrings, nor do I remember ever receiving them, but there they were, all pewter and now forever "out of stock." Give it a shot if you've spent the better part of the Internet age ordering from Amazon; this section is a nice trip down Remembering Things Street.

Tonight's Halloween Countdown entry details the story of my greatest Halloween costume. It's a tale I've mentioned in small bits during previous articles, but this is the whole disjointed shebang.

That article seems very conducive to a blog survey about your best Halloween costume, but I think we've done that like sixty times already. So just use the comments space to talk about your past Halloween costume stories in general. Best, worst, mild, whatever.

Posted by Matt on 10/17/2006. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 90 comments

Woohoo number 1! Ironically I have nothing to say. I hate Karma.

Chestnuts roasted by Cotter @ 10/17/2006 11:39 PM

My best halloween costume was homemade (obviously). I took an old TV box, wrapped it in christmas wrapping paper, and stuck a smaller box lid with a bow on it atop my head. The larger box I adorned with a tag that said “From: God To: Women”, and this I wore over my torso with the aid of some really nifty homemade suspenders. Top it all off with a Hawaiian shirt and I was, (dum dum DUM) God’s gift to women. I thought for sure I’d win the Halloween costume at work.

I lost to a guy who bought a $30 generic pirate costume from Halloween USA. Keep in mind this was pre-Pirates of the Carribean. Where’s the justice?

Chestnuts roasted by Cid @ 10/17/2006 11:41 PM

My WORST halloween costume was when I was in first grade (?). I had a serious hardon for the Beetlejuice franchise for some reason, and strangely enough we could not find a Beetlejuice costume in any department store/Seventh Heaven we ventured in. So, fed up with my constant whining, my dear sweet parents bought a black and white striped “prisoners outfit” and tossed away the plastic ankle ball. Then, because they were cheap bastards with no attention to detail, they purchased me a black afro wig to go with the ensemble. After hearing me bitch that Beetlejuice’s hair was “yellow” not “black”, we settled on spraying the afro wig with yellow temporary hair coloring. The result: I looked like a gender confused clown who just happened to cross over to the wrong side of the law. Did I care? Hell no. I was Beetlejuice, dammit!

Chestnuts roasted by Cid @ 10/17/2006 11:47 PM

I think every kid of the 80s and early 90s is contractually obligated to have a plastic-bag and half-mask costume. Mine was Oscar the Grouch.

My best Halloween costume ever was/is some army surplus gear, helmet, gloves etc. So I’m a soldier. Add a flesh-coloured alien mask and I’m a soldier from Roswell.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v120/Ronald_MacK/halloween02.jpg

My greatest costume as a kid was as the Headless Man. Wearing a skullcap with nailpolish for blood, I had one of my father’s shirts buttons with the collar around the top of my head. One of the shirt’s arms was stuffed with newspaper, and under the arm was a mask with a balloon in it, IE my head. I used my non-sleeved arm to help carry things and such by sticking it through a button hole in the front. I won a costume contest with it.

I think the year after that I went as Charlie Chaplin. I didn’t win anything. :(

Man, I should go scan my old Halloween pictures. My folks took one of me every year.

Chestnuts roasted by Ronald MacKinnon @ 10/17/2006 11:54 PM

I, too, miss the days when Toys ‘R’ Us had like 6-8 solid aisles of action figures and castles/caves to house those action figures. Those things were great for the imagination.

Hard to say what my best Halloween costume was, because I don’t really like to count ones that just involved a store-bought mask. One of the weirdest ones was my Junior year of high school. I had a plastic rabbit mask from the local 5&10, torn up santa pants, and a blood soaked wife beater. It was pretty frightening, and if I hadn’t been with my gf at the time I probably wouldn’t have gotten any candy. Or been arrested or something, I dunno.

Hey has anyone heard the new Manson cover of “This is Halloween?” I know it sounds sketchy, but it’s actually really good. Plus it’ll be a mini-pump for NMBC 3D this upcoming weekend. Click my name and it should dl in a zip. :D

Chestnuts roasted by Eddie Lightning Frog @ 10/17/2006 11:56 PM

Awwwwwww, Maaaaaatt. That was a very sweet article.

I never had any cool costumes, because my mother never wanted to drop any money on anything fancy. This kind of ruined Halloween itself for me, and I stopped dressing up for Halloween by the age of ten. I still love the season, but the 31st does nothing for me.

Chestnuts roasted by Denise @ 10/17/2006 11:57 PM

Viva la Ralph! My plastic half-bag, half-mask costume was Swamp Thing. Yes, I actually WANTED to be Swamp Thing. Not even Swamp Thing wants to be Swamp Thing. …I was a weird kid.

