What a TV anchor can teach you about Halloween Costumes

Natalie
Oct 23, 2021
3 min read

Updated: Nov 26, 2024

More than two decades on TV and each year I tried to outdo the year before with more creative costumes.  Below are a few of my favorites; feel free to steal any of my family or on-air ideas. Most were pretty easy and all were great fun.  I've provided links to help you out if you want to oder online. You may have some of these things around the house but two day shipping is a life-saver!

Barbie head doll. Remember the barbie head? You could practice your hair skills and put make up on the doll. I took a box, covered it with pink fabric and then glued dollar store make up on the box. Cheap and easy! My TV viewers loved this one.
My Kids. These are my kids costumes a few years ago, two of which were made from things we had at home. A Captain America Jacket/hoodie served as a great costume that was worn outside of Halloween, Skateboarder kid was an easy costume that was dressed up with a hover board with lights and whoopee Cushion: not sure what motivated this one but it was under $30 at a local party store.
The spider cape is my standard. It's warm, easy to throw on and I have worn it for 10 years when we go trick-or-treating. I get so many compliments on this and it makes my halloween so much easier knowing I just need to wear black pants and then throw on this cape. You can find one very similar to mine here. My son is a fortnite fan. I try to buy costumes my kids will wear again and this costume doubles as pajamas!
Can you guess who we are? Mike and Carol Brady. I grew up watching the Brady Bunch so this one was fun. A short layered blond wig and 70s shirt (or this 70s shirt) and you can recreate this very easily. I try to get shirts that I'd actually wear again!
So this idea worked well for TV. We had some fun with the magic of the green screen. Anything green disappears so this was easy. We were headless TV anchors. You could create this on instagram or another app that has green screen technology. Here is where you can get a green hood like we used.
Matilda! My daughter went through a huge Matilda stage and this costume was super easy. A plain blue dress and navy sweater. And again, the dress is wearable year round.
This was just a fun year on TV. I loved being Snow White. It's easy to find a Snow White Costume online but here's a simple one.
We did a series of "TV show hosts" Halloween Costumes. Can you guess who we are in this black and white photo (we actually broadcast part of our show this way on Halloween). I was Mary Tyler Moore. Very easy to recreate this with a Navy Blue or black sweater and pearls.
This was rather elaborate but so fun. My co-host and I decided to reverse roles for this TV show host costume. I was Regis Philbin and he was Kathie Lee Gifford.
And this might just be the cutest and more sincere compliment I've received as a TV anchor. A viewer sent in pictures of her kids who dressed up as us for Halloween. Not hard to create a costume for this. Just dress up and use a very series voice with a smile.