My wife and I love Halloween. When we met these many years ago, it was just before Halloween. Some years later, when we married, it was just before Halloween. Each year I put on my T-shirt depicting a tiny, glow-in-the-dark vampire bat with the words “Bite Me” underneath, and the two of us carve several very detailed and elaborate pumpkins. The folks in our neighborhood make it an annual mission to come by and see them. We buy way too much trick or treat candy, and wind up finishing the last of it just before putting up the Christmas tree each year. It used to be that Halloween started in early October, when the pumpkins from the north started arriving at the local schools, churches and firehouses that sold them to raise money. Pumpkins will not grow in south Florida. The only thing orange that will grow down here is…well…oranges. But now the holiday starts much earlier than it used to…Halloween now starts in early July. As soon as the Independence Day decorations come down, the stores begin to fill up with Halloween decor. Pretty good for a holiday featuring symbols of death (skulls, tombstones, ghosts) and symbols of evil (devils, witches, politicians). But in the past few years, Halloween has become something else. It has become, in part, a holiday during which we take the opportunity to spoof, to ridicule, to lampoon the culture at large. And this Halloween-to-come appears to be no exception.
Each year my wife and I visit costume shops to see what’s new. Last week was our first visit for 2010. We are charmed by some of the kid’s costumes (cute witch) and appalled by others (slutty witch). Some of the adult costumes are traditional (pirate, vampire, hobo), some are funny (giant penis, giant whoopee cushion), some reflect the popular culture (Toy Story movie characters, Mario and Luigi from the video games), and some are just inexplicable (please Google “Down for the Count Halloween Costume”, and brace yourself). And then we have the masks and the costumes that poke fun at the famous.
Several years ago, when former child star Rusty Hamer committed suicide, another former child star, Danny Bonaduce (Hey…you’re 51 years old. Isn’t it time to lose the “Danny” and go with “Daniel” already ???) is alleged to have remarked “good career move.” Nothing amplifies fame like death. Elvis is a bigger star than ever, and Tupac, who died fourteen years ago this month, is still releasing loads of new material. This year, Michael Jackson will be everywhere for Halloween, if the stock down at the costume shop is any indication. Of the many possible Michael incarnations (including “late Michael”, when he appeared to be an anorexic white woman searching in vain for her lost nose), the Michael from the “Thriller” years seems to be the most popular. There will be adult males dressed as Michael, there will be adult females dressed as Michael, there will be KIDS dressed as Michael (the irony here is palpable), and although I’ve seen no evidence as of yet, there will probably be dogs dressed as Michael. Oh…I’m sorry…did I forget to mention the hundreds of costumes for your pets? My favorite so far is the one for dogs that makes them appear to be Yoda from Star Wars. Now I really would like to spend some more time heaping ridicule upon the notion of costumes for pets, but as a man who owns a tiny Santa Claus hat for his pet rabbit, I’m afraid that I cannot in good conscience do so.
Not everyone buys costumes for Halloween. Sometimes a mask alone will do. Men seem to love to dress up like the President of the United States, whoever he may be at the time. A rubber mask, and that dark business suit and tie that you never wear anymore except to funerals, and you’re good to go. I still see the occasional Ronald Reagan (let go already) and Bill Clinton still appears from time to time, although I generally see him in pajamas or worse, boxer shorts with hearts on them. Jimmy Carter shows up once in a while, although the Jimmy Carter masks over-emphasize his really enormous teeth, so it’s hard to tell if it’s Jimmy Carter, or a space alien here to devour us, trying to disguise his otherworldly self as an Earthling by wearing pin-striped Armani. And last year, it seemed like everyone wanted to be Barack Obama except for Barack Obama, who by last October 30th was already having so much aggravation that he wanted to be anyone BUT Barack Obama. But my favorite masks this year are pictured above. This may be the year of the Talk Show Host Halloween Costume.
All of the drama surrounding late night television talk-shows seems to have spawned something of a trend. You can now dress up on Halloween as Jay, Conan, or Dave. The masks hang as a group down at the costume shop. In order to avoid having to pay the real guys for the use of their images, the company marketing these masks has very carefully avoided using the actual names of the hosts. But since the images are not really the most accurate, each mask has a name to avoid confusing the consumer, although I would suggest that if you (or even worse, your child) chooses to dress up as a talk-show host this (or any) Halloween, your personal difficulties far surpass simple confusion. The Jay Leno mask is labeled “Motor Mouth”, The David Letterman mask is labeled “Talk Show Host”, and the Conan Mask is labeled “Ex-Talk Show Host.” The masks are priced at $12.99…the embarrassment is priceless. I thought about buying the “Letterman” mask for a split second (it seemed to be the most scary), but no longer than that. I also wondered if, somewhere on Halloween night, the kid dressed as Leno steals the candy from the kid dressed as Conan.
So this year, I’ll once again put on my Halloween T-Shirt, carve the pumpkins, and sit on the porch with my wife handing out candy to some very cute kids. And we’ll see little skeletons and little devils and little witches (both the cute and the slutty varieties) and so on. Sometimes it takes a holiday that celebrates evil and death to help you enjoy life. And enjoy it we do. As I said…we love Halloween. And if we see any pint-size talk show hosts, we’ll get back to you.
