Spirit Halloween Brought Back the Old Plastic Costumes of the 70s/80s

Spirit Halloween is now open in Yakima in the old Bed, Bath and Beyond store at Valley Mall. Like with other Spirit Halloween stores they provide everything you need to have a happy Halloween with costumes, decorations and so much more. One thing that caught my eye were these boxed costumes I haven't seen in the 80s.

John Riggs

These were Ben Cooper designs and meant to be an economic way to dress as your favorite licensed character from the cast of Star Wars to Gremlins to whatever was popular that year. If it made money on TV or in movies, you could be sure that there would be a Ben Cooper costume made from it. The 'costume' was basically a plastic mask you put on with the help of a rubber band, little eye holes about where the character eyes were and a small slit in the mouth for you to breathe. Then a plastic smock that basically tied around your back that didn't really resemble the costume but more the logo of the character you dressed up as.

Chances are, if you were from that generation, you wore one of these at least once. I know I did a few including ET (almost everyone was ET in 1982), a generic devil, Mohawk from Gremlins and I think Optimus Prime one year.

If you missed them they're back at Spirit Halloween but now at a premium to cash in on the nostalgia. They also do make adult-sized ones of these, too, just for fun.

Might be worth checking out when you also see the other cool stuff Spirit Halloween has to offer.

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