It must be because I am biased for the wonder years of my life. But it just seems that something is lost in todays Halloween Costumes for kids. Theyre all cloth or rubber. Ultimately in their defense, they are better crafted. But they arent those wonderfully cheesy yet somehow awesome plastic jumpsuit costumes with the mask and rubber band.



Sure the jumpsuits ripped easily. Sure the rubber band pulled your hair. But they were awesome. And the thing is I dont know why. They just were. To me they still are. They were a simple formula, but they were THE formula. Every kid wanted a boxed costume of his or her favorite character or creature. And that meant two things. One, they came with a plastic jumpsuit in the center of which usually was a sign or action scene identifying your costumes origin. Two, there was a perfect mask just enough to cover the face.

We didnt need to cover our ears, or our hair. It didnt matter. When you wore your boxed plastic costume you WERE He-Man. You WERE She-Ra. And I think just maybe that was because we enjoyed bringing the final piece of the costumes ourselves. The last piece of the costume set could not be found in the box. It wasnt hidden anywhere in the package. The final piece to the joyous Halloween puzzle was our imaginations. And it was our imaginations that made our simple cost effective costumes the most awesome costumes in the world.



And so it was, for me at least, that Walking into Wal Mart in October was like walking into Halloween town. Back then they hung rows of Halloween costumes up high for all to see the moment you walked in the store. When you were a child, it gave you that almighty (Its Halloween Time effect). To this day I remember how those costumes lit me up inside.



In closing I noticed something interesting. I was researching the old plastic costumes when I came accross a modern day version of my favored costumes. A young Obi Wan costume complete with plastic mask with breathe hole and eye holes. There just may be hope yet.