Halloween Costumes 2009

Halloween is coming soon. If you are tired of pulling out the same costume you wore the year before -- and they year before that, and the year before that, and the year before -- then here are some of the hottest costumes for Halloween 2009. Whether you are going to a friend's Halloween party or out in public to an event like the one at the Denver Zoo, there is something here for everyone.

As always, pop culture drives the Halloween costume industry. Political figures, hit TV show characters, and other celebrities dominate the selection of masks available, particularly for adult costumes. For kids costumes, familiar themes emerge every year for the non-brand name characters. For girls, princesses, fairies, and the like are always in fashion. For the boys, there are astronauts, pirates, and anyone who rides in a car with sirens. But for adults, the choices aren't always the same.

For adults, the choice is between a mask and a full costume.

Masks are dominated this year by politics. For men, President Obama masks are the most popular choice. For women, former Republican vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin take the honors for top adult Halloween mask in 2009. Runners-up include Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and George Bus among more current politicos. Of course, old favorites make great masks year after year like, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Regan.

Don't worry about whether you are a conservative or a liberal, both masks can be worn either as a respectful homage, or as mocking satire depending on what props you put with the mask, or based on what you say while wearing the mask.

If you'd rather have a full costume, and not just a hot piece of latex rubber pulled down over your head, there are plenty of choices for adults as well.

When it comes to adult costumes, the popular choices usually do not come from this year's hit movies, but rather from TV shows and movies that have already become beloved favorites, especially if their characters have that one trait that makes it obvious who you are, just by wearing it. Characters like Austin Powers, Indiana Jones, Wonder Woman, Batman, Spiderman, and so on take top spots on this list.

The other source of top adult costumes are favorite characters from yesterday. Just think about what TV shows have been re-made into terrible modern movies, or the shows that are likely to be next and you have a great idea about which characters will be hot adult costumes (before they get made into lame movies). In this realm are all the Flintstones characters, The Wizard of Oz characters, and the characters from the Addams Family.

To pull off a good couples costume, where both are wearing related outfits, can make the absolute best Halloween Costume choices. Done right, these are the kind of costumes that people will still be talking about next year.

First, make sure that both people want to do the couples costume. Forcing one person into the pairing makes for a lousy Halloween Party, no matter how great the costumes are. In this case, people will remember how much the one person hated it, not how great they both looked.

Second, the best couples costumes are those that have an equal amount of fun for each role. They don't have to be equally cool, or good, or whatever, but they must both be fun roles to have. In other words, skip the paired up costumes where one character is the great role that everyone loves and the other is a small or plain part. Costumes like Han Solo and Princess Lea, or Fred and Wilma Flintstone, or Mr. and Mrs. Smith are great choices, while Zorro, and whoever the girl was, are not so great.

For a really fun couple costume, ignore the gender issue. A couple dressed up as Austin Powers and Dr. Evil would be a big hit even if one of them isn't a man.

The most important tip is to have fun. Don't stress out over getting a great costume. The fact is that the best costumes is most often the one that is pulled off the best, not the one that starts out the best while both are on the hangar.

Also, remember where you will be going and how you are going to want to interact, or not, with other people. A full Obama mask might be fun for the first 20 minutes at a Halloween party full of friends you haven't seen in a long time, but soon it will be hot, hard to hear people, and hard to talk, plus you can't drink your drink with that mask on. In this case, go for a costume based on clothes so that your face can be open.

Likewise, if your event is an outside Halloween party like the Denver Boo at the Zoo you might want to go with something other than the sexy witch costume with nothing to keep you warm as the temperature starts to drop. In fact, that might be the time for the Obama mask!