Just Another Reason I Wish I Was A Kid Now Instead Of The 80s: Guardians of the Galaxy Halloween Costumes....

I love the fact that I grew up in the 1980s... the experience was spectacular, and our generation was the first to start to benefit from technological advancements in our entertainment (articulation in toys, animation getting better, etc). But some things were still a bit behind the advancement curve. One glaring thing has to be Halloween costumes. Halloween costumes for popular characters always existed, they were just regulated to a shitty plastic mask that covered the front of your face and went around your head with a rubber band & a smock type outfit that usually featured logos of the character being portrayed. It was generic, but it was what we had to work with and we made the best of it hoping for a day when Now a days, costume companies are trying to correct that and give kids (and some adults like me!) the costumes they deserve. Now this is why I wish I was a kid now instead of the early 80s! Need proof? Check out the new Guardians of the Galaxy costumes available for this Halloween via websites like Costume Craze after the jump...

The 2013 Celebrity Halloween Costume Rundown...

So Halloween 2013 is in the books, and the celebs were out in full force wearing some fantastic costumes. Obviously the more money a person has the more they can afford to spend on a killer costume, and this was certainly the case this year. We had some sexy, we had some bizarre... and we had probably the best couple costume I have ever seen! Check out this gallery after the jump, and make sure you tell ud which ones you like the most...

Ben Cooper Costumes Revisited

Anyone reading this who was a kid up through the mid-1980s probably spent at least a few Halloweens trolling for candy in a costume manufactured by the Ben Cooper Company.

Founded in 1937, Ben Cooper, Inc. specialized in inexpensive Halloween costumes based on fictional archetypes, historical figures, and pop culture characters. Starting with Superman in the 1950s, expanding in the 1960s and '70s, the company produced dozens of variations of costumes based on superheroes. Check out more after the jump...

Odle Timey Halloween Was Much Creepier Than Current Time Halloween... MUCH CREEPIER INDEED!!!

Back in the day Halloween costume construction involved much more creativity than just dropping bye your local Party City and picking out which costume you will wear out of a package. Nope, the old times required people to use things like old & ripped clothes, and most masks were created out of paper mache (which would lead to some impressive masks by the way!) or odd shaped objects like buckets, etc. Before store bought costumes people were forced to be creative, and the results were often creeptastic to say the least. I was over at the Weird Tales website (one of the great magazines of all time... still kicking, albeit in a digital format, after all these years) and found an insane gallery of oldie time Halloween photos that are just spooky as hell... so take a trip down memory lane to see what creativity, hard work, and a little bit of imagination can turn out a hella good Halloween costume. Check all of them out by clicking here, or check after the jump for my personal faves...

70s & 80s Halloween Costumes Revisited!

Costumes that are offered today are highly detailed orientated and very true to the original source characters. But this wasn't always the case. Most of the costumes of the 70s and 80s consisted of plastic face mask with a rubber band attached with staples that kept it on your head and a plastic slipcover that featured some distinguishing characteristics of whatever the costume was. And they were glorious... glorious in their simplicity. I acme across a gallery of these old costumes somewhere on the 'Net (I lost it now) but I just had to share these awesome throwbacks. When you look at the costumes of today, remember just how basic shit used to be. Although I would rock the fuck outta that Godzilla jump off... Check out the gallery of vintage costumes after the jump...

The Many Shields Of Superman

In honor of the release of the Man of Steel tonight, I have found an excellent  infographic detailing the many "S" symbols of Superman's costume.

Here’s another infographic I did for HalloweenCostumes.com, this time illustrating the history of the emblem on Superman’s chest.

Until I researched this, I had no idea just how many variations the shield went through in its first five years, before they settled on the classic design that went mostly unchanged for over five decades.
My previous infographic (illustrating the evolution of Iron Man’s armor) can be seen here.

The Best Halloween Costumes On TV Characters of All Time

Flavorwire  produces lots of great Supercut videos, but none were ever more appropriate to a topic than this classic look at some of the best Halloween costumes worn by TV show characters throughout the years. The reason why I like this one so much is because it goes back to old school faves of mine like Roseanne (that show always had some killer Halloween episodes) & The Simpsons to more recent classic costume moments like on Happy Endings or How I Met your Mother. Great balance in this video, and it brought back some great Halloween  TV memories. Check the video after the jump...

CCD links It Up - All Horror Week Edition

Since it is All Horror Week over here at CCD, you can only imagine that there are a ton of other sites running similar spooky themed posts all over the Internet. Not all of them deserve the full on individual post coverage, so you can click on some of the links below to see them at their original locations. Happy haunting...

