Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Vintage Halloween, 1960 & '61

Halloween is almost here! And while I don't have any photos that are super amazing, I did find this small group of faded slides from over 50 years ago. Please forgive the strange colors... these were very magenta, and restoring them did not work out quite as well as I'd hoped. But they're still fun!

Casper the Friendly Ghost is getting ready to put on some tunes, or perhaps a spooky story for kids (it says "Golden Records" on the back of the cover). No candy for you, Casper... your cartoons are bland and repetitive!


I love this robot costume... check out that mask! Presumably this is one of those Ben Cooper costumes that you could buy in a box at your local Five and Dime.


Some sort of exchange is being made her by the evil bunny and the nice lady. Is he handing her a miniature loaf of Wonder Bread? Meanwhile she has what appears to be a cupcake wrapped in cellophane. There is a basket full of traditional candy (Milky Way, one of my favorites)... I have NO idea what is going on.


Well kid, you get points for your "meta" costume. Instead of just carrying the ubiquitous Unicef donation box, why not actually BE one? Gramps is giving him a shiny buffalo nickel ("In my day you could spend all day at the bijou for five cents!"). I hope Unicef doesn't spend it all in one place.  Maybe gramps gave the kid some candy too, or at least some cigarettes. PS, awesome Trick or Treat bag!


And finally, here's another mystery exchange. The pint-sized jet pilot ("Col. McCauley") is handing the lady a liverwurst sandwich or something (cookies maybe?), while she holds a small ceramic jack-o-lantern and a bag of... what? That's another great Ben Cooper costume, made of high-quality vacuum-formed plastic and flammable polyester.


6 comments:

Melissa said...

That looks like the same lady in both pictures, but in different dresses. It must have been two Halloweens in a row that she held her "exchange boring lunchpail fare for seasonal items" event.

I think that first robot is some kind of unholy Storebought Jumpsuit/Homemade Mask chimera.

Major Pepperidge said...

Melissa, you are right about it being two Halloweens... the title of the post says that these are from 1960 and 1961!

Melissa said...

I guess it does help to read the titles. I wouldn't skip them if your pictures weren't so darn compelling!

K. Martinez said...

Halloween in the 60s was so cool. It seemed trick-or-treating was more popular back then. Now I'm lucky if 10-20 kids show up at the door each year.

My fist costume I remember was a store bought Casper outfit. Later when I was about age nine, my dad created and put together the coolest robot costume.

I absolutely love these photos and love vintage Halloween.

Nanook said...

Old Halloween costumes are the best. The Robot and Jet Pilot ones are most definitely the height of Halloween couture. Although they do appear to be a bit "confining". But as long as you can consume copious amounts of candy without restriction, I suppose that's all that matters.

210Frwy said...

These were great. In the last photo I think the kid has just received a hot dog and the nice lady is giving him a jack-o-lantern party favor of some sort. Speaking of nickels, kids always used to say that if you went trick-or-treating in Beverly Hills that they gave you money instead of candy! Ha! Never tried it. I may try it this year though considering my economic situation.