Happy Halloween

October 31, 2004

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	Anyone remember Q-Bert?

My love of Halloween started at an early age. In fact, I was sold the minute I realized that people would just give out candy for free. Looking back, I don't think I was effective as I could have been, in the costume or candy departments.

1983: Q-Bert
The first costume I remember wearing was Q-bert in 2nd grade. That's right, Q-bert. Does anyone even know who Q-Bert is? Growing up he had his own cartoon for godsakes! On a sidenote, what was Q-Bert anyways? But I digress, the costume was one of the cheap plastic outfits with a plastic mask that was held to my face by a rubberband. Every kid growing up had one of these costumes. Sadly, I think Halloween has evolved so those costume don't exist anymore. Maybe they do but I haven't looked for them. Those costumes were not good by any means, but I loved it. I remember that we got to dress up and go to other classes to trick-or-treat. I had an idea to jump around Q-Bert style and after about 20 feet I was winded. Such great memories.

	Boo.

198?: Yoda or C-3PO and 1988: Grim Reaper
I am not exactly sure what all my Halloween costumes were...I vaguely remember another plastic one that was Star Wars related (Yoda or C-3PO maybe). I remember the first costume that I really put any effort into was in 7th (or 8th) grade when my neighbor and I dressed up as grim reapers. That was my best costume to date...black sweatpants, black sweatshirt, black hood and cloak, dirty white Air Pegasus, and face paint! Awesome! It was the first time I used face paint.

	If one cartoon says, "Halloween," it's Scooby Doo.

1997: Pimp
After that costume I really don't remember dressing up again. In high school it wasn't "cool" to dress up so I never did then. I didn't dress up in college either, at least not until my senior year. My costume that year was as horrible as any costume I've had. Worse than the plastic ones. I dressed up as a pimp which really just amounted to me wearing a shiny pea green shirt with a wide collar. No cane, no huge hat, no platform aquarium shoes, no working girls with me, no bling. A horrible costume by any benchmark. The other thing that I remember from that Halloween was that my friend, Brad, dressed up as the pink (girl) Power Ranger. Imagine a 6'3" 21 year old man wearing a pink skin-tight costume made for a 14 year old girl. Nothing short of hilarious. Actually, I missed actually seeing him in the outfit since he made a quick appearance at the party and left but that's all anyone talked about when I got there. If I find any pictures I will put them up. Oh, I also remember that my friend, Jer, made a pretty good Donnie Brasco.

1999: Three-Headed Monster
This marked the cheapest and best costume ever. Two of my best friends, Kevin and Tim, and I went as a Three-Headed Monster. The costume itself was just two sweatshirts sewn together with three neck holes. I was the middle person and although it wasn't the most comfortable it was easily the most fun. It took us about 30 minutes to walk to the bar (which was only about 15 minutes away) at which point Kevin realized he forgot his ID so we just walked back. So that's all we did, walk to the bar and back, and in all seriousness, it was the best Halloween. Two memorable lines from the walk:
"I think they're a three-headed person or monster or something," by random girl (great considering no one knew what we were at that point)
"Hey ladies, there are three of us." - Me (to three random girls...which did get a laugh...but that's it.)

	Doctor or Stereotype?

2000: Doctor
In 2000, my costume was not that great. Countless people dress up as doctors every year. Why? It's easy to do, cheap, and there isn't much creativity involved. The highlight from this Halloween was just dressing up and hanging out with my friends Lance (dressed as a masked guy from Eyes Wide Shut), Jeff (Grim Reaper/Skeleton), and Chris (Harley Guy). There is a story about a glove from that night too but I can't write anything about that. I did think of one way to make the costume unique though by telling people I was a "stereotype," instead of a "doctor."

	"Welcome to the O.P. bitch."

2001: Optimus Prime
This was my breakout year. It was the first year that Jeff and Lance put major thought and attention into their costumes. They were going as Axl and Slash from Guns N' Roses and went all out. Their costumes were AMAZING. I started out that year with plans to go as Cyrus from The Warriors. Odds are no one has heard of this movie. At some point though someone made a joke about me dressing up as a transformer. I laughed at first but then I thought it would be really funny to see a Transformer walking around. So I made a transformer costume. The costume was awesome and shitty all at once. Awesome because it was cool, original, funny, and there was detail put into it (I even bought snowblower wheels for the legs!). It was shitty because mobility was zero, I couldn't walk with the legs on, I couldn't bring my hand to my face to drink beer. All in all just a horrible experience. I worked on that costume every night for two straight weeks.

	"Where all my Thundercats Ho's at?"

2002: Lion-O
I originally planned to go as Starscream or Soundwave (another Transformer) but I had no time to build my costume. So, sticking with my 1980s cartoon theme, I decided to go as Lion-O, Lord of the Thundercats. Thank God for my sisters who basically made the entire costume. After the OP from 2001, I wanted something easy and very mobile (since I was going to a bar) and this fit the bill. The face paint didn't work out so great (the last time I used it was in 1988) but the Snarf stuffed animal and light-up sword made up for it. Brad's brother Bryan is borrowing the costume this year.

	"Constructicons inferior, Soundwave superior."

2004: Soundwave
Last year I was actually out of the country during Halloween. Surprisingly, Halloween really hasn't caught on in India. So with a two year break from Halloween and fading memories of the horrors of the making the OP costume I decided I was going to be another Transformer. Back in the spring of 2002 I drew up plans for a fully transformable transformer costume. I thought about building that but didn't because if I succeeded then there would be no way to top that. The costumes have to be cooler every year right? So that being said, I decided to be Soundwave. Easily one of my top 5 transformers of all time, possibly even tied for first with OP. So I worked on it, every day for 3 straight weeks. I learned from my mistakes. Mobility was key to this costume. I had to be able to drink. Plus I wanted it to be more detailed. There are probably some things I could have done better but for my second transformers costume ever I think it turned out pretty good.

Now after this process, there is no way a fully transformable Starscream costume would work. It's just not feasible. But who knows, ask me again in two years when the memories of making this year's costume is fading.

Here are all the pictures from the 2004 Halloween Weekend:
Bob | Kurt | Lance | Mikey

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