The Clothes Make The Man

Truth be told, I made a lot of mistakes when I went to the first MST3K ConventioCon in 1994. It was my first trip to another state by myself, so I was still unsure of what to do. One of the biggest mistakes was blatantly missing out on the big finish of the convention: the Costume Ball.

First of all, I'm not a real outgoing person; I tend to feel uncomfortable at parties, especially if I'm going stag. Second, my flight home would be leaving early the following morning and I needed sleep. Finally, I didn't have a costume. Okay, those aren't very good reasons, but they are the actual reasons.

Flash forward to 1996. This time, I decided to change things. I scheduled my flight home for a full day after the Con would finish, rather than just the following morning. I thought over my dislike of large parties and decided, "Forget that. I'm going!" And thirdly, I put together a costume.

(To digress, here's my theory about costumes, Halloween or otherwise: Always wear something not too far removed from normal clothes. That way, if everyone else at a costume event chickens out, you don't look like a jerk. For example, I dressed as an unreasonable facsimile of Han Solo one Halloween at work. If no one else had dressed up, I'd have just ditched my gun, holster and vest; pulled off the makeshift Corellian Bloodstripe piping on my pants, turned my collar the right way out, and put on my tie. Voila! Back to the story)

After considerable thought, I decided on what to wear. Torgo was just too ragged for me, and I wasn't going as one of the Gamera kids and wear short shorts. Finally, I decided on one of the middle-aged Teenagers from Outer Space.

Here's how I looked:

Now the details. I started with coveralls from Sears, with reflective tape highlights on the front and electrical tape on the sleeve and pant leg cuffs. I added my own black turtleneck and sneakers, a cheap belt from K-Mart, and a disc shooting zap gun from a local pharmacy. (Okay, I know they didn't have beards in the movie, but I'm not about to lose my whiskers. They took too long to grow in.) Not too shabby, I figured.

At the convention, after a pleasant afternoon screening experiments and getting autographs, I repaired to my room at the Hilton and got dressed. It was difficult making sure everything was OK, but I got it figured out. So, costume-clad and disc gun-armed, I went to the party at the nearby Convention Center.

It was pretty nice, actually. As they were throughout the convention, the MSTies were friendly and the food was good. Finally, the costume parade began. I got in line with the other contestants and waited my turn. There were any number of Torgos and Mr. B Naturals. Several guys dressed up as Mitchell. (That's an easy costume actually; they just needed a loud sport coat, sloppy clothes and a six-pack of Schlitz.) One bunch of young ladies wore diaphanous white gowns, and just like undead wives in Manos, started a fairly well choreographed wrestling match. (A crowd favorite, to be sure.)

Finally, it was my turn.

I was rather nervous; I hadn't been on stage since a middle school talent show. I went forward to the lovely and talented Bridget Jones, who was a co-host for the parade. In response to her question, I introduced myself and said I was dressed as the "TORCHA!" guy from Teenagers from Outer Space. (At that point, the lovely and talented Kevin Murphy distinctly said "Nice use of the voice!") I stepped forward, received some applause and exited. I wasn't the only Teenager from Outer Space to appear that night but, at the risk of sounding vain, my costume was the grandest of them all!

After a while, I got tired and went back to my room. Back at the Hilton, a couple of fellow MSTies were gracious enough not only to take the picture seen above, but also to not steal my camera. The ConventioCon finished up the following day.

All in all, I had a good time. It was nice to be able to show off my dress sense to my fellow fans and be appreciated, and to reciprocate towards their handiwork. Maybe, next time, I'll try Vorelli; the beard will fit in.

Oh, by the way, the winner of the contest was a fan dressed as MR. B TORGO!

I don't have a photo, so I'll leave that costume to your imagination.

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