The Animation and All Things Related House of Horrors, Part 2: Museum of the Weird Mascot Costumes

If you understood the reference in the name of the post, you're clearly as big of a Disney fan as I am. Congratulations.

Previously, our trek through the Animation and All Things Related House of Horrors took us through the Lair of the Creepy Toys, filled to the brim with disturbing-looking dolls, plushes, and figurines (didn't know it was possible to make a Mickey Mouse doll look terrifying? Guess what, it IS). Today, I'll be showing you even MORE horrifying creatures masquerading as beloved cartoon characters. Ones that will repulse you. Ones that will make you cringe...

No, I'm not doing a review of Jellystone!. This section of the Animation and All Things Related House of Horrors is packed with costumed versions of cartoon characters. You know, the kind you see at theme parks, or at movie premieres, or at birthday parties or whatever. I know some people are afraid of "mascot costumes", but I don't think I've ever had a problem with them. With some exceptions... one time my family went to Perkins and they were having a "Character Night", which meant there was somebody in a Tweety Bird costume wandering around the tables. I remember finding that giant Tweety off-putting.

The art of designing a mascot costume is one that's been covered in great detail by several YouTubers, notably Disney Dan and Nathan Spies (if you haven't watched any of their videos, I highly recommend it). Most of the time, you'll get something appealing-looking. For example, here's the Porky Pig they have wandering around Six Flags:

That looks great, doesn't it? Exactly like the animated character it's based on (well, maybe not EXACTLY, but you know what I mean). Or how about these Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo costumes?

Those are fantastic! But sometimes, you get a mascot costume that's supposed to be a beloved cartoon character but is more likely to make fans of the character run away screaming than run up to give them a hug. Some of these are official mascot costumes, others are bootlegs you can find on Etsy or running amok in Times Square. Enter, if you dare...

These Disney Character Costumes From the Ice Capades

Let's start off with an obvious one - at some point before Disneyland opened, several Disney characters appeared in one of the Ice Capades shows. They looked horrifying. For some reason, they couldn't get better-looking Mickey, Minnie, Pluto etc. costumes made in time for the grand opening of Disneyland in 1955, so they had these nightmare-inducing things run around the park. Mickey and Minnie, in particular, looked horrific. Eventually, they had those weird slices in their faces filled in, but given the addition of angry eyebrows:

This did not help at all.

These Early Mickey and Minnie Mouse Costumes

...and before the Ice Capades, THIS was how Mickey and Minnie were brought into the real world. Even that kid in the photo looks creeped-out.

The Costumes Used in That Live Phineas and Ferb Show

This is another relatively well-known one. I guess Ferb doesn't look TOO bad, but the others... yeesh. Not quite human, not quite cartoon character... isn't this what the plot of Cool World originally going to be? A human/cartoon character hybrid viewing herself as a freak and revolting against her human father?

For more information about this show, please watch Disney Dan's video about it. Apologies in advance for the nightmares!

Pretty Much Every Single Lola Bunny (Looney Tunes) Costume Ever Made

I can't think of a single cartoon character that's had more awful-looking mascot costumes than Lola Bunny. I don't know what it is about her design (maybe the fact that they tried to make her "hot", or the permanent DreamWorks Face she sports), but they still have yet to make a Lola Bunny costume that actually looks decent. And putting her next to a good-looking Bugs costume just makes her look even worse.

This Hyacinth Hippo (Fantasia) Costume

You know Hyacinth Hippo, don't you? The leader of the cheery dancing hippos in Fantasia, likely the reason why people think hippos are kindhearted souls until they go to Africa and discover that they're actually incredibly aggressive and one of the most dangerous animals in all of Africa? Well, this is what she looks like on those rare occasions when they bring her into the theme parks. It's always bothered me that they made her pink (she's not pink in the movie. She's brown!), but honestly, that's the least of this costume's worries. If somebody wore this on a trip to Africa, I bet actual hippos would take one look at it and run away screaming.

These Cosmo and Wanda (The Fairly OddParents!) Costumes

I don't think Butch Hartman's art style translates that well into three dimensions.

This Bootleg Sid the Sloth (Ice Age) Costume

The coloring is wrong. The face shape is wrong. The hair is wrong. The hands and feet are wrong. Everything about this costume is wrong. But I'm sure it'll come in handy when Ice Age enters the public domain and somebody inevitably decides to make a horror movie based on it.

These Timon, Pumbaa, and Rafiki (The Lion King) Costumes

For some inexplicable reason, Disney decided to use these in one of the Disney On Ice shows. I think Pumbaa's making that face because he just saw himself in a mirror.

This Ursula (The Little Mermaid) Costume

That poor unfortunate soul they forced to dressed like this...

This Porky Pig Costume From the 1940s

I'm a member of the Cartoon Research Facebook group, and recently fellow member Devon Baxter shared this photo with us dubbing it "Pure nightmare fuel from 1940." And that's a great way of describing it. I don't know which is freakier, that Porky costume or the dolls in the background.

These Bootleg Cat in the Hat Costumes

What makes these costumes horrifying is that they seem to specifically be based on the Mike Myers version of the Cat in the Hat. Let's be honest, the Mike Myers version of the Cat in the Hat was already pretty creepy-looking, so I have no idea why anyone would model their Cat in the Hat suit after it. At least this one doesn't curse...

