Masked and searching a full-size Butterfinger
- Brett Hiner: A Work in Progress
- October 30, 2023
- 384
For a kid coming of age in the 1970s and ‘80s, it could not get much better than heading to the local department store, in my case Harlow’s, and beelining it directly to the Halloween section of aisle seven. Like Ralphie in “A Christmas Story,” lovingly gazing at his Red-Rider BB Gun through the frosted window of Higbee’s, my siblings and I would stand in the aisle, for what seemed like hours, contemplating which costume we should snag off the metal shelves.
More often than not, I headed directly to the superhero section, agonizing over my loyalty to Batman while being tempted by whatever the year’s current trends would bring.
I can still picture those Ben Cooper boxes, with plastic mask perfectly centered in the clear window of the lid. I would send a little prayer up to the Great Pumpkin that when a selection was finally made, they would have it available in my size. Too big was workable, knowing my mom’s demand of a snowsuit being worn under the costume was likely, but too small meant the inevitable tear of the cheap plastic down the backside well before a doorbell was ever rung for a full-size Butterfinger (my childhood favorite).
Despite the quality of the costumes, Ben Cooper Inc. was no dummy. Before anyone else in the business world, they saw the potential in brand licensing and pounced. Snow White, Davy Crockett and Zorro in the ‘40s and ‘50s led to the first-ever licensing deal with Marvel Comics: Ben Cooper helped introduce Spiderman to trick-or-treaters in 1963.
Interestingly enough, the company’s top seller in the 1960s? The Beatles. The costumed outfits looked nothing like anything the Fab Four ever would have worn — they looked more suited for a kid working the front counter at McDonald’s in the ‘70s — but the four costumes now routinely sell in the thousands when they come up for auction, reaching into the tens of thousands on the rare occasion they are new-in-box. If Moms and Dads only knew …
But Ben Cooper’s biggest money maker came along in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s when “Star Wars” began its dominance of our pop culture consciousness. The one year I did not go as Batman, at least in my Ben Cooper wearing days, I was Chewbacca. I never really understood why Chewie’s face and name were emblazoned on the front of the costume; were there actual candy passer-outers who might mistake the Chewbacca costume for another Wookie? More likely Bigfoot, I guess.
And oh, those masks, with the two small nose holes and slit in the mouth that made every kid wearing one feel like they had asthma.
It also did not help that by the time trick or treat rolled around, the rubber band, stapled to the mask and used to fit around my head, broke several times, and every time my parents reattached it, it was a half inch shorter. By the end of two hours of trick-or-treating on Oct. 31, the mask was so snug it felt like my skull was being strangled by a head-sized hula hoop. And because of the lack of ventilation, well please, do not get me started on the smell.
But the wear and tear on a costume never diminished the enthusiasm we all felt when, at the end of a school day, we paraded from classroom to classroom, donning our costumes, providing a visually spooky spectacle for our schoolmates. It was always fun guessing which classmate was behind each mask and always feeling a little competitive when someone shared the same costume as me. As if anyone else could pull off Chewie or the Caped Crusader as well.
A dear elementary teacher friend of mine tells me those gloried parades no longer occur, at least in her school. In Wooster it is “hit and miss” on whether kiddos are given the chance to showcase their costumed alter egos. I hope they do get to. Looking back, it seems to have played a role in the storytelling of our imaginative youth.
It was a sad, sad day when the mask would rip — always the first thing to go — and the costume became unwearable. Like the discarded costumes themselves, eventually Ben Cooper Inc. filed for bankruptcy. Financial woes really began in September 1982 when seven people died from consuming Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide. There was a nationwide panic — a sense of security lost that a month later led many moms and dads to question the safety of their children accepting candy from strangers. The company suffered heavy financial losses.
After some annual ups and downs in the subsequent years, they were eventually purchased by Rubie’s Costume Co., and the company known as Ben Cooper Inc., which in its heyday owned 70-80% of the costume market, ceased to exist.
Eventually, those costumes would have become childish anyway, but they gave way to weaker and weaker attempts at creating Halloween magic. Wearing my actual Hardee’s uniform for trick or treat does not really count, right?
Living in a pretty rural part of Ashland County, trick or treat did not happen in our neighborhood, so we always headed to my cousin’s house to forage their neighborhood for candy.
But looking back, I think what I most value were those rural backyard antics, in full costume, played amongst my siblings and me. It did not matter that, in “reality,” Batman would never fight the shark from “Jaws.” In the world of Ben Cooper, costumes were the impetus for creating fantastical, imaginative stories and memories.
And most of those memories, cheap costume and all, are worth more than even a full-size Butterfinger.
Brett Hiner is in his 27th year of teaching English/language arts at Wooster High School, where he also serves as the yearbook advisor and Drama Club advisor/director. When writing, he enjoys connecting cultural experiences, pop and otherwise to everyday life. He can be emailed at workinprogessWWN@gmail.com.