The Essentials of Judging Halloween Costumery

On a later date, I will have to publish my philosophy on prankery, which developed one day at the office as we discussed various important criteria and categories of pranking, the latter of which includes:

• College dorm pranking
• Office pranking
• Family pranking
• Relationship pranking
• Long-distance pranking
• Pranking strangers

But as I said, more on that later.  Because now, it is getting close to the deadline to share any thoughts on Halloween and so I must put out my thoughts on possible the best holiday of all.  (Sure Christmas has presents, but Halloween has costumes).

So here I give you my essentials to judging Halloween costumery.  Below follows an approximate scoring guide to judging Halloween costumes.  Please use it and share it with your friends this holiday season.

First Principles:

• Certain categories of Halloween costumes exist.

• Some are divisions such as
• store-bought and homemade
• generic (ex. ghost) and specific (ex. Batman)
• gendered and neutral
• sexy and non-sexy
• recently topical (ex. bruised Tiger Woods) and timeless traditional (witch), etc.
• planned-in-advance and last-minute
• "in-character" and normal everyday
• unique and popular
• individual and group

• Some divisions are skewed in favor of one of their characteristics.  Others are neutral. 
• Homemade is better than store-bought
• Specific is better than generic
• Recently topical is better than timeless
• Unique is better than popular
• "In-character" is better than normal everyday 
• Groups are better than individuals

The Scoring:  At your next Halloween event, scores costumes following these guidelines:

• Start with a base of 50 points.

• Award up to 10 points for store-bought, based on your judgment of the expense and difficulty of acquiring this costume.
• For homemade, award 5 points for each piece of the costume that had to be either made or found.

• Award up to 10 points for generic costumes, based on the execution relative to previously seen traditional examples.
• Award up to 20 points for specific characters, with more points being awarded depending on the disparity between how often you have seen the character in your life and the number of times you have seen that costume.  One-of-a-kind specific yet popular characters get the full 20.

• Non-sexy, neither add or deduct points.
• Sexy, add up to 15 points for truly sexy costumes and deduct up to 25 points as needed to penalize poorly judged sexiness.

• For timeless costumes, award a maximum of 10 points deducting 1 point for each other time you have seen that particular costume through that Halloween season.
• For topical costumes, award up to 10 points each for a) the newsworthiness of the reference and b) the "wow" factor of obscurity of the reference.  There is an obvious tradeoff between the two, but it can be precisely calibrated for the full 20 points.

• Costumes planned more than 3 weeks in advance get a 20 point bonus, but must deduct 2 points for each additional week of planning time.  (Seriously, if you have been working since August, go get a life.)
• Last minute costumes must deduct 15 points, but can earn it back by getting 5 points each in the following categories, a) self-explanatory costume, b) made from available materials, c) number of costume elements and props that are on target.

• An additional 15 points is awarded for each truly unique costume.
• An additional 10 points is deducted for having a costume that anyone else had that Halloween season.  (We have to encourage variety).

• Normal everyday is not awarded extra points, but "in-character" costumes receive up to 5 points for each of the following:
• Physical presence in character
• Voice and catchphrases in character
• In-character actions and responses towards others
• Consistent commitment to the role

• Finally, individuals receive no added points, but groups receive up to 5 bonus points for each member (with a cap at 5 members).  1 point is given per member when each one is only loosely related and the full maximum of 5 is given when everyone is coordinated.

And there concludes the Halloween costume scoring method.  I am not even going to bother totaling up what the maximum number of possible points could be.  That was never the point.  The point is that Halloween costumes are probably the best part of the best holiday.  So there has got to be a way to judge when it is done right.

So now tell me what I could have done better and what I forgot to include.

Matt's Thoughts on Late Night

The topic of late night TV is a really interesting one for me, since I spent some of my summertime on vacation staying up late to watch late night TV just because I could.  I would like to give myself some well-earned praise and say I am a terrific late night TV watcher.  I could stay up to watch the second half of a Craig Ferguson show, even though I could just as easily go to bed.  I would wager money that I have seen Ferguson's predecessor Craig Kilborn do the "5 Questions" segment hundreds of times.  My credentials are really first-rate here.

But my conclusions are this:

• Late night TV shows depend on having a reliable core audience.  Think Leno and Letterman and their respective over 50 crowds.  Stewart and Colbert with their college-educated liberal-leaning viewers.  And Handler and her "Sex and the City" enthusiasts.
• If a show doesn't have a locked-in audience that has routinely watched the program for decades like Letterman and Leno, then it has to really appeal to that niche audience.  Stewart, Colbert, Handler all have little niche factors and pet subjects.  Jimmy Kimmel has a "Man Show" flavor, and Jimmy Fallon has built his show by catching the pulse of a younger crowd with video segments, "Saved by the Bell" references, social media build-ins, and an overall slightly fresh take on a late night show.
• If you are not a routine viewer of these shows (and I put myself in this category) you can probably enjoy any of them, but you will probably also enjoy a sitcom repeat or any other generic alternative.

