Now this is Halloween shopping, 1970s style! Woolworth and Woolco had the costumes, the candy, and even a record to supply the spooky sounds. Complete costumes for $1.83 to $3.99—and somehow those plastic masks could make the Bionic Woman look scarier than the monsters!
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I always get a kick out of those old costumes with the character’s picture printed right on the front. You weren’t simply dressed as Superman—you were wearing an advertisement explaining that you were Superman. There was actually a reason for that: Ben Cooper considered the costume front a wearable billboard, designed to make the character instantly recognizable.
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Those inexpensive costumes took more work than you might think. According to Ira Cooper, whose family ran the company, developing one normally took about nine months. Artists, sculptors, engineers, and fabric workers all had a hand in turning a familiar television or comic-book face into Halloween merchandise.
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And that Sounds to Make You Shiver record wasn’t something created just for the commercial. Pickwick was already promoting it in 1973. Before we could pull up spooky sounds on a phone, we could put a haunted house on the turntable!
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Woolworth’s American stores disappeared in 1997, but commercials like this bring back an entire way of shopping. What was your favorite Halloween costume growing up—and did it come in a box with a plastic mask?
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#Woolworth #Woolco #VintageHalloween #HalloweenNostalgia #BenCooper #1970s #TheRetroSite
Tag: retro shopping
Our L’eggs Fit Your Legs
I remember my mom coming home from the grocery store, excited that they had just started selling pantyhose right there in the supermarket. Now, a lot of boys my age could have cared less, but even as a kid, I immediately saw the genius in this.
Before L’eggs, pantyhose usually meant a trip to a department store or some other clothing section. Then suddenly they were sitting there in the grocery store, packed in those unforgettable plastic eggs, right where moms were already shopping for milk, bread, coffee, and cereal. It was one of those simple ideas that made you wonder, “Why didn’t somebody do this sooner?”
And the display was just as smart as the product. Those big spinning racks of egg-shaped containers practically begged you to look at them. Even if you didn’t know much about pantyhose, you remembered the packaging. That was the genius of L’eggs. They didn’t just sell pantyhose, they turned it into an everyday grocery-store item.
Of course, once the pantyhose were out, those plastic eggs often got a second life around the house. Storage, toys, crafts, Easter decorations, you name it. Back then, nothing that useful-looking got thrown away right away.