Halloween Ads – October 1969

Well, it's Halloween. On this blog, that means it's time for a look back at what costumes the trick-or-treaters were wearing in days gone by.

Above is a large Hills ad showing an assortment of Collegeville costumes that ran in the Journal on October 16, 1969 – 50 years ago.

It's a rather measly assortment. Instead of costumes reflecting that turbulent era – such as a generic hippie or Green Beret – there's a generic skeleton, a public domain Cinderella, a cute bunny, an unreasonable facsimile of Bugs Bunny, and Major Matt Mason.

Major Matt Mason??

It turns out that Major Matt Mason was a Mattel action figure, "an astronaut who lived and worked on the Moon.” Unfortunately he must not have had the staying power of fellow action figure G. I. Joe, and was relegated to the toybox dustbin of history.

And here are the Halloween hares shown in the ad. Are those sideburns on the yellow bunny?

The October 22, 1969 Kmart Halloween ad in the Journal had several generic costumes (why pay licensing fees if you don’t have to?) as well as Major Mason again. There’s also another cute bunny.

Here’s what kids dressed as the Devil were wearing over their winter coats.

There are only two TV cartoon costumes shown in the Kmart ad: Bingo from the Banana Splits, and George of the Jungle. Bingo’s not too bad (although personally I would rather have gone trick or treating as Fleegle or Drooper).

But George of the Jungle just looks like a guy with sideburns in distress.