It’s happened again. You’ve procrastinated and now you need a spooky seasonal costume for the Halloween festivities. Amazon’s quickest shipping estimate feels like a dice roll and you haven’t tested your arts-and-crafts skills since third grade.
It probably won’t be pretty, but you can at least make your costume a recognizable nod to the local storylines that stood out this year.
As is our tradition, Billy Penn has pulled together our suggestions for very Philly costumes, inspired by the more memorable happenings from the past year. The designs have been kept as simple as possible, made from things you either already have sitting around your home or could buy/make for a couple of bucks.
‘Phillies Karen’
The most viral moment of the Phils baseball season happened in a September game against the Marlins in Miami. Harrison Bader’s home run led to a dispute between the man who collected the ball for his son and a woman who felt it was taken from her, all in Phillies gear. The woman eventually got the ball, along with the collective ire of social media. The boy, Lincoln Feltwell, got a signed bat from Bader, and we all hopefully learned a lesson about recklessly meting out justice through social media.
BP trending news reporter Nick Kariuki as “Phillies Karen.” (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
Apart from getting hold of a silver-grey wig from a costume store or online, this is a pretty easy costume to throw together if you’re a Phillies fan, or know some. To create the look of the hoodie the woman was wearing, you can combine a Phils red hoodie with a white or cream jersey over it. Throw in blue jeans, glasses and whatever baseballs you can find, which you’ll guard as fiercely as Gollum with that bauble in “Lord of the Rings.”
This costume has already taken off in ballparks around the country. It could also work as a family costume if you have a willing child to snatch the ball from.
A trash pile
Probably the most memorable sight — and smell — of District Council 33’s eight-day strike was the piles of uncollected trash building up all over the city, while the city and the city’s largest labor union worked out a new contract.
Some called the collected trash “Parker Piles,” to tie the strike to Mayor Parker. The sight of your disheveled mess of a costume should instantly remind locals of the standoffs at trash dumps, LL Cool J dropping out of the Wawa Welcome to America concert and the smelliest Fourth of July most can remember.
BP investigative reporter Meir Rinde as a trash pile. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
How to do it: Get a trash bag and cut it into four smaller bags. Add a few small plastic bags, fill each with crumpled newspaper, string them together and sling the strings over your neck. To top it off, investigative reporter Meir Rinde printed out a close-up photo of a fly and taped it onto a bag, helping to sell the smell aspect of the costume without needing to resort to actual stinky trash.
A Philly Pope
The world’s Catholic population mourned the death of Pope Francis in April, but his successor Pope Leo XIV, the first American Pope, brought extra celebrations in the Philadelphia area for his ties to the city. Robert Prevost, a Chicago native, graduated from Villanova University with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1977. While he’s very likely the first pope to frequent Wawa, he has yet to divulge what his go-to order is.
BP editor Kevin Donahue as the Philly Pope. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
For the costume, go deep in your clothes drawer or find a rubber container in your basement that has clothes from a decade ago, when Villanova was an NCAA title contender, and grab that old T-shirt. (Alternate, find a Rally House or Dick’s.) A white smock or old housecoat can be turned into the cassock, and a 5-foot-long piece of white fabric that’s about a foot wide can serve as the fascia, which is the sash. The cassock and fascia need to be white. Editor Kevin Donahue used posterboard, a gold marker and tape to make the hat.
There’s not much to the construction. Google can give you the shape of the hat; trace and cut with scissors, color with gold marker. Throw on the T-shirt, then the cassock (Donahue tore it so you can see the T-shirt) and finally the fascia. Put on your hat, pick up a Bible and maybe a red Wawa bag. After all, red is a papal color.
Voila, Sua Santità!
A Philly Labubu
The Asian toy trend of menacing-looking rabbit dolls has taken over the world, including Philly, along with the multitude of clothes and accessories for adorning them.
It’s pretty easy to find Eagles, Sixers or Phillies apparel for your little nightmare, so why not turn yourself into the biggest, most Philly Labubu you can?
BP general assignment reporter Violet Comber-Wilen as a Philly Labubu. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
First you need a “Philly base” of accents that link the costume to the city. Reporter Violet Comber-Wilen went with an Eagles shirt and a Phillies hat.
Next, build up the iconic and recognizable look of a Labubu. Comber-Wilen wore a fuzzy white coat under the Eagles shirt, ordered ears (which you can also craft) and made a Labubu face using cardboard, a Sharpie, felt paper, glue, scissors and popsicle sticks. Remember, it needs to have nine triangle teeth, otherwise it’s a Lafufu.
One additional step she learned from the many online tutorials by “mom influencers” was cutting up the felt paper into “claws” that you can attach to your sleeves and pants.
A SEPTA Regional Rail train, on fire
It’s been a rough year for SEPTA. Along with the funding cuts stemming from the impasse over the state budget, several Regional Rail trains have caught on fire, leading the feds to order safety audits of the entire railcar fleet and more SEPTA employee safety training.
While a literal train fire is understandably terrifying for all involved, the visual serves as an apt metaphor for a transportation agency that itself said it was headed towards “doomsday” if it didn’t receive more, and more dependable, funding, in the future.
BP intern Ben Bennett as as SEPTA Regional Rail car, on fire. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
Building your own regional railcar at home isn’t as hard as you think, Billy Penn intern Ben Bennett says. Grab any rectangular box big enough for you to fit inside, cut off the flaps, and paint the whole outside grey. Next, paint on the blue and red SEPTA stripes. Once that dried, he traced and cut out oval windows.
Your car is now finished — it’s time to add the fire. Take some orange construction paper and cut out flames to fill in the windows, securing them on the inside with tape. To finish it off, attach some kitchen twine to the inside of the car to create straps for the box to hang from your shoulders. Now you’re all set to have the hottest costume this Halloween.
Pa. state candy poll
After a Pa. House bill was introduced to make Hershey Kisses Pennsylvania’s official state candy, we asked the Billy Penn audience what candy they thought should represent the state. Harrisburg’s pick came third and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups was surprisingly second, behind the humble Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews.
BP deputy editor Heather Chin as a Pa. state candy poll. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
BP deputy editor Heather Chin as a Pa. state candy poll. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
House Bill 1030 remains in the state Senate’s hands, so if you want to conduct your own straw poll to see what your friends and family think, you can fashion your costume into one.
Billy Penn deputy editor Heather Chin did this using two blank canvases from last year’s Halloween guide — a sandwich board or card will also work — and used wire to connect them with arm straps, and also attach a marker. On one canvas, she taped a paper with the state candy poll options written out, leaving room for people to add tally marks. On the other canvas the sweet treats list on the poll were stuck on.
Whether or not you give participants the candy they voted for, or keep it for yourself, is up to you.
A Calder mobile
The $100 million Calder Gardens opened on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway last month, giving art lovers a space to take in Alexander Calder’s sculptures and mobiles as he intended.
The Pennsylvania native’s works are distinct and recognizable, so putting one together shouldn’t take too much work. A tagline for the Calder Gardens is “Open for Interpretation,” so you can take any feedback as a jumping off point for an art discussion.
BP Philly culture reporter Julia Binswanger as a Calder mobile. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
You’ll need a headband, craft foam paper and aluminum wire. First, wrap the wire around the headband to shape a branch-like sculpture on top of it. Add colored foam shapes at the ends of the wire’s branches. Philly culture reporter Julia Binswanger wore a black turtleneck and pants to complement the sculpture and look “extra artsy.”