April 27th – May 25th, 2012

22″ X 2′  Vinyl

The pieces are detachable, so you can view it as one piece (together), or side-by-side, that way the figures can be on view too!

Ltd. Art Gallery
307 E Pike Street
Seattle, WA 98122

Opens December 8th, 2011

I forgot all about them until a few years ago when I was looking through some old photo albums and came across pictures of my kindergarten class dressed up for Halloween, and low-and-behold a hand-full of kids were wearing the ridiculous, inflatable heads that are Kooky Spooks!  I couldn’t even recall the name of the costume, but straining my eyes really hard I was able to make out ‘Kooky Spooks’ written on the plastic poncho that made up the rest of the costume (aka oversize crabbing bib).

And a split second later I was high-tailing it over to the computer on a mission to get myself my very own Kooky Spook costume!  Shockingly I came across one right away and was equally excited that it was new old stock and the box art was almost better than the actual costume.  That, coupled with the disclaimer on the box that it fit ages 3 to Adult.  Yes!  Not only after all these years can I actually own my very own Kooky Spook costume, but I can actually WEAR it too! Woo-hoo!

The kids featured wearing the Kooky Spooks on the front are a little frightening, but if you can get past their jaundice-looking skin you’ll find that Wunkin’ Punkin, Scardy Cat, Woblin Goblin, Howly Owl, Spacey Casey are TV Stars.  Not sure what that’s about, however looks like Bone Head hasn’t quite reached TV Star status (see box).

Oh yeah, the costumes come with some safety tape in case your costume doesn’t already draw enough attention from cars driving by, and matching face paint.   The ‘face paint’ is now more like a hardened shaped ball…not only would that be slightly difficult applying to your skin (unless you melted it down with a blow-torch), but your skin would probably deteriorate which could be quite a nice ‘costume’ in itself.  But of course that’s if you’re trying to achieve the rotting-flesh look.

So years later and I’ve been able to grab up 6 different Kooky Spooks costumes… and not only do they seem to come out for Halloween, but really any get-together with friends. I mean really, who wouldn’t pass up an excuse to tie on an inflatable ‘Wunkin Punkin’ or ‘Spacey Casey’?!  NOBODY!

The low-down.  Came out in 1981.  Bad artwork  (see Punkin Princess’s wand freely floating on the outside of her finger and mutated hands).  Cross between cute meets KKK. (yes disturbing)

Personally, I’d be terrified if a kid came trick-or-treating at my door wearing a Creepy Creatures costume.  They’d immediately get sent away with no candy and a door slammed in their face!

I’ve always made pinatas the tradional way with a giant balloon wrapped with newspaper… but decided to change it up this time with gauze in place of newspaper, and it turned out to be a faster process, a quicker clean-up and nearly impossible to penetrate! *You can buy the gauze wrap at most art supply places*

Looks like Soggy should be checking himself into the Wound Care Center pronto!