Chestnuts roasted by Cid @ 10/18/2006 12:02 AM

When I was 5 or 6 and my sister was 2ish, my mom made us costumes of Belle from Beauty and the Beast (it came out that year, I think). They were the same thing, in different sizes, meant to be her golden dress. It was pretty awesome. Mine had pink roses, and hers had purple, because something had to be different.

Sis refused to take hers off for ages, until it basically fell apart. As soon as she was big enough for it, she did the same to mine. She did that with lots of clothes.

Chestnuts roasted by Mara @ 10/18/2006 12:02 AM

Matt!! My best bud in 2nd or 3rd grade wore that exact costume. Except he actually got the Alf Mask. Man that was a sweet costume. I remember by the end of the night, he was soaked though – sucka was hot as an oven! Sometimes Oklahoma fall is warm, and it was a lil toasty that year.

Chestnuts roasted by Terror Claws Cole @ 10/18/2006 12:05 AM

My best and worst Halloween costume are one and the same. I made myself a Princess Leia slave bikini last year (you can see a picture of it by clicking my name). Unfortunately, I am not a very gifted craftsman, and the thing promptly fell apart within an hour of putting it on. Pretty much every single strap snapped, and even things that were double glued/knotted/bonded by cosmic forces managed to break.
Quite a disapointment after the hours I’d spent on it. And I ended up having to throw together another costume, Rogue in X-Men: Evolution attire.

Chestnuts roasted by Gadget @ 10/18/2006 12:08 AM

I think I’ve exhausted my Halloween costume stories in a recent post. Last year I sewed something that the pattern called “Josephine,” apparently Josephine Bonaparte, because that’s what you do when you get old.

And Denise is right, there is no other word to describe this article than “sweet.” Y’old softie.

Chestnuts roasted by Katherine @ 10/18/2006 12:09 AM

Mara, my kid sister did that to her dress-up clothes when she was little, too. She had an orange, white, and purple dress-up dress that came from my sister’s best friend she used to LIVE in.

We never had plastic costumes. My mother was and is an excellent seamstress, so we always had imaginative, or at least well-made, Halloween get-ups. When we were butterflies, we had thick cardboard, hand-painted wings, and floral “pixie” skirt. When we were brides, we wore a simple white skirt with one of Mom’s real Victorian blouses and a hand-made veil. Little Red Riding Hood got to borrow Mom’s gorgeous red hand-knit cape (I hope she still has that…). Pirates wore their own flowing white or yellow shirts, tight jeans or 80s stirrups, boots borrowed from Mom, a “sword” made of cardboard covered in aluminum, and Grandma’s chunky jewelry. I loved my navy blue cordory vest from my cowgirl costume so much, I still have it to this day.

Matt, mine and my little brother’s elementary schools both had short Halloween “parades.” Ours made slightly more sense, since the school’s on one of Cape May’s main streets and would attract tourists in town for the cool weather along with parents. My brother’s was less-well attended; his school was on a highway just off the bridge between West Cape May and North Cape May, more-or-less in the middle of nowhere.

Chestnuts roasted by starwenn @ 10/18/2006 12:18 AM

My mom was an awesome seamstress, too, and my siblings and I always had kickass costumes. We still have most of them, too. I think my favorite was when my sister and I went as Rainbow Brite and Twink… Ah, here we go, my sister has it in her Flikr account.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessimuhka/56802677/in/set-1287429/

I’m Twink. =x

Chestnuts roasted by Ariel @ 10/18/2006 12:28 AM

FYI, to those of you who have Music Choice channels (I think only those with digital cable get them), the ‘Sounds of the Seasons” channel is now playing Halloween music for 24 hours a day until November first, when they then switch over to Christmas music (YES!).

Of course, I think pretty much anyone will agree that Halloween music has nothing on Christmas songs, but it’s still neat to flip on the TV at 2 AM and hear the likes of “Monster Mash” and the theme from “Halloween”.

Chestnuts roasted by Brian @ 10/18/2006 12:36 AM

My parents hated Halloween, so they had the philosophy that, if you didn’t have it lying around the house, you didn’t need to be dressing up. My worst costume was the year I went as the Pink Panther (first grade, I think) and it basically consisted of a pink sweatsuit and a tail made from a black sock pinned to my butt. I looked like a chunky Pink Panther with a rotting tail. It was embarrassing, to say the least. And I had to sit in school all day looking like that. I faked sick to go home early.

