Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Woolworth’s Halloween Ad – Oct. 1963

Well, it’s Halloween – so here’s one last post dealing with vintage trick-or-treat costumes.

Above is what Woolworth’s was offering Lorainites in an ad that ran in the Lorain Journal on October 24, 1963. The ad has a nice layout featuring a prominent Frankenstein’s monster. (Like most kids, we always thought the monster itself was called Frankenstein).

There aren’t too many TV-related costumes in this ad, surprisingly.

There’s a George Jetson costume; I wonder how many little boys thought, “Gee, I think I’ll go as that much-abused, hapless button-pusher from the future who seems to get fired by Mr. Spacely in every episode?”
If you look closely at the George Jetson outfit, it looks like something Evel Kneivel would wear.

Next to George is a Ben Cooper skeleton costume featuring a Magic-Glo mask that glowed in the dark.
And here’s the ever-popular Cleopatra with a costume that also glowed in the dark. It’s on Ebay right now if you’re interested.
There’s also a Dick Tracy costume with a “Moving Mouth Mask.” That’s one gimmick that I don’t remember.
It’s kind of amusing when you realize that his mouth didn’t move too much in the low budget Dick Tracy Show made-for-TV cartoons (which we watched like everyone else). His mouth was deliberately hidden when he was talking on his two-way wristwatch radio – to save money animating it!
Anyway, Happy Halloween!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I was a kid I loved Woolworth's, but my memory is from the Midway Mall location. We always got our costumes from Grant's in Lorain Plaza. Guess we have Family Dollar and Dollar General now.

Chuck

Anonymous said...

I remember the great Batman & Superman costumes from the mid-1960s! The great thing about those were that you could wear them anytime you wanted to play superhero with your friends. I also remember a Lost In Space costume that wasn't much more than a astronaut helmet-type mask and the costume merely had the LIS logo on the chest and the image of a holstered laser pistol on the side!