Well, it's been a while since I've posted a list like this but with Halloween only 5 days away there's no time like the present.  As I said last year, fly-by-night costume shops pop up all over the place, and there are numerous quality websites making it easier than ever to find the perfect costume for a party or trick-or-treating.

Not all costumes are created equally however, and I'm not talking about the quality of material used. It would seem in an effort to fill more shelves, some costume makers will mass produce any idea suggested to them.

For the second year in a row, I have found a few of the worst mass-produced costume ideas out there. Yes, there are certainly worse, more offensive, tasteless, or downright poor quality costumes out there, but many I have come across are home-made or one-of-a-kind and not likely to be available at a Halloween USA.

There are certainly other costumes that could be on this list, but in keeping with a top five, I had to pick only one from each of the follow categories: adult male, adult female, youth male, youth female, infant.

Adult Male: Michael Jackson

Last year it was Heath Ledger's Joker, this year it's Michael Jackson. When a celebrity dies, apparently everyone thinks the best way to reflect on their life is to dress up like them for Halloween. Not surprisingly there have been a huge number of Michael Jackson costumes being made this year, with a vast majority of them being related to his Thriller costume. Really? You want to dress up like Jackson when he was dancing with the undead? This may have been a semi-creative costume idea to wear last year, but now it's about as unoriginal as you can get.

Adult Female: Kate Gosselin

Beside an ugly wig, your "costume" is basically an act... one that requires you to be an obnoxious attention seeker who nags all the men at the party all night. What better way to be the life of the party? There's not much else to say about this costume other than it's not even remotely fun or funny.

Youth Male: Balloon Boy

Yes, this is a real costume. You knew someone was going to rush to capitalize on this story before the hype fades. Microflight.com were the ones to do it, just as people have stopped caring. Besides not being funny, there's nothing in this costume that requires you to spend a lot of money:

A cardboard box... free.
A name tag...  $3.00 for a pack of 40
A silver mylar balloon turned sideways... $1
If you want to be more accurate, you can take a strip of cardboard from your free cardboard box, tape it into a circle, spray paint it silver and tape that to the bottom of the balloon... $5 (for the paint)
Or... you can pay $19.99 for the same stuff (not assembled) from Microflight plus express shipping to get it here in time for Halloween.

You read that right... they are charging you $20 + shipping to ship you a deflated balloon and a cardboard box inside another cardboard box.

Youth Female: The TRAVELOCITY Gnome

There are a lot of bad costumes out there for kids, but this one is just downright confusing.  In the end, this was the worst choice for a few reasons:

1) It's a corporate mascot for a travel plan company
2) The entire concept of the roaming gnome is not their idea but the costume is branded with Travelocity.
3) The costume is being marketed to girls for some reason

What girl doesn't dream of dressing up like a male gnome and promoting price guarantees? What's that? None of them do? Oh, then I guess you must work for Travelocity and got this costume as SWAG.

Infant: Air Freshener

Odds are your baby doesn't smell pine fresh and won't enjoy being carried around inside this monstrosity. Even the kid they used for the ad looks miserable. This costume screams: "My mommy went shopping this afternoon and this was all that was left." For goodness sake there are more creative costumes for dogs out there than this.

Welcome to the first installment of what I hope will become a weekly entry in this blog. I was going to call it the Friday Five, but since I am posting this one on a Wednesday, that will have to wait until next time perhaps.

Halloween is almost here, and both children and adults have literally hundred of options when it comes to store-bought costumes. Fly-by-night costume shops pop up all over the place, and there are numerous quality websites making it easier than ever to find the perfect costume for a party or trick-or-treating.

Not all costumes are created equally however, and I'm not talking about the quality of material used. It would seem in an effort to fill more shelves, some costume makers will mass produce any idea suggested to them.

After spending some time looking at several costume vendor websites and visiting a few stores, I have found a few of the worst mass-produced costume ideas out there. Yes, there are certainly worse, more offensive, tasteless, or downright poor quality costumes out there, but many I have come across are home-made or one-of-a-kind and not likely to be available at a Halloween USA.

