Dressing Up Halloween: The Story of Ben Cooper, Inc.

I was really, really looking forward to this. It was such a let down. There is no history given about the creation of the business. It was just former employees talking about costumes and Cooper's grandson--who talks with....a cadence...that can...get....annoying...after hearing him speak....for...more than....five minutes. Not to mention, 30 minutes of this is just the guy shouting out pop culture figures, "Bert and Ernie! Big Bird! The Six Million Dollar Man! Smurfs!" And after about 20 minutes, you realize all of the old looking footage is the same models in the same locations, waving. This could have been so much better.

The Nacelle Company has fun, fantastic and fast documentaries about American pop culture including The Toys That Made Us, The Movies That Made Us and Icons Unearthed. They've always been thorough and gripping in the way they're produced. I was excited to see what they had to say about the Ben Cooper Halloween costume phenomenon! But this doc seems to be maybe one they almost had enough content for but couldn't quite put it all together for a full documentary. They have Cooper'a grandson who was deeply involved in the company plus a few long time employees. And a lot of video and photos of kids on the costumes. Other than the lack of snappy editing, what's really missing is the narrator. No narrator means no cohesiveness. There's not even a real "here's how it began..." timeline. It's just these handful of people telling random stories, mostly Cooper'a grandson who loudly and enthusiastically yells about Halloween costumes. We never really find out why or how Cooper came up with the product. Did he? Was he the first? What was the process? How did the product change? We got all of this info and more from all the Toys That Made Us episode subjects. This documentary ended up being really boring and unwatchable. Such a bummer because it could be so fun, and I know Nacelle can do way better.