Less gore, more Bush

This Halloween, people will be putting aside their ghoul and zombie costumes and dressing up in red, white and blue. In a year like this, who needs another scare?

By LANE DeGREGORY

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 8, 2001

[Times photos: Cherie Diez] Mark Edson, magician and ventriloquist, poses as President George W. Bush outside Fun Stuff. Patriotic themes are everywhere this Halloween, and Bush masks are flying out of party stores.

ST. PETERSBURG -- The Grim Reaper stands at the back of Party City, instead of out on the sidewalk where he spent the last four Octobers. Packages of bloody arms, hands and fingers are stocked in bins below a display of oversize ears. The plastic witch by the front door is wearing an Uncle Sam hat.

Halloween won't be so scary this year.

"Our corporate office suggested we don't go outside with the life-size Grim Reaper," says Joe Nye, who manages the store. "We're trying to be sensitive to people's feelings after all the tragedy last month."

So outside the shop, where the gory guy once greeted customers, two dozen red, white and blue balloons bob above red plastic buckets. Cardboard bats and ghosts are taped to the windows, surrounding a hand-written sign: More Patriotic Merchandise is on the Way. By the cash registers, where packets of vampire blood tablets once hung, boxes overflow with Patriotic Pinwheels, wooden I (heart) U.S.A. door hangers and Happy 4th of July baseball caps -- complete with flashing red fireworks.

Retailers are bringing Independence Day merchandise out of dusty back rooms and displaying it alongside Halloween props.

On the back wall of Party City, wigs with red, white and blue dreadlocks ($9.99) and Team U.S.A. Cheerleader outfits ($21.99) hang beside Horror Robes ($12.99). Whassup Ghost Masks ($21.99) are next to Patriotic Parade Accessory Kits ($3.99) and Ben Franklin Wigs ($19.99).

"Everything patriotic is flying out of here," Nye says. "Halloween is going to be more red, white and blue than orange and black this year."

For a week or so in September, after hijackers toppled the World Trade Center towers, people stopped buying costumes and party supplies -- like everything else in America. But since then, Halloween sales have soared. Retailers across the country report increases of 15 to 20 percent over this time last year.

"Most of our orders are staying away from the body parts. People don't seem to want anything indicative of Ground Zero," says Brad Vaughn, president of Chamber of Horrors Internet retail site (www.chamberofhorrors.com/), which is based in Nashville. "If they were going to be something bloody before, I think they changed their minds over the last few weeks."

Rick Paul, owner of Fun Stuff, says he has sold lots of flags and red, white and blue hats to revellers preparing for Halloween this year. In fact, many party stores are digging out Fourth of July inventory to sell alongside more traditional orange-and-black Halloween items.

Instead, folks are buying soldier suits, rescue-worker costumes, anything American. Vaughn had sold 60 George W. Bush masks by the end of September. Rick Paul, owner of Fun Stuff in St. Petersburg, has been sold out of presidential masks for two weeks. "The plastic $5.99 ones and the rubber ones, for $19.95," Paul says from his shop on 66th Street N. "All the wholesale companies I deal with are sold out too."

One of Paul's friends bought a Bush mask early. He wanted to create a horrifying scene outside the store doors. At first, Paul wouldn't let him. Last week, he gave in.

The friend dressed a dummy head in a white headdress, added a scraggly gray beard, black eyebrows. Then he donned the Bush mask, borrowed a bloody sword. Beside the entrance, he wielded the severed head proudly: Dubya defeats bin Laden.

Most costumes are less violent. At least one Uncle Sam, Statue of Liberty or George Washington probably will appear at every Halloween party this month.

Vaughn's Internet sales of Uncle Sam costumes are up 500 percent. Terry Goldkranz of Rubie's Costume Co. in New York spent last week searching for green foam to make extra Liberty crowns. And every day, for weeks now, at least four people have come into Features costume shop in Tampa, asking for adult firefighter suits.

At party stores this October, the Statue of Liberty's torch is a more prominently displayed costume accessory than the bloody arms and legs popular in previous years.

"We don't carry adult sizes of fireman or police costumes because you're not allowed to impersonate those officers," Features manager John Byrne says. "But we do have a red vinyl coat. And we've sold dozens of plastic fireman's hats."

His shop also rented all seven Uncle Sam suits and all four Statue of Liberty costumes, for $35 each.

"We could have sold a hundred firefighter outfits if we'd had them," Byrne says. "But it was too late to react. All the Halloween orders already had gone out and come in."

Folks want fun instead of spooky. Adults who aren't going patriotic are choosing cartoon character costumes, wizards, sexy policewomen and medieval maidens. Spiderman, Superman and construction workers for the boys. Angels for little girls.

"Our foreign costumes haven't been selling well at all," Vaughn says. "No one wants to be a sheik or camel trader this year. Nothing Middle Eastern, even the harem girls, and they're usually real popular."

Sheiks silently slipped away as Halloween costumes after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

At iParty on Tyrone Avenue in St. Petersburg, a peg full of sheik accessories hangs on the bottom rung of a side shelf, four racks down from rubber bleeding hands. A white $5.99 sticker on the sheik package is covered by a $4.99 sticker that is covered by a red sticker: Now $3.74. Even at the reduced price, sheik stuff isn't chic.

