# Your fondest remembered Halloween costume **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 16, 2026, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895 "2026-10-16T18:16:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/1 "2026-10-16T18:16:54Z")
Yours from childhood or one of your kids. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/2 "2026-10-16T18:57:27Z")
I went as a washing machine when I was about 12. My Aunt and her best friend helped me put it together. It was kind of a gross green color; we decided it was a machine from the 1970s. There was a tag on it that said “Girlpool” and the friend graffitied it with “Impeach Nixon.” This was the 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/3 "2026-10-16T19:07:36Z")
When I was a young teen I went trick or treating as Hester Prynne from _The Scarlet Letter_. All I needed was a long black robe and a handmade letter A in red. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/4 "2026-10-16T19:11:18Z")
Oh, this is too hard! The kids’ cutest was the year the boy was a dog and the girl was a cat (a white cat, because our real pet cat was white). I think they were four and nine years of age, and if I showed you those precious darling pictures, you would all say “AWWWWW!” and fall out of your chairs. 😁 I think the year after that was probably the most fun. The girl was a little old lady with a big silly hat and the boy was a little old man, “driving” a car made out of a cardboard box. There was a lot of room for creativity in those costumes. My favorite personal costume was Medusa, from a couple of years ago. It cost next to nothing and was comfortable to wear all day at work (my usual criteria). I made a headpiece out of a bent coat hanger and some rubber snakes, and draped a piece of cloth around me like a toga. This costume could only improve with time, as my face gets ever more likely to turn folks to stone. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/5 "2026-10-16T19:12:11Z")
Nineteen-seventy-six. 11 years old. I was Gene Simmons from KISS. My mother helped me do it up right, right down to a cardboard bass to carry around to a black yarn wig with a top-knot. Of course - full-on face paint. It was a bummer though because it was raining, so we had to run from the car to the front door, collect our candy and hustle back to the dry car. The first house we got to, the old lady looked at me and said, “Oooh, such a scary witch.” “I’m not a witch, I’m Gene Simmons!” Tongue rolling out of my head. “Okay, then …” Old people. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/6 "2026-10-16T19:13:26Z")
Not quite childhood, but when I was doing my master’s degree I went with some friends to a pub that was having a Halloween costume contest. I bought a bunch of baby dolls at the dollar store, dismembered them and sewed them to an old shirt; I was “a pile of dead babies”. I won a prize for worst costume! ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/7 "2026-10-16T19:17:46Z")
This is hard. I can’t recall a single costume from my youth. But it always snowed where I grew up, so whatever you dressed as had a big coat over it, so who cared one way or another. I recall wearing a full wet-suit one year in college. NOT a good idea! They are only a benefit in water. Major pain in the Ass on dry land. ---
**Author:** ![X.L.Lent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a5b964/32.png) [@X.L.Lent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X.L.Lent)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/8 "2026-10-16T19:19:59Z")
Not mine but back in the 80s in downtown L.A. I saw someone dressed in a Ku Klux Klan outfit. The costume was authentic looking, complete with a white robe and hood. I was shocked for a second but then noticed the front of the hood was missing, exposing the wearer’s face and the person wearing the costume was a black woman. She was standing on the curb smiling and waving at the cars driving by. Several drivers waved and honked their horns back at her ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/9 "2026-10-16T19:20:07Z")
My favorite one for my son is he went as an astronaut when he was four. His Dad and I wore NASA shirts and headsets as Mission Control. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/10 "2026-10-16T19:20:52Z")
1977-junior year in high school. Corporal Klinger My mom said I looked better in her dress than she did. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/11 "2026-10-16T19:23:37Z")
I used to work at a law office that had a lot of support staff. Every year for Halloween people would come to work in costume, and they’d give out awards for the best one. The first year I had to go to court that day,’so I didn’t dress up. When I got back to the office some people gave me good natured grief for not having a costume. So the next year I bought a full sized chicken costume. Something like this: [![](https://i.ibb.co/B5WXWMBy/IMG-2335.jpg) ](https://i.ibb.co/B5WXWMBy/IMG-2335.jpg) They added an award that year: dorkiest costume I won! ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/12 "2026-10-16T19:26:23Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > The first year I had to go to court that day,’so I didn’t dress up. You should have showed up dressed as a Judge! 😄 ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/13 "2026-10-16T19:44:53Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > This costume could only improve with time, as my face gets ever more likely to turn folks to stone. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/14 "2026-10-16T19:57:30Z")
