Ben Cooper Superman costume (1970)

This is the 1970 version of the Ben Cooper Superman costume with its original box. The costume features flame retardant materials and comes with a vinyl cape and plastic “domino” mask. It’s amazing to me that these costumes cost only $2.96 at the time. This version of the costume continued to be sold through the early 1970s until they revised the costume’s material and included a face mask instead of the domino mask.

Although this isn’t my original one, this costume is the exact version that I wore as a young child. When my parents took me to the store in mid-October of 1972 (yikes) they took me down the Ben Cooper costume aisle and asked me what I wanted to dress as for Halloween. Once I saw the Superman box… that was it. When we brought it home, they took the costume out of the box and I realized that it didn’t have red trunks, had no yellow ’S’ symbol on the cape, and had sewn-on vinyl spats for boots. Seeing my disappointment at in the company’s inaccuracy (keep in mind… I was only four years old), my mom joined forces with my dear grandmother to re-work the costume… to my specifications. When it was over, new pant legs were added, my red Buster Brown shorts were sewn on, an ’S’ symbol was added to the cape, and my dad gave me a pair of red socks that he conveniently had in his dresser drawer. Since I was so young, the socks came up to my knees. Perfect! The only thing was that my mom insisted I wear the red domino mask. Grrrrrr. I wore the costume numerous times after that Halloween… but without the mask.