Best Halloween Costumes for Cranston 2008

by Josh Wood Thursday October 23, 2008

Hey kids, here’s a quick a guide for those of you who have some dressing up to do this Halloween. These are Cranston-themed costumes designed to delight and disturb your neighbors. They also present an opportunity to step outside of old, last-minute costume standbys – classics such as Hobo and Ghost. Because these concepts are so loose in nature, you should be prepared to give your befuddled neighbors a certain amount of explanation when questions arise.

Pontiac Avenue Bridge

This is a two-person costume, with each wearer representing an end of the bridge that RIDOT condemned earlier this summer. This costume can be greatly improved with the addition of a third person dressed as a RIDOT inspector to walk along with the bridge (but not necessarily acknowledge it). And this costume is much more effective when put together with the bus costume (see below).

Rat

The more rat costume-wearers you can enlist, the bigger the impact will be. This will no doubt be a controversial costume, so for a positive spin a few of you can dress as rats and one could dress as the Pied Piper to lead the rats out of the neighborhood. At some point on Halloween the group should pay a visit to Cranston City Hall and run amok. This costume might irk a few people in certain parts of the city, so try not to make your costume too realistic, or you might get beaten with a shovel.

The City Coffers

Personifying the city’s busted coffers opens the doors to lots of costume options. This one approaches the classic Hobo costume, with the exception of some minor details. It’s important not to dress in rags, but definitely wear pants with deep pockets that you could turn inside out to indicate a lack of funds. Wearing as much red as possible will help make the symbolic point, although you will probably have to explain this costume anyway. When you get to your neighbors’ doors, ask for tax payments in lieu of candy.

Park Cinema

This costume is by far the easiest because it’s never has to be complete. And because not wearing any costume at all means that your costume is incomplete, you’re probably wearing a Park Cinema costume right this very minute. In fact, you were probably wearing the Park Cinema costume last Halloween as well – and every Halloween since 2003. To emphasize the costume, practice talking in incomplete sentences. Say things like, “The craziest thing happened to me today -,” and stop abruptly. If you feel motivated to wear something, make sure it’s yellow, and keep it on for at least three years.

Any Of The Angry Almshouse Residents Whose Graves Were Disturbed By The Construction Near Route 37

Here’s your motivation: sometime between 1888 and 1930, after a life at the State Farm, the State of Rhode Island buries you in a shoddy grave, probably marked with a wooden cross that quickly turns to termite fodder. Fast forward to 1963 when the State begins the process of laying the asphalt for Route 37. Long forgotten, the your grave site and thousands of others are paved over. Fast forward to the 21st Century. Heavy rains come, and after centuries of lying beneath the highway, your bones begin to spill out into the parking lot of a nearby business. The State makes an effort to correct the past and offers a final peaceful resting place for you in a nearby cemetery. But it’s too late. You’re back for revenge – plus you really like Milky Ways.

Concrete Plant Victim

This costume takes a cue from the future – should the concrete plant ever come to fruition. It’s important to occasionally refresh the talcum powder in your hair to simulate wayward silicate particulate matter. Wearing empty bags of ready-mix concrete is a nice touch, but be careful not to evoke the look of a mob hit (the whole “cement shoes” thing). Drive this costume home with some powdery face makeup and a zombie limp. Cough a little bit when your neighbors answer the door. Say “Trick or (cough hack cough) treat” in your best Harvey Fierstein voice.

RIPTA Bus

This costume can be treated like the costume in a dragon dance, with several people inside at once. This costume will have the biggest impact in the Garden City neighborhood where neighbors fought to keep buses out after RIPTA used the neighborhood as a temporary detour. To add drama to the costume, the person in the back should consider dropping an occasional smoke bomb to recreate the noxious air that was slated to kill the seniors in the neighborhood.

Well, there you go. Seven Cranston costume ideas of varying degrees of difficulty, to delight and annoy your neighbors. Be safe, and be spooky.

[where: 02910]

Comment

1. OMG. That was totally funny. And here I thought I was going to have to wear my boring ole witch’s hat from last year.

   — Lisa · Oct 23, 06:27 AM · #

2. Thanks for the note, Lisa.

   Remember, these are just some loose guidelines. There aren’t any rules that prohibit a bus or a movie theater from wearing a witch’s hat.

   — Josh · Oct 23, 03:46 PM · #

3. I guess you have a point. My son decided he’s going as a Power Ranger with a Batman mask (“Batman Ranger”). Here’s to reinvention—

   — Lisa · Oct 24, 09:01 AM · #

4. While trying to find our way to our guest room last weekend so that we could actually have guests, the girls and I came up with The Haunted Laundry Basket… Once you’re tossed in, you’ll never come out again!

   We were thinking that all the clothes could grow fangs and mold and moan and scream horribly about how they were once clean and folded but were now possessed by the demons of dirt and would never be clean again.

   It would be easy to make the costume. Just take one of our full baskets and cut out leg holes and attach straps like suspenders. The laundry would do the rest…

   I think this could also double as the city coffers costume…

   And I wish you had done drawings of all of them because you are a died-in-the-wool art and ad genius!

   — marie · Oct 24, 02:18 PM · #

5. Actually, we had a laundry basket come to our door on Halloween a couple of years back. She had pink balloons for bubbles. It wasn’t a Haunted Laundry Basket, though. A Haunted Laundry Basket would be very cool. You could make some of the dirty clothes into demonic hand puppets.

   I think Halloween ’09 would get here sooner than I could finish all the drawings for Halloween ’08!

   — Josh · Oct 26, 08:02 PM · #

6. How does a cute dinosaur fit into the scheme of things?

   I see you now have readers 5 & 6:)

   — Rachel McNally · Oct 28, 07:22 AM · #

7. Ridiculously Creative Josh! I love it!

   Thank you for the release.

   Awww, I thought you would have one for the Mayor and Administration LOL!

   Suzanne

   — Suzanne Arena · Oct 28, 01:29 PM · #

8. Fantastic ideas! At least we can still laugh.

   — Jim Quinlan · Oct 28, 01:53 PM · #

9. How about a Napolitano and Carlucci costume, You can call it Dumb & Dumber, They can drive around of course with Carlucci at the wheel in what appears to be a damaged city vehicle.

   — Bob Myron · Oct 29, 04:22 AM · #

10. I’m sure that only fumes from RIPTA buses kill people, not the fumes from the dozen or so cars that the bus riders would otherwise be driving if there were no bus.

    — Mike P · Nov 10, 02:25 PM · #

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