The McCheese Campaign page 4

We then learned that all you need are a pair of googley eyes and you can

turn anything in your office into a zany cartoon character.

Once the eyes and hat were hot-glued on, the head was complete. Now to move on to the lower body. Let me just add right here that wearing a giant cheeseburger around the office gets you more than a few strange looks.

I was able to find a pink trenchcoat (!) orange vest, and purple pants easily enough. The only thing I would have to make was the sash.

I found some satiny purple material and cut the basic sash shape.

Amazing Flex Glue Use no 2: by flex gluing the sides of the sash, it kept the ends from fraying and allowed me to make a clean cut that wouldn’t unravel as the night wore on.

	As the glue dried, I cut the letters out of canvas and likewise flex glued them so they wouldn’t fray. I was going to sew them to the sash, but found that the glue held them pretty well, so I went the much easier route.



My favorite part of the lower body costume has got to be the Mayor’s groovy 70s fashion sense. The butterfly collar is truly the heppest thing this side of Greg Brady and Huggy Bear. Found this little gem of a shirt at my folks’ house. Since I couldn’t find stripey pants I wore the purple ones I wore on Jeopardy. You know it's bad when you're wearing your own clothes as a Haloween costume. The trench coat didn't look quite right, since the mayor wears a tuxedo coat with tails. I was able to make tails out of the trench coat simply by strategically safety pinning it.
	And that’s it! Costume complete! With Press Secretary Hamburglar at the ready, the Mayor was ready to meet his constituents.
	Friday night, Jolene and I checked out the scene at Jerzees in Inver Grove Heights. We had a fun time, despite the fact that nobody in the early-twenties crowd even knew who I was. People kept thinking I was the Hamburglar, as they shouted out the only name they knew from the commercials. At one point I tried explaining our identities, wildly pointing at the large word MAYOR on my sash. One guy even called me the Hamburglar and Jolene, “The Hamburlar’s Prisoner.” Whatever.
I really liked this couple’s Zap Branigan and Lela costumes from Futurama. Too bad you can’t see them too clearly in this pic. Jolene like the Kiss guys because not only were they intimidating, but they were the only other people n there over 30
We thought Frankenstein was awesome. He had no trouble maneuvering the crowded bar with that giant costume.
It was funny – all the really good costumes had this unspoken appreciation for one another. We’d just nod at one another as a way of saying, “nice job. I appreciate how you too went way over the top with your costume.” The competition portion was run very very badly. A panel of 4 judges chose 15 finalists (all of the above photos were included in the top 15). But as 30-40 of us crowded onto the stage, the DJ asked for crowd noise to determine the winner. In the end, it was fruitless for all of us, as the $500 prize went to a six pack of STORE-BOUGHT beer bottle costumes. The ZZ Topless group also scored high with the crowd, since they flashed their parts to win cheers. The way things are now, costumes about sex and drinking are the only ones that will win in this frat-boy environment.. Saturday was much more fun. Jolene and I hosted our first Halloween Party, and our first major party since settling into the new house.
	Brian and Carolyn won the Best Couple award for their Deal or No Deal costumes.
Bill and Krista came as Bunny Detectives.
The Bridge Club came not only with costumes, but also boxed wine and a non stop performance in character. Hilarious. Austin Powers came by. Loved the bowl cut wig.
	Erin and Jon came as a Scare-Ho and Old Mac-Daddy, complete with blinged-out pitchfork
So a good time was had by all. Halloween Wednesday, I’ll try again to win prizes at First Ave’s big party, but honestly, I’m guessing It’ll go to another raunchy costume. But I just love going anyway. It totally makes it worth the trouble when someone recognizes the hard work that went into the costume. And everyone wants to take my picture. Its fun being loved like that.
	All told, it was fun making the McCheese head. It’s good to challenge myself creatively once a year. Jolene has already hinted at what we should be next year and I’ll admit, I’m thinking seriously about how to that happen. You’ll just have to check back next year to find out. If you have any Comments, questions, or other cheeseburger craft projects, feel free to email me at nate_metcalf@yahoo.com.