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Countdown to Halloween

Well, it’s my favourite time of year, the annual Halloween countdown.  Being a monster kid and overall creepy adult, this is my time to shine. Expect some creepy content to start filtering in sometime next week. Until then, enjoy some of the best masks 1976 had to offer, seriously if I had to choose just […]

1981 Ben Cooper Costume Catalog

Halloween around here wouldn’t be the same without the store bought goodness that is Ben Cooper. If you were a child of the 70s or 80s, then you certainly knew their product. Cooper held some of the great licenses in 1981 including the Disney characters, both the DC and Marvel comics Superheroes, Clash of the […]

Costume Spotlight: Calibos

Today’s costume spotlight is a personal favourite, Calibos, the twisted demi God from Clash of the Titans. When Clash came out I was ten years old, a Harryhausen fan and deeply interested in Greek mythology, making me the target market for all the different toys and cereal tie ins (I think Sugar Crisp gave away […]

Costume Spotlight: Condor Man

For the entirety of the month, I’m going to spotlight a Halloween costume every once in a while. I can’t think of a better place to start than Condorman, a movie I had high hopes for. I honestly anticipated this to be a straight laced superhero movie vis-a-vis Superman 2. What we got was the […]

Big Bugs

Rubber bugs were a staple but Halloween usually saw a real uptick in their sales. I vividly recall buying one of these with a sack of cheap candy shoved in their abdomens. Does anyone else recall those?

Jiggler Supreme

In 1979 Ben Cooper released a wave of jigglers that comprised of The Thing, Red Skull, Spider-Man and Dr. Strange. They also did corresponding Halloween costumes that year. They were misleading advertised as ersatz action figures in a Heroes World ad, so I really wanted to track them down as an adult. Dr Strange never […]

Costumes:1999

My pal Corey (who always has neat stuff on Ebay) sent in some really cool photos of the different costumes produced for shows created by legendary TV producer Gerry Anderson and well, there is no better time to look at these, just gonna seem weird tomorrow. More  Collegeville/Ben Cooper fun after the jump… First off, […]

1974 Centsable Halloween Catalog

  Centsable, the people behind Socker Boppers also did a good business in Halloween costumes, who knew? This 1974 catalog shows that while they did in fact have several decent licenses like the Hanna Barbera clan , they were not above creating some of the ballsiest knock offs of the decade nor did the seem […]

Jigglers of the Apes

Mixing my fondness for Jigglers with my Ape Mania is a dangerous cocktail. These Jigglers made by Ben Cooper (surprisingly not AHI) are a happy childhood memory for me and I was excited when my pal Mike J sent me a shot of one in a baggie, something I had not seen before. More on […]

The 1973 Ben Cooper Catalog gets Groovy

The name “Ben Cooper” and “Halloween” are pretty synonymous to children of the 1970s/ The company produced a staggering amount of items devoted to October 31st and chances are if your parents used “store bought” costumes, they were from Ben Cooper. 1973 like every year is a load of fun, lots of popular licenses (including […]