This Captain Caveman Costume

Did they even have a reference picture when they were making this? Why the black beady eyes with the weird white mask around it? Why the oversized tongue sticking out? Maybe Captain Caveman is just hard to translate to a walkaround costume, but surely they could've made something more on-model than THIS.

The Big Hero 6 Character Costumes Used at Disneyland Paris

When Hiro, the main character from Disney's 2014 release Big Hero 6, did meet-and-greets in the American parks, they used a "face" character - as in, a character without a mask. That's what they usually do for human characters in the parks (such as the Disney princes and princesses, Peter Pan, Alice, what have you). For whatever reason, in Disneyland Paris they decided to make Hiro and his friends "fur" characters - the kind with masks. And... yeah. Suddenly it becomes pretty obvious why the American parks used a face character...

This Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) Costume

And speaking of Disneyland Paris, this is what they did when they decided to do a Jessica Rabbit meet and greet. She's not bad, she's just... actually, yeah, she's bad.

This Genie (Aladdin) Costume They Use at Disneyland Paris

I dare say this is on par with the CGI blue Will Smith version of the Genie from the 2019 remake.

This Shrek Costume they used at Universal Studios in 2001

Just so we're clear, I'm obviously not trying to say that the guy WEARING the costume has an ugly face or anything. It's just... there's a lot of Uncanny Valley going on with this costume. Fortunately, they didn't stick with this costume - at some point they started using a "fur character" Shrek instead of painting somebody's face green. It worked for Brian D'Arcy James, but it's not working for this guy.

This Dino (The Flintstones) Costume

Judging by the presence of Elizabeth Perkins and Rosie O'Donnell lookalikes, I believe this Dino is intended to look like the one from the live action movie adaptation of The Flintstones. That live action puppet/CGI Dino already looked a little creepy, but when you make it gigantic, suddenly it's terrifying. I think it's mainly those eyes...

These Hotel Transylvania Character Costumes

Yeah, they're monsters, they're SUPPOSED to be scary, but still...

This Bo Peep (Toy Story) Costume

I get what they were trying to do here, but... those EYES. Those LIPS. That weird plastic mask. Somebody tell this creature that its sheep wandered off so it'll go away.

This Bootleg Woody (Toy Story) Costume

There's something about the needlessly shiny face and his vacant expression that creeps me out. The shirt looks good, though, I'll give it that...

Incidentally, the same company that made this also made a Buzz Lightyear costume. Yes, it looks just as creepy.

This Fairy Godmother (Cinderella) Costume They Use at Tokyo Disneyland

Okay, there's a reason why the Fairy Godmother they use in the American parks is a face character. This is that reason.

This Doug Funnie (Doug) Costume

Say what you will about the Disney version of Doug - at least it led to a better-looking Doug walkaround than this one.

This Tommy Pickles (Rugrats) Costume

This is actually a pretty nice recreation of the cruder, more off-putting art style of the first season of Rugrats. Still, and I know this is an obvious joke, but... I've heard of fame going to your head, but this is ridiculous...

This Gadget (Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers) Costume

This one isn't TOO bad. It's mainly the eyes. She looks stoned.

This Mildew Wolf Costume

Not even the somewhat-obscure Hanna-Barbera characters are safe from having creepy costumes made of them. Now THIS is a Big Bad Wolf that I, for one, AM afraid of.

This Shaggy Rogers (Scooby-Doo) Costume

I also found out about this one via Facebook. All I can say is, zoinks...

This Abby Mallard (Chicken Little) Costume

Abby Mallard is the "Ugly Duckling", sure, but she isn't THAT ugly. In the movie, she's at least "Ugly Cute". This is just straight-up HIDEOUS.

This Bootleg SpongeBob SquarePants Costume

That poor kid. I think just looking at that thing is enough to scar her for life.

These Lumiere (Beauty and the Beast) Costumes

Okay, Disney Dan already talked about these costumes in his "Top 10 Creepiest Costume Characters at Disney Parks" video (I'm not limiting myself to just Disney characters, so this post is totally different!), but they're still worth bringing up. They have a perfectly good Lumiere costume they use in the Disney parks for stuff like the Beauty and the Beast live show at Disney's Hollywood Studios, so why on Earth would they create these disturbing half-face character/half-fur character hybrid things? Nobody looked at these and thought "Gee, these look utterly horrifying"? That bottom one in particular looks less like Lumiere and more like a demonic clown.

I... think this thing is supposed to be a bootleg Donald Duck Costume

I think this one speaks for itself, really...

The good news is, these creepy-looking mascot costumes tend to be the exception, not the rule. Companies like Olympus Mascots, Loonie Times, and International Mascots are able to translate iconic cartoon characters into walkaround costumes quite well, and Disney has been getting better and better at making great-looking costumes. So if you encounter a mascot costume in the wild, chances are it won't wind up in your nightmares.

Thus concludes our trip through the Animation and All Things Related House of Horrors. Now I will raise the safety bar and a creepy Tommy Pickles will follow you home!

Hurry back... hurry baaaaaaa-aaaaaaaack...