Last night my sister came over and helped hand out candy to the trick-or-treating hoardes that invade our neighborhood every year. We have one of those neighborhoods that gets kids SUV'd in from crappier parts of town, so the streets are packed with groups of marauding kids in varying stages of costume. Here's what I noticed about this year's trends:
The mask from "Scream" is OVER-FREAKIN'-DONE. STOP IT. IT'S LAZY AND LAME.
S.W.A.T. teams were big this year.
Spiderman for the boys was also very popular. Darth Vader, stormtroopers, and the occasional Jedi knight also made it to the front door. We had kids playing with some nice-looking light sabers out in the middle of the street, too. Mucho less cheesy-looking than the sabers that were out when I was a kid.
By far the most popular girl costume were Disney princesses. I just wanted to hurl. Second runner-up was any sort of fairy. Gads. I noticed the uber-girly trend in adult women's costumes as well when I was on the hunt for the basis of the Maude Lebowski/Gutterball outfit I sported this year. Wtf?!?!?!?! I wasn't looking for bull-dyke accessories, but come on, there's gotta be more interesting stuff for women to dress up as besides goddam princesses and fairies.
The best costume was a little boy dressed up as a pizza guy, sporting a drawn-on Italian moustache, chef's hat, apron, and clean pizza box to put candy in. Freakin' original as all get-out, I tell ya. He got a lot of candy out of us. We had a couple of 1920's gangsters complete with tommy guns that were damn cool, too. One of them even had a James Cagney accent. Props to those kids' parents for pushing the envelope so that their kids stood out in a good way in the crowd.
The weirdest costume was a teenage boy dressed in a short pullover sweater, pantyhose and bikini briefs. I have no idea what his "costume" was supposed to be, but he was very nice, and I'm thinking he'll be hanging out in West Hollywood this time next year in the exact same outfit. He and the husbitch ended up trading candy.
We had fewer kids than in past years, but I think that was partly due to the fact that we have a large shrubbery that partially blocks our front door visually, so kids wouldn't go up the driveway to see what's going on. We had set up some of our usual house decor so that it was visible to the kids brave enough to check us out when they got to our front door, and most of them thought it was cool and wanted to come inside. In fact, we had a couple of kids just stride on in as if they owned the place. I laaaaaughed.
Luckily we don't have too much candy left over, so my gourging on it won't last too long and I can get back to a normal weight soon.
1 comment:
I completely agree about the Scream mask - it is both lazy and lame. We had a few Jedis, but no Darth or StormTroopers. A couple of Power Rangers, one Wolverine, lots of goth witches, and a couple Disney Princesses (fewer of those than I expected). My favorite costume was actually worn by a little boy who lives a couple doors down; he was dressed as a cowboy in a costume made entirely of paper bags. It was really impressive work. When I opened the door in my mask and tutu, his little sister frowned and said accusingly, "Hey, you're my friend!"
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