My All-Time Favorite Halloween Costume (Ben Cooper Star Wars Stormtrooper)

I grew up as the youngest of nine siblings. In our attic we had a big box of all kinds of random clothes and costume elements that we would use to make up Halloween costumes each year. I always pined for the store-bought costumes that I would see so many kids Trick-or-Treating in on Halloween. But with all the kids in our family it was just unrealistic to think that my parents would be able to afford to buy that many costumes every year. For the most part I was always able to find something to wear each year without much difficulty. Probably my favorite costume from the box was the Prisoner or Jailbird one. This was basically a black and white striped shirt and pants set that would be paired with a plastic ball on a chain attached to an ankle. Here's something pretty similar that is sold in stores today, just to give an idea.

To complete this costume and others we would usually burn the end of a cork and smear the ashes on our faces to give us a nice, intimidating approximation of a growth of beard stubble. Adding that touch was probably my favorite part of the costume! This method was also very effective in creating a DIY pirate costume.

The only other costume I remember really enjoying enough to wear multiple times was that of a soldier. We didn't really have anything for this costume in our big box, but I liked to play Army as a kid (not realizing that in a few years I'd be in the Army for real!) and had a pretty good assortment of Army stuff myself ready to be pressed into service. Here I am (in the middle) with two of my nephews at a Halloween party in 1982:

Halloween was always a fun thing for me as a kid. I can't say I really recall any particularly "bad" ones, regardless of what costume I was in. But one year really does stand out BECAUSE of the costume that I wore. I almost feel bad saying this (because the costume was so cheaply made and didn't even look very impressive compared to the homemade ones we were usually "forced" to wear) but my favorite Halloween getup of all time was my store-bought Star Wars Stormtrooper costume from Ben Cooper. Ben Cooper costumes are a whole story unto themselves and I may have to write a separate post just about them to really cover the phenomenon. But suffice to say, anyone who grew between the 1950s and late 1970s probably remembers them. They were generally a thin plastic mask and a cheap "smock" that usually had a picture of the character on it (in case the mask didn't give the identity away).

C-3PO costume with a picture of C-3PO on the front

These cheaply made costumes were also pretty flammable at one point. I don't know if it was specifically the Ben Cooper costumes but I seem to remember the flammability of this type of costume being a big concern and in the news when I was a kid. At some point they made a law or something saying that costumes had to be flame-retardant. And by the time I got mine Ben Cooper was definitely touting the flame-resistant nature of their costumes!

We got the stormtrooper costume at the great, now defunct,  toy store Child World. I still remember being very excited to have it and wearing the mask on the way home. Looking at my reflection in the truck's window in the dark I couldn't really see my eyes peeking out through the holes in the mask. Despite only being a cheap, face-only mask I really thought I looked just like a REAL stormtrooper from Star Wars!

I don't really seem to be able to remember just how I managed to finagle a store-bought costume that year. I will admit that there was probably a good amount of pleading and whining involved in trying to convince my parents to make the purchase. But the fact that it only cost $3.99 (pretty cheap even back in the late-70s) certainly couldn't have hurt either.

There are a number of reasons that this post is kind of special for me, and the first one was just kind of teased by showing that price tag. Yes, that's the actual price tag from my very own Stormtrooper costume from Child World. So I guess now would probably be a good time to drop the big bombshell. Last year while cleaning up the attic of my parents' house my sister found my old Stormtrooper costume (which I had no idea still even existed)! The photo of the C-3PO costume above is just an image I found online, but the Stormtrooper one at the beginning of the blog is actually the EXACT SAME ONE that I wore on that Halloween all those years ago. It's a little (actually a lot) worse for the wear, but there it is.

It's kind of amazing to think that something as cheap (and to be honest, kind of crappy) as these Ben Cooper costumes were officially licensed merchandise, but for whatever reason Ben Cooper seemed to be the official Halloween Costume of nearly EVERY sort of character, show or movie you can think of from the time. Both the box and costume have numerous images from Star Wars and many copyright notices all over them.

The image on the vinyl smock is in surprisingly good shape

The mask doesn't seem to look all that bad in these photos, especially considering the fact that it's made of very thin plastic and has not been stored with any sort of care for the past forty years. It does have a permanent warp to it that I can't seem to get out, but overall still seems to look like a Stormtrooper helmet overall. But in reality when I first pulled it out of the box (or actually the box top--as the bottom of the box was not with it and presumably lost to time many, many years ago) it was not only warped, but also had several large and small cracks and splits all over it. I wasn't sure if there was anything that could be done to save it. While I didn't take any "before" photos of it prior to trying to salvage it, here is what it currently looks like on the inside after I attempted to repair it with...duct tape. The elastic has also long since snapped and needed replacing.

