In the last week or so, posts have been coming up in my Facebook feed on old-school costumes. Many of you will remember those that came with a plastic mask and a vinyl slip-on outfit (that looked like a hospital gown) with a picture of the character and their name. I remember these, but can't recall ever wanting any. My mom must have been great at making my costumes.
It seemed there were costumes made for both popular and obscure TV and celebrity face. Shows like Happy Days, The Love Boat, Laverne and Shirley and Welcome Back, Kotter were among those depicted in the boxed costumes through which you could see only the mask.
I wrote on this back in 2009, how many random characters or celebrities were depicted this way. But the recent posts coming up in my Facebook feed have been showing really obscure celebrities depicted, ones I had to look up. A few too many to mention, but here are few. If you don't know, look them up! (And one year I found this in a local thrift store).
And some not-so-obscure references, but questionable as to whether anyone wanted to be them (again, only a few, as there are too many to mention). And would any parent have allowed their child to be Sport from Taxi Driver or Ratso Rizzo (Midnight Cowboy)?
All these seem to fall into the scenario of someone getting stuck with one of these when their parents waited till a day or two before Halloween get them a costume. All of Casper or Spider Man were sold out and these were the only ones left. How humiliated would have a child have been to have this happen? Others would likely question them "Who are you supposed to be?" and no one would get it. And the poor child would have to explain that it was one of the only ones left at the store.
I saw on some of the boxes that there are perfect for not just for Halloween, but also for school plays and costume parties. Where were people getting these in the off-season, since Amazon and the Internet did not exist then?
Also, many of you will remember Ben Cooper and Collegeville were the top producers of tases flimsy costumes, but Halco was another. But some of those pictured above were said to come from Starlite Costumes (and Starlight Costumes--were these the same company?) Also from Continental Costumes and Empire Costumes. I looked up each of those, but could not find anything. I guess these were not as well known, or didn't last as long as Ben Cooper or Collegeville.
As I said, I do not remember wearing any of these kinds of costumes. Pictures of these for characters like Strawberry Shortcake, Holly Hobbie and Laura from Little House on the Prairie have turned up online, but I have no recollection of seeing them back in the day. And I loved these characters. I never chose to be any of them even if I could have had a homemade costume. And certainly no one of any age would want to be any of these today. Too much explaining would be needed.
