The Best Group Costume Ideas are the Worst Costume Ideas

Original group costume ideas can be hard to invent. There is nothing worse than getting to a party and realizing you are wearing the same costume as many other people. A good way to avoid these problems is to just get wild and crazy, and go with a costume that you know is a bad idea.

I have much field experience wearing tacky costumes. In my freshman year of college I went to a party as Derelict Smurf. I didn't have time to design a conventional lame costume. I had more important things to do, like abuse alcohol and broaden my intellectual horizons with fastidious study. I went up to a girl's dorm hall, and asked them to paint me blue with magic markers. They made me lay down in just my boxers, and did so. It was pretty cool having a dozen women fastidiously marker me.

All smurfs need hats, even derelict smurfs. I borrowed the white long underwear of a friend and made do. Unfortunately, I vomited in the underwear. I tried to return the long underwear to my friend, but she was appalled by the thought.

Another year my costume was feces. That is, I went as a turd, a more difficult costume to design and implement than it may first seem. A "friend" suggested I smear feces on me. I refused his magnanimous suggestion.

It seemed more sanitary to wear a brown shirt and pants. I had no costume planned, as I was going to spend the evening with my girlfriend, but then we got in a huge, huge argument, yet again. So I was at home, and my homies insisted I come to a party with them. I had less than a half hour to think up and design a costume. Channeling my inner MacGyver, I scoured my pad, procured corn, peanuts, clear tape, and a hefty dose of fortitude. My housemates manned up and toped dozens of pieces of corn and peanuts to me in minutes.

Wasted dudes at the party kept treating me like a hors d' oeuvres, plucking peanuts off me and eating them. A German Shepherd kept nibbling on my corn, and inadvertently also my leg. Chicks were completely sickened by the costume. This included my girlfriend, who has also decided to attend the party at the last minute. She glanced at the costume with disdain and said our relationship was over. She told me that that I was a real piece of $#@!. Tough to argue that one. My friends and I laughed about that whole evening for years.

I love hues, and am well over 6 feet tall. A few Halloweens later, I returned to the girls hall, laid down, and they approached with blue markers. I told them no, to get green markers, and make me into a jolly green giant. Wearing a green-bean crown (uncooked beans), and a toga of freshly plucked leaves taped together, I was truly a jolly sight. I never found out who spray painted my hair, but the used Krylon car paint rather than washable stuff. The ladies rounded out the costume with an admirable make-up job that included lipstick, eyeliner, and other stuff I don't even know the name of. Overall, not a bad costume.

I trounced around the party saying ho, ho, ho green giant in a deep voice. Except that women seemed to only hear the first part, and would get all mad, thinking someone was bad mouthing them. I'm not chauvinist, but maybe they resented the comments because it was an apt descriptor.

You don't need anything but the proper mindset to make a great group costume on the cheap. You simply need the courage to follow through on outlandish costume ideas no one else is bold enough to wear.