Thwip? Thwip?
In 1976, I switched camps and decided that Marvel superheroes were now the way to go, so Spider-Man was what I needed to be that Halloween. Despite my adventures the year previous as “The Bat“, my costume hunting was again done at the same Woolco store that had what seemed like a gigantic rack of collegeville costumes.
In a repeat of the last year, no Spider-Man costumes were available, so for Halloween 1976, I was “The Spider”, no, not the classic pulp character, just a guy who looked enough like Spider-Man not to get sued.
I will again admit that I loved this costume although I have to admit that I was much more concious of this being a knock off than I was being “The Bat”, I guess shame comes with age.
If the mask looks familiar, there is a good reason, it was used on the cover the classic rock album “The Joker” by Steve Miller.
PS I really miss my dog…
There was another Spidey-type ripoff costume from the same time (or a year or so later) that had a large spider covering the Spidey facemask. I seem to recall my brother having that, probably around ’78 or ’79. Maybe.
GAH! I would kill for that mask today!
So cool.
Holy crap, that is hilarious!
I would have never noticed the rip if you hadn’t pointed it out.
I seemed to have lots of knock off costumes when I was growing up. My mom also made a lot of the stuff my bro and I wore. Our parents couldn’t always afford new costumes.
You’ve got a pretty good run of dressing as knock-off characters. What’s next? “The Norse God with a Hammer”? “Large Green Man”?
By the way… that final comment on your dog, just broke my heart. 🙁
Large Green Man made me laugh out loud, although I think it would likely have been “Irritated Large Green Man”
As for Grover, she lived for 17 glorious years so it was a good life…
I think I remember seeing these at a TG&Y back in the day.
Grover, a little nod to the Street in that name, huh? Real nice.
Living in rural Transylvania, we had limited selections of Halloween masks and one year I was forced to wear the sweaty green version of this mask and costume as I impaled infidels on my rounds trick and/or treating. I didn’t know a red version existed. A lot of the blood splatter would have blended right in, had I only known! My costume also came with a little rubber spider. To this day Vlad is not sure why…