Gaby— this post just unlocked the forgotten memories from the Halloween of ‘09. I’m pretty sure I was in the 7th grade.
Myself and my three best friends were all obsessed with Total Drama. Like, we literally would call each other every week so we could watch the new episode that aired together and then throughly discuss afterwards. It was the focal point of most conversations and it had been out a year or so at the time (I’m pretty sure Action was running), so we were already obsessed and dedicated fans by then.
Anyways, back to the story.
So somebody came up with an idea that it would be so cool to make Total Drama the theme for Halloween and, of course, the rest of us were like, “fuck yeah!!” and the rest was history.
We each chose a character to dress up as— one that resembled us individually that we could personify. The one guy picked Chris (closeted, charming and obnoxiously outgoing), the other guy picked Harold (lanky, awkward, super nerdy/dorky), the other girl picked Gwen (super artsy, dark and gothic) and, naturally, I picked Duncan (deliberately defiant and rebellious).
For penniless, yet creative and determined 13 year olds, we legit went all out.
We ended up taking a trip to Good Will to handcraft costumes on like, a $20 budget that surprising turned out to be super accurate. Like, that shit was no joke meant to be. That one dumpy thrift store in our town coincidently had everything we needed outfit-wise. We all ended up dying our hair, did the required makeup, bought the props/jewelry needed, etc. We were on a mission and we’re in it too deep to half-ass any aspect.
Halloween was fast approaching and it had to be perfect.
The other girl in the group was an insanely talented artist too so she drew the character symbols in this totally recognizable, yet semi-realistic way. She was so proud of herself and our reactions totally hyped her up. We ended up printing and ironing them onto our shirts because we weren’t chumps who drew on our second-hand clothing with sharpies.
Honestly, I cannot express how overboard we went. I low key want to cringe 15 years later, but I just can’t. It was like our lives depended on this shit. It actually is a fond memory of that period of my childhood.
We even ended up posting our costumes on that old Total Drama Blogspot website and two of us were recognized because, you know, gotta share the glory with the fandom.
As an adult looking back, I have to admit that the whole thing was simultaneously badass and super weird/lame. It was really the period of time when all of our parents were like, “oh, this totally isn’t normal— it goes way beyond some show they enjoy watching together. Maybe we should be a little concerned.”
Like, I still vividly remember how fed up my mom was with entire situation. Especially when I begged her to buy me a spiked dog collar off eBay. She made me get rid of it as soon as Halloween was over because she refused to “encourage my troubled, punk rock phase.”
You could say she was a not-so-happy camper.
Long story short, we pulled the whole thing off and walked around like gods that night confusing every adult that opened the door for us when they asked who we were dressed as. That didn’t bother us though. We had until curfew to educate every adult we met about the greatest show ever created. After all, we were doing our community a great service by spreading the word.
“I’m sorry— Total Drama who?”
“Oh, ma’am, it’s okay, we’re here to help. Why don’t you relax, pop a squat on the steps and unwrap a Snickers bar while we indulge you on the glory of animated teens fighting for their lives in order to win more fictional money than you and I would ever know what to do with…”
