The most popular Halloween costumes of every decade

Besides all of the candy, the best part of Halloween has to be dressing up. Every year, people obsessively spend weeks (or months) planning and putting together the perfect costume. And for 2017, that means transforming into the kids from Stranger Things, trying to make people smile (or poo) as an emoji, or throwing it back ‘90s style as a Sanderson sister from Hocus Pocus. But how did people transform themselves for Halloween throughout the decades?

For the Most Popular Halloween Costumes of Every Decade Slideshow, click here.

With some help from Spirit Halloween and by scouring the Internet for Halloween costume photos that were frankly horrifying, we found the most popular Halloween costumes from the 1920s until now. Until the 1940s, costumes were homemade, which meant that the clowns, witches, and skeletons running around and wreaking havoc were lovingly made by Mom or Dad. But in the 1940s, Ben Cooper and his cheap rubber masks came into play, allowing for more creative and culturally relevant costumes. Since then, we’ve seen hugely popular figures like Charlie Brown, Hulk Hogan, the Power Rangers, and Harry Potter represented through costumes.

What was the most popular costume when you were trick-or-treating? Click here to find out the most popular Halloween costumes of every decade.