Most Popular Halloween Costumes of the Last 30 Years 1983-2013

DesignTaxi featured a list of the most popular Halloween costumes of the last 30 years as measured by Spirit Halloween. Written by Thia Shi Min and entitled, “Chart: The ‘Most Popular’ Halloween Costumes for the Last 30 Years,” the article does a nice job of tracking the trends.

I analyzed the list and found that nine originated as movies, eight as television shows and eight as comic books. The rest derived from music (Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus); politics (President Obama) as well as books, wrestling and greeting cards. The small and big screens obviously rule and are what make the comic book based characters so hot.

It’s interesting to see how many of the characters and brands have either stayed around or been reinvented. The most dominating media franchise was Batman with four characters appearing (Batman, the Joker, Cat Woman and Robin). StarWars and Spiderman each had two top placements while Star Trek, surprisingly, only had one.

So, what is the common denominator in becoming the top Halloween character? I think, in most cases, it derives from the character having a stand out and therefore quickly identifiable physical feature. Jus think of Princess Leia’s honey buns, Elvira’s cleavage or Freddy Krueger’s blade like fingernails and you see what I mean.

Here they are with original medium in parentheses:

1983 Princess Leia (Movie)

1984 Freddy Krueger (Movie)

1985 Hulk Hogan (really?? Hulk Hogan, really??) (Wrestling)

1986 Care Bears (Greeting Cards)

1987 Where’s Waldo? (Books)

1988 Elvira (Television)

1989 Batman (Comic Books)

1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Comic Book)

1991 The Terminator (Movies)

1992 Cat Woman (Comic Books)

1993 Barney (Television)