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
Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures – Do You Remember
online community focused on sharing and reminiscing about video, audio, and images that stir our memories of the past – old television, theme songs, commercials, print advertisements, the sights and sounds you remember