There were other mediums besides old cartoons that used to be good to kids and understood how strange kids' tastes are.
#1 rule of kid stuff. All kid products should be weird and make no sense. Logic is the enemy of fun. Any executives listening?
Toys used to be cool. Golden Books, comics and other related products all had their own styles and strange design customs.
One of the greatest kid design mediums in history was the Halloween Costume. I don't know who these designers were, but they all shared some traditions and odd ideas.
The basic concept that held all the infinite design variations together was this:
A costume has to be a character who wears a drawing of himself on his shirt. I wish I knew what genius came up with that inspired idea! Wouldn't you love to have a shirt with a picture of yourself on it? I know Eddie would.
It's even better if the character wears his friends on his shirt.
Another variation of the concept: The picture of the character on the shirt has to look different than the mask of the same character. It really helps if the colors also don't match.
I have a feeling that the guys who made the masks never met the guys who made the shirts. Maybe they were outsourced to different continents?
I wonder where the patterns on the shirts came from? Were they inspired by medieval knights' costumes?
Every little kid in the 50s and 60s looked like they were on the Children's Crusade on Halloween. Is that what Halloween is? A holdover of the Crusades?
KNOCK-OFFS ARE GOOD TOO
I love when companies just steal characters and do weird versions of them and give them funny names. This works for all toys and merchandise.
Here's a great site with lots of cool costume fun!
http://retrocrush.buzznet.com/archive2003/costumes/
and for the girls...
As with everything, the modern version of this product category has completely degenerated.
OLD = COOL
NEW = POO
In the late 60s everything that was once cool went to Hell.
Lumpy, bland, puffy brown stuff for kids.
Imagine going on a crusade dressed like this? The infidels would know how weak western children have become and destroy what's left of our civilization in a flash of fire and blood.The 50s and 60s was a Golden Age for kids. So what did the kids who had all this fun do when they grew up? They became dirty hippies and then corporate executives and ruined everything so that no more kids could ever have fun again!
They took the prizes out of cereal, the violence out of cartoons, the fins off cars, played soft rock, went to Cal Arts and created reality shows.
The end of the world is nigh.