SQUEEZER WROTE A BLOG: see below
It was the fall of 1989, I was 6 years old and like every kid my age I was into a certain team of kick ass super heroes. A crew of colorful heroes that take down the bad guys, love rock & roll, and teach kids some positive messages.
Hailing from the planet Sparkle Smile, the Sparkles battle Crummy Crater on behalf of Crest and their parent company Proctor & Gamble. They were three gelatinous gobs of toothpaste that lip synced songs about brushing your teeth.
The sparkles were featured in some pretty epic toothpaste commercials in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
youtube.com/watch?v=Y8RT7PMoiVU
But they also stared in their own direct to video short produced by none other than the Professional Affairs Division of Proctor & Gamble. Directed by Michael Sporn and staring a young Jason Biggs (yes, maybe that Jason Biggs) my sister and I watched this on VHS all the time. Why? My mom was a dental hygienist. The job came with cool perks like getting two styrofoam planes out of the treasure chest instead of one, never buying toothpaste (I still got free samples from her into my 30’s) and of course rad promotional materials like a toothpaste cartoon. At under 10 minutes this is well worth your time.
youtube.com/watch?v=apwWNM0xP0A
But now for why we’re really here. For halloween 1989 I made my own Crest Sparkle Kid costume.
Lets start with our base layer. Fortunately I happened to have a sweatshirt in the same shade a Crest Sparkle Toothpaste. You don’t want to cover up that canvas we’ll get to shortly.
The jeans are a testament to the fact that no inseam has ever existed for a young man with the legs of an Emperor Penguin. Those velcro shoes are pretty sick, I miss those.
In my hand I’m holding what looks to be some kind of dish brush. It looks like it was used for quite some time. Lets hope we bought a new one after this night.
The shirt I painted myself using puffy glitter paint. At the bottom you will see a tooth brush and a tube of tooth paste. I wrote out “Crest Sparkle Kid” because even at 6 I clearly knew no one would know what the hell I was. To finish it off and to to stay within the rules of 80’s halloween character costumes, I painted a picture of a Crest Sparkle on my shirt.
Now for the mask. It was a very soft puffy mask. It almost felt like a gel on the outside. This was gifted to my mom’s dental office on behalf of a sales rep, to inspire children into using crest products. Clearly the entire inspiration for this costume came from having this mask. I won’t deny the irony that I spent the evening dressed as cavity fighting toothpaste while trick or treating. I never went too scary with my halloween costumes. I was Jason one year, Ghost Face another, slapped some fake blood on the later years when I got lazy. But look at the posture, look at the hands gripping that brush. Look at those little velcro shoes….
Now look into those eyes of a child dressed as toothpaste and tell me it’s not terrifying. -Squeezer