What the mask is supposed to look vs. how mine looks today

Okay, so I mentioned the fact that there are a number of reasons that this post is pretty special for me. The first and most obvious one is, of course, the rediscovery of the old costume. But what makes that rediscovery even more special is the fact that I wore the costume (and I believe I only wore it one year) in 1978, which is exactly FORTY years ago this Halloween! And finally, it's hard to imagine what I would have thought on that Halloween in 1978 if someone had told me that in forty years I would be all grown up and have two Little Monsters of my very own. But in 2005 we did have our first daughter, and three-and-a-half years later we did it again. And now that second daughter is...nine years old. Just like I was in 1978! Crazy. Well, perhaps you can figure out what will come next. Yep, I just had to convince the Tiny Creature to put Papa's musty old Halloween costume on for a few photos. She wasn't terribly excited by the idea by any means, but was a good sport about it. I don't have any photos of myself wearing this costume, but this is probably pretty close to what I would have looked like in it!

Another member of the family dons the costume 40 years later!

What a good sport!

And, just for a final bit of slightly awkward nostalgia, I decided to "try on" the costume myself. Needless to say the smock wouldn't fit on my slightly larger than 53" to 58" frame, but I did put the mask on once again and held the costume up in front of me while the Little Monsters snapped a couple pics. This part wasn't as much fun as I was hoping it would be, and might have even been just the slightest bit depressing. But how could I not at least give it a try?

The costume and I have both aged a bit since 1978

And I've also grown some as well!

If the reader can stand one more bit about this costume I'll close this post out with something I discovered last week while watching what has become a bit of a Halloween season tradition for me and the Little Monsters. For the past several years we've enjoyed watching a Halloween episode of the show "CHiPs". It's the episode "Trick or Treat" from the second season. And wouldn't you know, it first aired on October 21, 1978. As we watched the show this year I realized that nearly all of the extras playing kids out Trick-or-Treating on Halloween are wearing cheap Ben Cooper costumes! My guess is that the costume people had to outfit a bunch of kids with Halloween costumes and simply gave an assistant a twenty dollar bill and told them to go to the nearest store and pick up a bunch of cheap costumes. So now that I've become familiar with the whole Ben Cooper thing after researching this post I just had to go back and analyze the costumes a bit. I might end up writing a whole post just about that episode and the costumes used in it, but suffice to say, it was kind of fun picking out several familiar characters portrayed with cheap plastic masks and "flame-retardant" smocks. And in addition to Darth Vader, C-3PO, Batman, Superman and several others I was actually able to spot not one, but TWO examples of kids wearing the very same get-up, the Ben Cooper Stormtrooper costume, that I would be wearing on Halloween that year! Two different girls wear it at different points in the show, so I'm not sure if they had two costumes or just one that was used multiple times. But either way, there they were. And, here they are! First up, while Ponch and Jon are talking to a group of Trick-or-Treaters two other kids walk by in the background. Admittedly this one was pretty hard to spot, but look at the blond-haired girl next to (and partially obscured by) the kid in the skunk costume. While they are only on screen for a couple of seconds you can clearly see the blue top and white bottom of the Stormtrooper costume. And when the girl turns her head you get a pretty good glimpse of the mask. Score! Needless to say, these are just photos taken from a TV screen showing the the episode on DVD, so they're not perfect, but they will have to do.

And then, a little later, a group of five kids and an adult chaperone are walking by a liquor store that is about to be robbed. These kids are all wearing Ben Cooper costumes. There's a Devil, a Witch, a Clown and two Star Wars costumes: C-3PO and...a Stormtrooper. This time it's a dark-haired girl wearing the Stormtooper mask. Once again she's partially obscured by the Clown next to her. But once again, there's that mask and the blue and white smock!

Can you see the Stormtrooper mask in this group?

In this one our subject is almost completely obscured

But check out that mask peeking out from behind the clown!

Here's a great side view of the mask

And here's the back of the costume

It's so strange to think that episode aired in time for Halloween in 1978. And that very same Halloween I was wearing the same Ben Cooper Stormtrooper costume seen in the episode--a costume that would go on to become my favorite Halloween costume of all-time! It's forty years later and I think there's one more thing I need to do. It might embarrass the Little Monsters, but I believe that I'm going to have to go out and wear the Stormtrooper mask while I accompany them on their Trick-or-Treating this year!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!