There are certainly other costumes that could be on this list, but in keeping with a top five, I had to pick only one from each of the follow categories: adult male, adult female, youth male, youth female, infant.


Adult Male: A Fork
What's the joke here? You're a kitchen utensil. Sure, there is a matching spoon costume, but how is that any better? I can't image anyone going into a costume store, walking along the many aisles and stopping in front of this and saying "Okay, this is it, I found my costume. I am being a fork this year!" Besides a Broadway musical about the magic that happens on the dinner table every night, I can't picture a scenario that would call on anyone to don this costume without becoming an instant punchline. I don't know if there is a medical condition that causes people to develop an unnatural attraction to generic-looking cutlery, but if there is, the person who made this costume may suffer from it and should probably get themselves checked out.


Adult Female: Sarah Palin
Yeah, this is probably the only year this costume will even be slightly relevant, but Tina Fey already has the market cornered on this one. To make matters worse, somebody thought it would be hilarious to make a wig with miniature versions of the Alaska Governor's most repeated talking points spread throughout. Yeah, that'll be really funny to have to constantly sit still while people examine your hair up close and ask you to explain what each piece means, that is, if they're held on by anything stronger than cheap glue and don't sporadically fall off throughout the party. Mark my words, you wear this thing and two months from now you're going to wonder why there's a tiny moose under your couch.




Youth male: "Tighty Whitey"
I'm not sure who is supposed to be offended the most by this one, but if your son doesn't get mocked enough at school this might help. Of course, what does it say about you if you buy a "costume" that consists of baggy pants and an oversized t-shirt? Is it really funny to see a kid walking around with his underwear showing? No, it's not. This is the costume that inspired me to make this list, as it fails on all fronts.







Youth female: "Pop Stars"
Are we even paying attention anymore? Who wants their daughter to grow up and be like Britney Spears? Is it the two failed marriages before age 30 or the circus of a child custody battle that followed? How about the random headshaving, car attacking, underwearless partying, or drastic weight shifts? While adult females are bombarded with nothing but "sexy occupation" costumes anymore, it's really disturbing to see how costume makers are marketing risque clothing to kids these days. The costume pictured is just one of many examples out there today. Costume stores should be required to contact child protective services whenever someone purchases one of these.





Infant: Pizza Slice
Nothing says Halloween like wrapping your baby in a giant slice of pizza. Wait... what? How are you supposed to carry them around with this thing on? I guess they won't mind having their arms and legs stuck inside the costume all night either. When it comes to baby costumes, there are a lot of absolutely adorbale ones available that don't constict your child's abilty to move on their own.







So that's it. Hope everyone enjoys Halloween, just with better costumes!

Well, we're not even half-way through October yet, and already you can go to department stores and see their Christmas decorations filling aisles, some more than their Halloween supplies. Christmas music being playing way too early on the radio can't be far behind.

Seems like every year, the start of the Christmas season is moved up a little. Last year, local station WNIC 100.3 FM went "all Christmas, all the time" on Halloween. I remember how irritating it was to hear that because prior to this, Halloween seemed like a big enough holiday to keep the Christmas season contained to the months of November and December only. Apparently that is no longer the case, as stations like WNIC seem to think you would rather listen to "Frosty the Snowman" instead of "Monster Mash" on Halloween.

For the record, WNIC has not switched formats yet this year, but they are already asking about it on their homepage. WMVN 101.1 FM in St. Louis, MO, however, has already made the switch, which means we can't be far behind. Now that a precedent has been set for Halloween as an afterthought, when we will start hearing Jingle Bell Rock? I'm guessing we'll see WNIC go all-Christmas no later than the 31st for the second year in the row.

This has gone well beyond the point of absurdity now and despite the large irritant this seems to be to a lot of people, it only gets worse every year. I don't get it.