The Halloweenista Is In: It's Costume Time

Halloween is the creative mind’s time to shine: a whole day to step into another character, whatever character you want. Sure plenty of folks hastily throw together a costume from whatever they can find in their closet, but there are also plenty of diehards that pour their heart and soul into their costume and, if just for one night, become the life of the party. A&E searched far and wide and found three students who are going all out this year.

Keystone Samurai

Brett Stolpestad, philosophy sophomore

The samurai, the now-mythical pre-industrial Japanese warrior, comes dripping with all of the badass connotations of Chuck Norris but with an indistinct face. Stolpestad cleaned up a frat house Saturday morning and had all the materials he needed to turn a Friday night’s trash into Halloween gold.

“I’ve always admired samurai. I’ve always wanted to be some sort of ninja and/or samurai for Halloween,” he said. “I got the idea from a picture on the Internet and just decided to make my own.”

Stolpestad spent upward of eight hours meticulously crafting his suit of armor out of empty Keystone Light cases. Though his craftsmanship is spot on, he hasn’t had much experience putting a lot of effort into Halloween costumes.

“Every year I’ve just kind of casually thrown a costume together and this year I wanted to do something kind of cool that would stand out and would also be fun to make,” he said.

Tobias Fünke from Arrested Development

Andrew Rynda, mechanical engineering senior

Despite critical acclaim, the snowballing, quick-witted giggles of “Arrested Development” met their demise five years ago when Fox canceled the show in 2006 due to mediocre ratings. But thanks to the advent of Netflix and a committed cult following, the show’s legacy still has a palpable heartbeat. Rynda’s Tobias get-up is a testament to the show’s hilarity and the recently announced full-length feature film could not come soon enough.

“I was talking one night with my friend about ‘Arrested Development’ and it just popped into my mind. Then I became extremely enthusiastic about it,” Rynda said.

Sporting the “never nude” cut-off jeans, a bald cap and a fully blue painted body, let’s all hope Rynda will slyly slip an excessive number of sexual innuendos into casual conversation this weekend.

Bon Qui Qui from the “Mad TV” skit

Amy Palmer, international business and marketing senior

When “Mad TV” skits leave the television and leak onto Youtube, we find out which ones have staying power and which ones will have people laughing for years to come. With more than 50 million hits, Bon Qui Qui undoubtedly belongs to the latter group.

“Last spring I studied abroad and one of the things my new friends and I did there was watch Youtube videos when we wanted to remember home,” Palmer said. “Bon Qui Qui happened to be one of those and she had us laughing hard enough that I thought it would be a good Halloween costume.”

In jovial Halloween spirit, Palmer’s costume is just another way for her to make people laugh.

“Halloween is an opportunity to either express yourself creatively or just be goofy because you can,” Palmer said. “I like to have fun and make people smile.”