The well-remembered Ontario store seemed to start the ball rolling with this ad that ran on October 14, 1965. Candy and a very limited selection of costumes were included in the sales offerings.
Jupiter ran a similar ad, completely devoid of any licensed character costumes – not even Mickey. Halloween Candy Discounts included Nestle's Crunch, Baby Ruth, Snickers and Hershey's.
An unofficial polling at my work regarding candy bars resulted in Kit Kat being the most popular these days. Nestle's Crunch (a favorite of my youth) – while still popular with the Baby Boomers – was largely unknown to the younger co-workers.
Of interest in the Jupiter ad are those Doe-Caps. My brothers and I wore that style for a while in the early to mid-1960s.
Procter & Gamble ran a special Halloween-themed ad for Clorox Bleach in that same October 27, 1965 paper. It's kind of cute.
The Blood-Curdling Blog of Monster Masks has a 1965 Collegeville Costume Catalog page with a few of the masks shown above, including the one that most people would call 'Frankenstein.' It's actually advertised as "The Brute" (no doubt to avoid paying Universal a royalty).
Lastly, we finally get to the good stuff: an ad for Kresge's with an oddball collection of licensed character costumes.
There's Peter Potamus (one of the lesser Hanna-Barbers creations); Flipper the dolphin – star of his own TV show; Daniel Boone; and Wishnik trolls. Remember the little troll dolls? My siblings and I all had one.
I found a few of these costumes online. I was surprised to see that there is at least one extant Peter Potamus mask on Planet Earth.
Here's Flipper – currently swimming around on eBay, having dodged StarKist's nets.
At least, the city still had the painted store windows, and the parade; by then, we'd moved one house north, to 1855 Elyria, and walked a block west to Broadway to watch the parade.
ReplyDeleteTrick or treating was still a nighttime thing, walking door to door on the 29th, then riding in the Country Sedan to other neighborhoods on the 30th, back home, getting rid of anything that wasn't properly wrapped, and still having googobs of candy left.
Happy Halloween, y'all!
I'll take one of those Daisy Model 25 bb guns for $7.99.The Model 25 was the most powerful spring loaded bb gun that Daisy ever made.Everyone wants a classic Red Ryder nowadays and I like them too,but a Model 25 would blow Red Ryder off of his horse.
ReplyDeleteOl' Flipper's looking a little Picasso-esque!
ReplyDeleteWe typically used make-up for costumes instead of masks. Especially me, with my stupid glasses. Ruined every, single Hallowe'en until I grew bright enough to embrace the "Mad Scientist" trope.
Unlike you city dwellers, we had only 5 occupied houses within a half-mile of home. Rizzo's with full-size Butterfingers. Sousa's with full-size Snickers and Milky Ways. Frist's with full-size boxes of Crackerjack. Sivit's with his apples. Our favorite was Doc Bristol, our dentist, who gave out tons of the stickiest, sugariest, gummiest candy on the planet!
All I remember about those costumes is that they were amazingly flimsy and they usually named the character on the body of the costume. This was helpful for the grown-ups answering the door - "Oh, so you're a Wishnik, huh?"
ReplyDelete"...having dodged StarKist's nets." Dan, I wish to tell you, pal, your genius is appreciated.
ReplyDelete