It Came From the Fandom: Disneyland Halloween Costumes

Anyone remember this post? No? Fair enough; it was an awfully long time ago by blog standards. I guess that means I'm not repeating myself too badly if I do another post about Disneyland-themed costumes!

First, I should probably go ahead and re-post my photo collage from...jeez Louise, five years ago at this point. AKA “That Time I Was the Small World Clock Tower For Halloween”:

Not pictured: my dignity

(If you're wondering, how did she do that?, please follow the link above. If on the other hand you're wondering, why did she do that?, I'm afraid I can't help you. Who knows why wackos like me do anything?)

In sharing the above with the internet, I have definitely outed myself as one of the geekiest of the Disneyland geeks. Disney Halloween costumes are thoroughly mainstream (and sold in the parks in children's sizes), but Disneyland Halloween costumes are the domain of the truly obsessed and, with very few exceptions, require DIY skills to achieve. So when you see someone walking around dressed as an iconic character from the parks—or even worse, an iconic structure (*cough*)—you know you're witnessing a True Believer at work.

We're rare, but we're out there. For this week's post, I'll share some of the ones I found perusing Google.*

(Disclaimer: Not all of these people are celebrating Halloween. Some of them are at conventions, including D23.)

The Haunted Mansion is, of course, a favorite source—not only is it super in-tune with Halloween, but it probably includes more unique, easily recognizable characters than any other Disney attraction ever created. Even the Cast Member costumes are absolutely iconic:

I found so many Haunted Mansion cosplayers during my Googling that if I tried to show you all of them, we'd be here all week. The Hatbox Ghost, Bride (in various incarnations), and Stretching Room portrait characters are all favorites. Here are some of the best:

Madam Leota is challenging, but if you don't mind dressing as a table, she's certainly doable.

Here's another take on Leota, with the floating furnishings and ectoplasm worked into the concept!

For a completely different version of Leota, this gal went for a “living statue” version of her headstone from the Orlando Mansion:

I found fewer Hitchhiking Ghosts than I expected—maybe because not many groups of three friends have the right size ratios—but here we have a group of four portraying not just the Hitchhikers, but Little Leota!

You'd expect Pirates of the Caribbean to be almost as popular a source for costumes as the Mansion, but if you think about it, how do you make it clear that you're a character from the ride as opposed to being a generic pirate? There are plenty of iconic buccaneers on the ride and we all have our favorites, but a lot of their uniqueness comes from their Blaine Gibson-designed faces and quirky interaction with their environment, which aren't exactly things you can produce on a sewing machine and take with you.

On the other hand, the Redhead/Redd is a truly unique figure:

In 2015, D23 had a Diamond Anniversary-themed costume contest, and here are some of the best entries:

I may or may not have a special affection for this...

This gal (it's a lady in there) won the contest...

...which is a little surprising considering THIS gal was also present.

In the post linked at the top, I speculated about a possible group cosplay of the Enchanted Tiki Room emcees as well-dressed gentlemen rather than literal birds. These Disneybounders from Tokyo seem to be picking up some of the same wavelength, and they've added Stitch to the mix:

And speaking of famous Disneyland singing quartets, here's an adorable gender-flip of the Dapper Dans!

Apparently they call themselves the Dapper Danielles.

For fans of the truly offbeat, this person opted to go as...a churro:

You know those “person riding something” (like a dinosaur or whatever) costumes where your legs go into the legs of the thing you're riding and there are fake legs draped over the sides? This super-creative guy managed to apply that concept to a Tiki-shaped barstool:

But of all the costume concepts I discovered during my search, this one is my absolute favorite. Apparently these women work in WDI, which explains a lot:

They're gonna start selling these, right? Right...?

It's too late in the year for me to change my costume plans at this point, but I'm really thinking hard about future years now. There's a lot of unexplored territory here!

* It's harder than you think to find images of people wearing Disneyland-themed costumes. Searching “Disneyland costume” mostly gets you people wearing animated character costumes. Add the name of a specific attraction, and it's almost all Cast Members.