I recall a messy homemade costume as a “ghoul” I used as a kid. I started with an all black outfit, then covered my head in one of my mother’s old nylon stockings, using tape to hold it in place as necessary. Then I covered it in brownish goop made of flour, water and food coloring , giving my whole head the properly undead look once it dried. Some of the tape came loose but it actually helped the look with “skin peeling off”. Using the nylons also meant I didn’t have to do much cleaning of myself afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/15 "2026-10-16T20:17:27Z")
I used to love making my own Halloween costumes once I got too old for the crappy Kmart costumes my mom would buy me, with a cheap plastic mask held on by a rubber band that broke in the first 10 minutes, and a plastic poncho thing that was probably highly flammable. My proudest costume achievement was probably when I was 11-- I got an old dress shirt from my dad, buttoned it up so the collar stayed above my head, put a cap or something over my head so you couldn’t see my hair, and filled the shoulder areas with rags so they wouldn’t look slumped. I had a rubber mask of a hideous decayed zombie face with a shock of black hair that I put on a football and carried in one arm, completing the look of ‘Headless Guy’. Problem was, with the ‘head’ in one hand, my bag of candy in the other, and trying to look out through the button gaps in the shirt, I could not see where I was going very well _at all_. I was lucky not to get run over, or stumble into a fire hydrant, or something. I did accidentally do an overlap of the neighborhood and go to a few houses I had already visited without realizing it, since my vision was so obstructed. One mom said “weren’t you here already?” I said “no, first time, honest” actually believing it. She said, with one raised eyebrow, “are you _ **sure** _?” 🤨 but gave me candy. After I left her house, I unbuttoned several buttons to get a better look and was shocked to realize that I had, in fact, overlapped. As a very rule-following kid, I was absolutely mortified. I almost went back to the house of the lady who called me out as a double-dipper to give the candy back and apologize, but I decided that would be even more embarrassing… ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/16 "2026-10-16T22:29:34Z")
I honestly don’t remember any of my own costumes from childhood. I think I was a boring kid? Of my kids the fondest memory is when we did Sponge Bob SquarePants - tempura paint and gluing on literally multiple dozens of yellow Cello sponges to a big cardboard box. Wonderful costume! And then it rained … the trail of sponges falling off and the cardboard disintegrating was hilarious. He eventually rolled down a small hill in the park as its final demise. A glorious failure! My youngest refused to do homemade. “I just want to be cat, Dad.” No great memories in _that._ A request - Halloween night keep tabs on how many are bought vs creative homemade please? Do you give extra candy if it is a creative homemade one? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/17 "2026-10-16T22:30:36Z")
1. Nikita Khrushchev had been deposed as leDer of the Soviet Union. Our local five and dime had a Krushchev mask; I saw it and said it wouldn’t be used. But a little while later, I bought it. I put on an old jacket of my father’s and made up a sign: “From Russia with Love. Out of a Job.” I went out with someone unconnected with me. I don’t think anyone recognized me. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/18 "2026-10-16T22:39:04Z")
In about ninth grade, my mom made me a cute black witch dress, with stars along the hem. And a hat that was designed to cover half your face, with eyeholes in the brim. And I was persuafed to let my mom braid my hair and put it up so it was under the hat. And I left my glasses at home and wore red press- on nails. No one recognized me until i spoke. I wore that costume a couple more times before we gave it away. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/19 "2026-10-16T22:51:44Z")
I think the favorite of the ones I’ve done is the mummified firebreathing mutant vampire zombie alien robot dinosaur. See, I had been talking with some other folks about how I tend to come up with crazy Halloween costume designs, like the Northern Lights, the constellation Orion, a molecule, Great A’Tuin, a Newton’s cradle, etc. But I’ve also done the more normal ones, like alien, robot, and dinosaur. “All at once?” And it kind of snowballed from there. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fondest-remembered-halloween-costume/1033895/20 "2026-10-16T23:36:06Z")
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