Halloween Costumes: The Same but Much Less Awesome

This costume is from the 1950s. I'm not that old.
But, most of my costumes where this type.

I work a Halloween event year that requires me to judge a kid's costume contests.  Last night, as I was saying to kids, "I was [character] when I was younger" I suddenly realized that kid's costumes haven't changed. 

This will be telling my age, but I saw all sorts of characters from my youth last night.  There was a Strawberry Shortcake, several Star Wars characters, Yoshi and Mario and a My Little Pony.  Most others were classic characters like Spiderman and other superheros, the Wizard of Oz, cowboys, army men, police, zombies and aliens.  There were a few modern characters.  No Hannah Montanas so far this year, but she was popular a few years back.  There was a Commander Cody, some of the Incredibles.  It just seems like modern characters don't stand the test of time.

Some of my memorable Halloween costumes as a kid were some of the same costumes I saw last night.  The first costume I remember was either ET or Casper (I can't remember which came first).  I haven't seen anyone as ET in a long time, and I don't think Casper would be popular these days.  I was Firefly, the My Little Pony, one year.  I was Princess Leia.  I was Scooby Doo (I see a lot of Scooby Doos today).  One year I was a punk rocker.  Rockers are common today, but I was inspired by Jem and Holograms (I was truly outrageous).  I'm sure no little girls have even heard of Jem today.  I can't believe the Ninja Turtles are still popular.  I wanted to be Michaelangelo, but mom said it was for boys.  That still makes me mad. 

Then vs Now

The biggest difference I see is the quality of the costumes.  The costumes we used to wear were far from creative.   Most of them were the plastic masks with the plastic "apron" costume that had the show logo plastered across it.   Kids today wear makeup rather than masks.  The My Little Pony I saw was not exactly like the one pictured.  She had a wig with a unicorn horn and purple makeup.  If kids of my day had had Angry Birds, we would have had plastic masks.  The Angry Birds this year were wearing makeup and feather hats.

Back in the day, I remember not being able to see well out of those hard plastic masks.  At the end of the night, the mask would have made an imprint in your face.  The string would have cut into the back of your head (or broken).  In general, those aprons would rip or tear before the night was over.  We didn't care.  We had candy.  We expected to walk in horrible, painful costumes for it.  That's probably why kid's are such pansies today.  Seriously, you have to be able to see to cross the street? Please!  You want to be comfortable on Halloween? Whatever.  We had to work for our treats.

You guys may steal my generation's costumes, but you'll never steal our awesomeness.  Strawberry Shortcake isn't quite the same without the plastic mask.  Ok, even as a kid I called BS on Strawberry Shortcake.  She's a human (kind of).  I'm a human (kind of).  Why do I need a mask to be a human?  I wore the costume anyway, but even I knew it was weird.  I guess it was easier than keeping a wig and hat on kids.  We were still awesome.

This is what a REAL costume looked like.