A mask by Ben Cooper Inc. of the cyclops Rell from the 1983 film ‘Krull.’
After launching his company, Ben Cooper Inc. in 1937, Brooklyn native Ben Cooper Sr. would help make his costume business hugely successful thanks to their prolific production line of kooky plastic masks. If you owned a plastic mask anytime in the 1940s through the 1980s or so, it was probably made by Ben Cooper Inc. or their closest competitor, Collegeville which was founded in 1923.
I’m a sucker for Halloween ephemera, even though most of what Ben Cooper Inc. put out would eventually find its way into large chain stores like JC Penney and other discount retailers where you could buy cheap but cool costumes and masks of all varieties for a less than four bucks. Whoever you wanted to be for Halloween, Ben Cooper had you quite literally covered. The company would start production of their costumes and masks as early as the first of the year which would yield a veritable hoard of costumes for the coming season. From famous icons like President John F. Kennedy to hyper-colored riffs on classic movie monsters and other ghouls, Ben Cooper Inc. was a Halloween machine. The company had several licensing agreements with high profile clients such as Walt Disney and George Lucas allowing them access to some of the most popular fictional characters of all time. Cooper even scored a license in 1979 to make a costume modeled after H.R. Giger’s xenomorphs that terrorized filmgoers in Alien that same year.
Political masks were also popular items in Ben Cooper Inc.‘s supply chain. In addition to JFK and his first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, they also made other presidential masks such as Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and even Mikhail Gorbachev. Following Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, the company destroyed its entire supply of JFK and Jackie Kennedy masks. Then, in 1982 the horrific news that a child and six adults died after ingesting Extra Strength Tylenol that had been tainted with cyanide in metropolitan locations of Chicago rocked the U.S. about a month before Halloween. The story quickly fueled mass hysteria based on speculation that Halloween candy and treats might also be poisoned. Costume sales for Ben Cooper Inc. (and every other costume and candy manufacturer for that matter) came to a grinding halt, and for many years following the unsolved incident, the Halloween costume business struggled to recover.
Most of the masks and costumes I’ve featured in the post can be found on auction sites like eBay or vintage Internet purveyors like Etsy. Check ‘em all out below!
The rare JFK and Jaqueline Kennedy masks.
Beatnik mask.
Female hipster.
More masks after the jump…