THE WORST HALLOWEEN COSTUMES OF ALL TIME

When I was growing up, most of the kids in my neighborhood were fairly uncreative.  Instead of thinking long and hard about what you wanted to be for Halloween, you'd run with your parent to the store at the last minute, and grab a prepackaged costume made by Ben Cooper or Collegeville of some famous character.  Superheroes, Monsters, and Star Wars characters were usually the favorites, but every now and then you came across a few gems that really made you scratch your head.

Take this Father Murphy costume for example.  I suppose you could have drawn a swastika on the forehead and passed yourself off as Charles Manson, but being that nobody under 60 years of age even watched this show, it makes you wonder what kid actually asked to be this.  Only slightly more popular than the Colonel Potter from M*A*S*H* costume.

Sure, the Sweat Hogs were all fairly popular in their day, but to think some poor 7 year old kid was wandering the streets dressed up as Gabe Kaplan is a crying shame.  If you were really cool, you could wear the mask with a basketball uniform and go as Gabe Kaplan from FASTBREAK, or just go naked with it as Ron Jeremy.

Something tells me this Robert "Baretta" Blake costume would be far scarier if worn this Halloween than when it was originally released in the 70s.  Get your buddy to dress as OJ Simpson, and you'd be the scariest duo out there.  Keep your eye on the sparrow!

Here's another one that just defies expectation.  Sure, The Gong Show was popular beyond belief in the 70s, but to think that a kid would want to be Chuck Barris for Halloween defies all logic.  My parents were pretty cheap, so I just had to put a bag over my head and be The Unknown Comic.  I'd actually love to have this costume now, though, something oddly cool about it.

I bet this outfit would have been more dangerous to wear than the famed all-black "Invisible Pedestrian" costume from the classic SNL sketch.  You're just asking to get your candy stolen, and be beaten within an inch of your life when you're dressed up as Scott Baio.

Wouldn't you just love to throw sardines in the bag of a kid that showed up at your door wearing this?  There's just something freakish about a dolphin with arms and legs running about asking for candy.  It's like some experiment from The Island of Dr. Moreau gone horribly wrong.

If you were even tempted to go the Flipper route, why not at least trade up to the JAWS costume?  It's certainly scarier, and as far as I know, it's the only kid's costume ever made with a naked chick swimming across the top.

How many poor kids that got stuck with this one had to hear, "Hey Rubik, how about if I rearrange your face?"  This very well may be the least popular costume of all time, 2nd only to the failed Parcheesi costume of 1974.

At least kids had a shot to dress up in the exact same scale at Tattoo with this gem of an outfit. 

AAAAIIIIEEE!  And I thought Herve Villachaze was the freakiest little costume ever made.  It'd be a SMALL WONDER if a kid wanted to be this for Halloween (Get it!  HAW HAW HAW!). The picture quality is a bit blurry, but it looks like she's dancing in a microwave oven on the shirt illustration. 

Yahoooo!  Yes, you just tell your parents that it's Easy Reader from The Electric Company (as played by Morgan Freeman, by the way), but to you and your friends, you're PIMP DADDY!  This is about as close as you were going to get to a Huggy Bear costume.  Ol' Easy wore Kangol hats before Kangol even existed!

How pathetic was the poor little girl that chose to be the lamer half of Laverne and Shirley?   This is akin to asking to be Rhoda or Maude for Halloween.  It kind of looks a bit like Jon Benet Ramsey's mother, to be honest with you.

I suspect that "Mommy I want to be Atari's Asteroids Game for Halloween" was only slightly less creepy for parents to hear than, "Mommy, I just chopped up Fido with a shovel and had sex with his face!"  Kids who couldn't afford this one had to settle for being Intellivision's "Astroblast" game, instead.

I actually bought this costume for my high school girlfriend, cut a big hole in the mouth, and asked her to wear it when we went to the drive in.  I never saw her again after that night, but I ended up keeping the mask for...uhhh...collectible purposes.

What kid didn't want to be "Leather Guy" from The Village People?  I suppose this might have been several kids second choice after the Richard Simmons costumes were sold out.  At least it's already got a built in protective vinyl coating.

Thanks to the official FX Collectible Show Site for letting me rip these pictures off of their vast archive.  They have a MASSIVE collectible show coming up Feb 16 & 17th in Orlando, Florida that you don't want to miss.  And check out the immense Halloween Costume Photo Collection as well, trust me, this is only the tip of the iceberg.

-Robert
webmaster@retrocrush.com

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