During past military conflicts, stores stocked masks mocking Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollah Khomeini. Vaughn sold scores of them. "But those wars were overseas. This time it's different. It's home," he says.

"I haven't heard of anyone coming out with a bin Laden mask. Or anyone asking for one. A costume like that wouldn't bring chuckles -- only pain and sad memories."

Party planners seem sensitive to the national ache, too. Last year, Creole Motors ordered supplies for a Wizard of Oz party from Fun Stuff. This year, the company's Halloween theme will be M*A*S*H.

One woman shopping at Fun Stuff says her office had organized a gangster-flapper soiree for Halloween. Guys dressed as gangsters were going to burst into the party shooting plastic Uzis. "Now, that doesn't seem appropriate. So they're just going to come in with the rest of us," she says.

"And instead of a pumpkin, we're going to put a big American flag on the cake."

Stores and amusement parks also are using Halloween to help victims of the attacks. At iParty in St. Petersburg, a red Uncle Sam hat sits by the cash register, collecting donations for the Red Cross. Next door, at Toys "R" Us, children can color American flags for $1 each. The money goes to the American Relief Fund, which benefits the children of attack victims.

Busch Gardens in Tampa is admitting all police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians for free until the end of the year. "It's just a small way we can thank those local heroes who protect us all the time," says Busch Gardens spokesman Gerard Hoeppner.

Just after the tragedy, Hoeppner's staff discussed canceling the amusement park's second annual Howl-O-Scream. "But after much thought, and talking to focus groups, we decided to go forward with it," Hoeppner says. "We did have to change our slogan and fliers, though."

Howl-O-Scream advertisements printed over the summer said: This Year, Terror Takes Control!

"We didn't feel that was right, given the circumstances," says Hoeppner. The new T-shirts and fliers say: You Want Scary? Be Careful What You Ask For!

Even Mama Guava will alter her usual procession through Ybor City. At this year's Guavaween Fest, for the first time in 18 years, she probably won't lead the parade through 100,000 onlookers.

"We've invited the area's police, sheriffs and fire departments to lead the parade," organizer Terri Cox says. "And Mama Guava will be wearing red, white and blue. All four of our stages will feature full-size American flags.

"We'll have extra security, of course, more than 300 officers on duty. And we'll be raising scholarship funds for the victims' families. Whatever donations we collect during the day, our sponsors and the Tampa Chamber of Commerce will match.

"We want to help, to honor the victims. But we also want everyone to have fun. Like the president said, we're trying to get back to normal."

Young children, who almost always find Halloween happy instead of horrific, probably won't notice many changes this holiday. Parents aren't pushing them to be soldiers or police officers, shop owners say. Some think the annual ritual, the release, will be more important than ever this year -- a welcome chance to act out their fears or aggressions, or just be a little hero on their own block.

"We have sold a lot of those kids' firefighter costumes," Vaughn says.

The Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, which stages a Zoo-Boo for elementary-age children, didn't amend any displays or activities after Sept. 11. "We don't do much blood and guts to begin with. We're more for young families, a more friendly Halloween," zoo spokeswoman Heather Sitton says. "We've got ghosts and goblins and, of course, all the animals. Just like we always do."

Manny Lopez, 14, says he won't do Halloween differently this year. He and his buddies at Dixie Hollins High talk about the terrorists all the time, he says -- in school, on the phone, over the Internet. "We still can't believe so many, many people got killed," he says, browsing through costumes at iParty. "But we're all still going to have our fun for Halloween."

Lopez is too old to trick-or-treat. He's looking for vampire blood capsules and Billy Bob teeth for his first Halloween dance. "I want to get one of them fake arms, too, the kind that's all bloody on the end," he says.

Even after all those people died in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania? Wouldn't that seem insensitive? Wouldn't some students be upset?

"Nah," Lopez says, buying makeup that makes skin look melted. "I don't think kids are going to be more scared this year.

"After you see all that stuff on the news, after you watch those planes crash into those towers, all those people jumping out, dying . . .. all that stuff's real," says Lopez.

"So how can anyone really be scared for Halloween?"

Yankee Doodle Halloween

This Halloween, blood and guts have given way to soldiers and Uncle Sam. Instead of scary outfits, adults and children seem to be opting for more patriotic attire. Five of the best-selling costumes at buycostumes.com have American themes.

Here are the top 12 costumes in order of popularity, as of last week:

1. Cheerleader Blue $29.99

2. Minnie Mouse Deluxe $26.99

3. Commando (soldier in fatigues) $23.99

4. Ghost Rider Pilot (in airplane jump suit) $35.99

5. Anchors-Awow (sexy Navy nurse) $17.99

6. Cigarette Girl $29.99

7. Construction Worker $17.99

8. Uncle Sam, Child $32.99

9. Nascar Spitfire $17.99

10. Uncle Sam, Adult $160.00

11. Texas Cowboy $42.00

12. Union Suit (with straw hat) $43.99

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