• Peter Alan
    1 of 10

    Halloween is a time for creativity, for pushing the envelope and dressing up like something truly hilarious or scary. But some people just don’t have the time, so they go down to their local Party City and buy a half-ass costume in a bag. Even funnier is when people don’t want to shell out for an actual licensed costume and buy a knock-off instead. Here are ten hilarious examples of awful bootleg Halloween costumes.

    Candy Factory Worker

    Bootleg of: Oompa Loompas from "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory"

    Dressing up as an Oompa Loompa isn’t a terribly bad decision, especially if you’re short, but this presentation is so embarrassing that it had to make the list. First off, the store selling it can’t decide whether to call it a “Candy Factory Worker” or a “Wonky Worker,” both of which are awful. Second, the “costume” is just a pair of white coveralls with pieces of plastic in the hips. The shirt isn’t even the right color! There’s a lot more to celebrating the trauma of greedy kids than just an outfit, people.

  • Robert Thomas Pattinson - The actor - The musician/facebook
    2 of 10

    Night Time Romeo

    Bootleg of: Edward Cullen from "Twilight"

    The "Twilight" trend seems to be dying down a bit, which is good, but there are still plenty of people out there who want to embody the eternal (and stupid) romance between Edward Cullen and Bella Swan for themselves. The problem here is that neither of those characters are particularly visually interesting. The vampires in "Twilight" just sprinkle glitter on themselves. That didn’t stop some enterprising costume makers from releasing Night Time Romeo, which is essentially just a dumb wig to give you Robert Pattinson hair. If that’s the extent of your Halloween costume, maybe you should stay home.

  • Funworld
    3 of 10

    Celebrity Chef

    Bootleg of: Guy Fieri

    This costume raises so many questions. First and foremost, why would anybody want to be Guy Fieri for Halloween? Sure, he’s Food Network’s greatest monster, but if your goal is to hit on girls this Halloween, you’re not going to be pulling many hotties dressed as a dude who routinely shoves giant slabs of greasy meat into his mouth. And really, this is barely a costume; it's just a ridiculous wig and a scrap of fake fur to glue to your jowls. They could at least package it with a bowling shirt and a Smash Mouth CD.

  • Funworld
    4 of 10

    Eurasian Traveler

    Bootleg of: Borat

    The thing about Borat is that he really didn’t have anything to do with the real Kazakhstan – it was just a convenient country with a consonant-filled name for Sacha Baron Cohen to use as a launchpad for his inappropriate adventures. That’s what makes this “Eurasian Traveler” costume so perplexing – it’s implying that everybody from that geographical region is a mustache-sporting pervert with a limited grasp of English. It’s also a pretty insufferably lazy excuse for a costume – they could at least sell you the full-body Speedo.

  • Butterick/remarkablydomestic
    5 of 10

    Happy Dancers

    Bootleg of: Happy Feet

    Here’s our argument with this one: Kids already love dressing up as animals. They don’t need the extra push of dressing up like animals from a movie. And "Happy Feet 2" bombed, anyway, so why bother not just making a cash-in costume, but an entire family of cash-in costumes? That seems like betting everything on a pair of twos and hoping the rest of the table dies of a heart attack. The most hilarious thing about this bootleg is the little picture in the top corner of the dad penguin sliding on his belly across an ice floe. Don’t try this at home, Dad. Your kids already hate you.

  • Rubies Costume Company
    6 of 10

    Eight Is Too Much Wig

    Bootleg of: Kate Gosselin

    Halloween costume manufacturers have a tricky job. They need to predict what the pop culture trends of the season will be long enough in advance to design a product and have it made for pennies in the most toxic factories China can offer up. Profit margins are low, risk is high, and then every once in awhile some dumb intern suggests something like a Kate Gosselin wig and your whole company goes out of business. The product name – “Eight Is Too Much” is a not-so-subtle jab at the misery of raising a titanic brood, but as a costume, it’s pretty low-rent.

  • Leg Avenue
    7 of 10

    Dalmatian Lover

    Bootleg of: Cruella De Vil from "101 Dalmatians"

    Sure, I can see wanting to dress up as Cruella De Vil for Halloween. She’s one of Disney’s most iconic villains, and it’s possible – if you are a girl – to make it sexy. Don’t even try it if you’re a guy. But here’s the rub: Why would you name your bootleg Cruella costume “Dalmatian Lover”? She doesn’t love Dalmatians. She hates them! She wants to actually take their skin off and turn it into clothing. That’s not any kind of love we’re familiar with. The worst part is that this shoddy costume doesn’t even come with the wig, the most important part.

  • Coquette
    8 of 10

    Chang

    Bootleg of: Tommy Chong

    Here’s another totally inexplicable costume idea made even more embarrassing by the presence of “Chico,” the Cheech Marin bootleg costume. First off, it’s 2012. The days of Cheech & Chong – oh, excuse me, “Chico & Chang” – have long passed us by, and today’s kids have new pot-smoking heroes to look up to. To take the time to make an unlicensed cash-in costume is just absurd. The ripoff costume even has one of the duo’s most famous quotes, “Dave’s not here, man,” printed on the pocket. All they did is change a single letter in his last name, for Christ’s sake.

  • Franco
    9 of 10

    Cyber Man or Padre

    Bootleg of: "The Matrix"

    In a truly stunning display of laziness, these costume manufacturers decided that Neo’s costume from "The Matrix" could also double as a classic priest’s outfit once people stopped dressing up as Neo from "The Matrix" (approximately 15 minutes after the movie came out). The best thing about it is the title: Challenged to summarize the Wachowski siblings’ complex tale of free will and artificial intelligence, they went with “Cyber Man.” That sounds like a pervert who sexts with tweens on instant messenger.

  • AMC
    10 of 10
    Next: Inappropriately Sexed Up Halloween Costumes

    British Sleuth

    Bootleg of: Sherlock Holmes

    Dressing as Sherlock Holmes is actually a pretty relevant idea this Halloween, with the BBC’s awesome "Sherlock" (starring Benedict Cumberbatch) becoming a cult hit in America and spawning our own Holmes show, "Elementary." But here’s the clue that should solve the mystery of why this costume is so stupid: Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain. That means you don’t have to dance around the convention and call your getup “British Sleuth.” Nobody is going to go to Party City and say to themselves, “Boy, I really want to be a British sleuth this year.” You can just call it a Sherlock Holmes costume and you won’t get in any trouble.