Sometimes your kids pick the generic Halloween costume of the year. You know the most popular one that every other kid on the block is wearing. Other times they pick something so obscure that you're sure they're going to be explaining to everyone in detail exactly who they are all Halloween as people nod enthusiastically still not understanding who they are. For us, this year is the latter, but that doesn't make designing the costume any less fun.
Being raised on The Muppets ourselves, we've exposed our children to the wonderful puppet-laden world of The Muppets. Favourites of theirs include the 2011 film The Muppets with Jason Segel and Amy Adams and the new show Muppets Now.
A particular notable gag is when the Muppets attempt to fool someone by disguising themselves as "Muppet Man".
Muppet Trivia describes Muppet Man as, "a disguise in which two or more Muppets are stacked to appear taller, while usually donning a trench coat or other longer clothing items." In the 2011 movie The Muppets, Fozzie, stacks on top of a bunch of other Muppets as Muppet Man leading to a typical, rowdy debacle all in attempt to get some face time with Miss Piggy.
To see a clip of Muppet Man in action click here.
The kids find Muppet Man hilarious and when Molly asked herself the important question, "Are you a Muppet? Or are you a Man" She decided she was MANY Muppets.
Here is how we built the Muppet Man costume....
First we looked to see what we already had on hand. Muppet Man would need something to hide his tower of Muppets, so we grabbed a dark gray wool coat that Molly already owned.
Next, we wanted to look for hands and feet that look like they could be owned by a monster or Muppet. In my childhood dress-up box we found a pair of fuzzy bear slippers, that I believe my sister bought at "The It Store" circa 1986. Anyone else remember that store? The feet look like they could belong to Sweetums or even Bobo the Bear. For hands we looked to our mismatched glove and mitten collection from last winter finally settling on an old monkey mitten and a fuzzy glove that looks like it could belong to the hand of Animal.
Finding Muppets to stuff into the trench coat was a little more difficult. I looked at some thrift stores, posted on our local buy and sell group, but didn't have any luck. Since we are limiting our outings because of COVID I decided that we'd look for other options.
A long time ago, a family friend was staying with us. McDonalds was offering Muppet Babies stuffed animals as a part of their Happy Meal promotion. This friend made it her mission to get us kids as many of these Muppets as possible. Since this was a holiday promotion they are dressed in Christmas garb. For 30 plus years these stuffed toys have been a part of my mom's Christmas decorations, often sitting under the tree.
Since the "Muppet Man" we wanted was going to be headed by Fozzie Bear, we began to look for masks for the costume. Full face masks were quite expensive, but then we had another idea. On Etsy we found a cloth mask adorned with Fozzie's face. I ordered it for $23.99 and luckily it arrived from England in plenty of time for Halloween. Added bonus, Molly can wear it well after Halloween as a part of her reusable mask supply to help keep herself and others safe.
Finally, we bought a used straw hat for $4.99 from Value Village to complete our Muppet Man costume. Total cost of the costume: $28.98. We may or may not get a fake moustache to put on her Fozzie costume for complete authenticity.
We still don't know if Trick or Treating is going to happen this year with COVID-19, but we had a blast making the costume just the same and at the very least Muppet Man is going to complete a Halloween themed scavenger hunt to celebrate.
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