My babysitter and her teenaged daughter were always really excited about dressing me up, though, so one year I got to be a black cat (leotard, tights and an ear/tail/bowtie set with drawn-on whiskers and pink nose), another year a jazz dancer (a different black leotard, tights, dance shoes and a really cool, cheap sparkly bowler hat), and a hobo (old flannel shirt, baggy, torn up and patched jeans, old too-big-for-me shoes and a bandana with dirt make-up all over my face). The hobo is probably my least favorite of those, but I was so little at the time I didn’t know what I was. My dad took a picture of me holding a glowstick in that costume and won $500 in a photography contest! I wish I would have know this was going to be the topic, I would have scanned that picture. :

Chestnuts roasted by broomstickjockey @ 10/18/2006 12:52 AM

Hmm… I remember winning a few school Halloween contests way back when. I’m sure the certificates are still in the bin of all my crazy old school stuff in the garage amongst some glitter and macaroni art. I don’t think it was so much that my costumes were amazing… I was typically little fairy princesses and stuff… as much as it was that I was just an ungodly adorable little girl.

If I remember correctly, my first Halloween costume was the She-Ra mask and plastic smock.

Chestnuts roasted by Mystie @ 10/18/2006 1:04 AM

Oh! She-Ra was the first costume I ever remember wearing! Again, blue leotard, white tights, red bath towel, red cowboy boots. Yeah, my parents and their bad creativity.

Chestnuts roasted by broomstickjockey @ 10/18/2006 1:10 AM

My best costume was when I went as a horror movie. I was about eleven. I painted my face in zombie make-up and took a cardboard box cut a hole in it and stuck it over my head. I also had old TV rabbit ears and channel knobs attached to it. I got a lot of compliments for that one. The only drawback was, that I had limited vision, and I kept getting the antennas stuck in people’s porch displays when I went trick-or-treating. Nothing really topped that one until I went as Joan of Arc when I was like twenty. I made my own armor out of cardboard.

Chestnuts roasted by Donata05 @ 10/18/2006 1:14 AM

I remember once my dad used dark and light green paint and a cardboard pizza box to fashion me a radical turtle shell for a Raphel costume.

I’ve watched the first three seasons of Alf on DVD in the last couple months, and wow, that show was actually damn enjoyable, or at least addicting. It kind of makes you want your own punchline quibbing, food eating, lazy alien.

Chestnuts roasted by Review the World @ 10/18/2006 1:38 AM

It wasn’t mine (I never was a big fan of dressing up for haloween) but right after the Anthrax attacks on the USA happened, someone came to our company’s haloween party dressed up as an envelope. He would blow handfuls of powdered sugar on people.

I do believe he was asked to leave.

Chestnuts roasted by Chiablo @ 10/18/2006 1:38 AM

figured this would be the best place to ask this question. Why was there never The Last Starfighter 2? I researched this before asking such a question only to be horrified to find insead of a well deserved sequal they made an off broadway musical. No shit. I kind of feel like an elephant who had his leg cut off only to find out they made it into a waste basket. Matt or anyone else, could you help me out?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Starfighter_%28the_musical%29

Chestnuts roasted by billy @ 10/18/2006 1:48 AM

The story brought a tear to my eye.

Chestnuts roasted by Somethin' Funny @ 10/18/2006 2:02 AM

Even though I’ve always loved Halloween, I didn’t really dress up a whole lot. I did the homemade black cat, witch, and stuff, but I never really got to go “all out” for a costume when I was little.

I do remember getting my mom to make me a pirate chick outfit once in 9th or 10th grade, though. A friend of mine – her parents got dibs on the rec hall at their housing development, and she had a Halloween party. I loved my costume – red with white polka dotted skirt, black satin sash with fringe, a white “puffy” off the shoulder shirt, black fishnets and heels. I topped it off with big gold hoop earrings and a little more makeup than usual.

I went with another friend of mine, and we had our doubts that any of the guys that we wanted to show up, would — but lo and behold, they did. Lots of flirting, dancing, and spin the bottle were played. One guy was fascinated by my legs and couldn’t stop feeling them, had my first french kiss, and danced with the guy I had the biggest crush on, at the time. *sigh* Sad… I got more action back then, than I get now. :?

Chestnuts roasted by Ryane @ 10/18/2006 2:07 AM

“Somethin Funny”: Ditto.

That’s a cool story and I’m surprised it took until now, your fourth or fifth Halloween marathon on this site, for you to type it up. If I had to choose between reviewing a stale piece of candy and writing up a tale such as that, well, there’d be no contest….

This year, find another copy of the mask (shouldn’t be hard, you’re Matt), get the woman to resew the body suit, cover it in talcum and go as Ralph’s ghost. His memory must be honored. “No problem! Ha!”

Chestnuts roasted by Mars @ 10/18/2006 2:11 AM

i was dracula every year i can remember, but this year.. dr bong

Chestnuts roasted by drbong @ 10/18/2006 2:23 AM

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 at 11:32 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.