Growing Up Heroes - A New Tumblr That Shows The Fun Side Of Dressing Up

I find a lot of cool sites in my travels of the Internet, but I am always a happy camper when one of my cohorts here at CCD stumbles upon something cool and passes it along. Jeff Bond sent me this fantastic Tumblr called 'Growing Up Heroes', a website that allows people to upload pictures of themselves dressed up as Superheroes. The pictures are from 1960-now and some of them bring back a ton of memories!!! I have been through countless pages so far, and I plan on submitting all of my son Mikey's Halloween photos shortly because he has been some killer heroes (The Thing, Cap, Iron Man, Green Lantern, Hellboy, Obi Wan... and he did all of those long before their respective movies came out... all by his choice!). Click here to see the rest of the cool gallery's & click after the jump to see my faves...

Here Is My New Mission In Life Until October

While it may be only February, I am always on the lookout for cool costumes for my son to wear for Halloween. My boy Mikey has been some great stuff over the years. When he was 1 he was a pumpkin (he was 1!!!), but after that he has had a hell of a run. At two he was The Thing, three he was Captain America, four he was Iron Man, five Green Lantern, six he was Hellboy, and seven he was Obi Wan Kenobi. These costumes have pretty much been amazing... and have come quite a long way from Halloween costumes like these:

 He always picks what he wants to be, and he seems to have an uncanny ability to be ahead of the curve (he was Cap & Green Lantern mad long before the movies made these characters popular). I was over at Geekologie  and they had some of the newest costumes being offered by Costume Craze. I can only hope that once I show Mikey these, he will consider one of them for the upcoming Halloween:

Wow... that TaunTaun costume is amazing, but I am really hoping the boy chooses the Jawa costume. It is so bad ass!!! He really loves the Jawa's in the Star Wars films, so lets see. I think it would fit in well with his costume history of amazing yet slightly off beat choices over the years. I am also considering a custom Plastic Man costume since they do not make one and Mikey is obsessed with the character right now. That's just another example of how cool Mikey is... any kid could dress up like Batman or Superman, but how many kids ask to be Plastic Man? That kid is great....

On a side note, I am hoping to buy this costume for my girlfriend Tara and see if I can get her to wear it. I might even buy it now... good lawd!!!!! Wish me luck!!!

Best Costume Ideas For Halloween (Now This Is How You Do It!)

Wow... just wow. If you are going to wear a costume for a convention, or Halloween, you gotta do it right. While most people epically fail at this, these two got it right. Here is why. (Photos were taken at the 2010 NYC Comic Con)

Best Male Costume: Black Manta (Aquaman Villain, DC Comics)

This guys Black Manta was spot on. Rubber Suit w/ fake abs? Check. Trident? Check. Crazy Huge Helmet made of metal? Check. Robot voice? Check. Sweaty swamp ass at the end of the day? You Betcha!!!! On the other side of the equation, both Aqualad and Catwoman left much less to be praised. In fact, the fact that the Aqualad kid had to walk around in that dicky outfit all day while Black Manta strode proud as the man must have drove him to contemplate suicide. Great Job kid!!!

Slave Leia - Return Of The Jedi - Before you start in with all the "Not another Slave Leia... there are so many of these... blah, blah, blah..." let me point out three things about THIS PARTICULAR Slave Leia:

1. She is in much better shape then most of the broads who are dressed as Slave Leia... there are some really nice girls who absolutely should never dress as Slave Leia for body type issues. This is a fact. I didn't create the costume, Lucas did. (Guess he got something right... huh Joe Esq?) The person wearing this costume should be relatively fit.
2. It's very authentic. Looks like it cost a bit. Top looks (and might have been) like real metal, as did the sides of the skirt and front piece. Cheap imitations of this particular costume usually result in an automatic fail no matter how hot the chick is in it.
3. Two words: NO DRAWS!!! Most girls who wear this outfit usually wear skin colored tights or pantyhose, so despite the fact that the sides of the dress are totally absent their who-ha is not flapping in the wind. I don't know if Carrie Fisher was bare under her costume (it was the 80's) but this young lady certainly is. How do I know? Well, when we were next to her (That's me and Sam in the background) we could see no side evidence of panties and could see that she was not wearing tights or pantyhose. That means nude in my book... hence the high ratings!!!  

Alien Chest Burster On A Baby - (From the Alien movie series)

This is a phenomenal take on the classic chest burster scene from Alien that has been parodied over and over again due to the fact it is timeless (Spaceballs... nuff said!) The fact that it is A) On a baby & B) Coming out of what appears to be a Chicken costume makes it even better. Look at how frightened that kid is... priceless. Thanks to the Great White Snark for that one. Excellent. Parents, it is your responsibility to make sure your kid's costume is on point. Do your fucking job!!!! Please leave some feedback comments below... we love to hear your opinions!