My own media diet is pretty full already and I just don't need late night TV.  Bill Simmon's podcast on late night TV (which is the source of nearly every view I have on this subject) had a great point that DVRs are a significant factor in the decline of late night viewership.  I know that I usually use the hours from 10pm on to get caught up on my favorite recorded shows before ever thinking to flip channels and see what late night TV has to offer.  Even at my work, people will ask me regularly if I saw a segment on Colbert the night before, but I always think, "how does this guy have the time to watch this?"  I think that the late night programs have to count among your favorite shows to compete for your time and attention when it could be so much more appealing to watch some great on-demand or recorded shows, the next DVD in your Netflix queue, a favorite show on Hulu, or whatever other media option comes first for you.

The Simmon's podcast also points out another aspect in that certain shows have responded to this competition for time and attention while others shows haven't.  One positive response has been to do a shorter show.  Could Colbert entertain me for an hour every night?  Surely, yes.  But he is probably better off doing 15 minutes of "A" material and one interview than piling on extra interviews, some so-so segments and an extended monologue a la the old hands Leno and Letterman.  This leads to his doing a show that leaves people talking about it the next day, rather than just doing the show night after night as people wind down before bed.  The other successful route is to do the standard show, but have some really edgy or standout segments.  This seems to me to be how Kimmel and Fallon have been able to do strong network shows even as relative latecomers in an increasing competitive field that is meanwhile losing its mainstream appeal.  If you are not doing a tight show that never really lets up, or some buzzy pieces that will get replayed on Hulu, YouTube, and other new media, then you are going to suffer mightily.  And that, in summary, is why I have yet to mention my old favorite, Conan.  Even after having to jump networks, it still feels like that show (which is also limited by its network, lead-ins, guest bookings, etc.) is aspiring to do the same old late night show.  As they say, it is not ready for prime time.  Or in this case, the late night talk show field of today.

Re: The State of Late Night Television

Disclaimer: I am rarely awake when any of the late night shows air anymore. I actually don't remember the last time I watched one of these programs in real time. I am far less informed on this topic than I was during freshmen year when we literally watched Conan every night until 1:30AM. This being the case, I have a somewhat different perspective on this topic.

I occasionally watch the 7PM and 7:30PM reruns of Stewart and Colbert the following day or on Hulu. I tend to watch all of The Daily Show and just the highlights of The Colbert Report. I still remember watching the first episode of The Colbert Report during sophomore year. You could tell how nervous Colbert was and how well he wanted the show to go. "The Word" segment was my clear favorite, but it seems like that's not a part of the show anymore or at least not commonly enough for a sporadic viewer like myself to notice. On the other hand, I do generally follow what's going on with The Daily Show, but that's more a function of my interest in Stewart as a personality more so than an interest in the show itself. Whether it's the Rally to Restore Sanity or Stewart's many appearances as the guest on other talk shows, I do enjoy listening to the man's opinions whether I agree with them or not. My current knowledge of the rest of the late night hosts is limited to what New York Magazine puts in their "Last Night on Late Night" video compilation.

Bill Simmons has mentioned this before and both Colls and Phil made similar points in their posts, but there is just not a compelling enough case to sit through an hour of the traditional late nigh program anymore. You can watch "the good parts" the next day or whenever you want on Hulu or YouTube. To appreciate fully the recurring skits you have to watch consistently and that is too often an unrealistic demand on our late night attention spans when we can easily switch channels and watch 20 second highlight segments on SportsCenter. I also agree wholeheartedly with Phil's point that the draw of celebrity access that late night shows rely on has weakened to the point of irrelevancy. You'll notice that none of the videos Colls posted were of celebrity interviews. Some of the skits involved celebrities and are doubtlessly made more memorable by their appearance, but the sit down interviews themselves are often bland and unremarkable. I assume this is the result of the increasing role of PR managers and publicists whose success is measured by the absence of any outlandish or controversial associations to their client. For this reason, the interviews I have seen often seem over-produced or generic; we find out that "celebrities are actually not that different from the rest of us" or hear "a funny story about working with Scorcese for the first time." The only "must-see" segments are no longer restricted to real time viewing, which relegates the show itself to second-tier or third-tier importance behind Seinfeld reruns or sports programming.

As I said, I am usually not awake when these shows air, but these are the reasons why even when I am awake, I do not watch these programs. During the pre-Twitter and celebrity reality show days, I did in fact watch these shows with more regularity so I assume that some or even most of the motive for the decline in my interest has less to do with shows than with outside cultural factors. But, the shows have been complicit in their growing irrelevance. They have shown an almost intransigent resistance to change in this regard, which coupled with the explosion in viewer choice helps explain the decline in viewership across the board. The general format, i.e. short monologue, skit, interview, maybe another skit, interview, musical or comedic act, has been in place for years. That format will remain good enough as long as the baby boomers are alive and watching. After that, I expect to see more half-hour and targeted shows resembling Comedy Central's approach.

If I had to pick the "titans" of late night then I'd go with Stewart in first and Colbert slightly behind. Especially as we head toward the 2012 general election, I'd expect both of their shows to move up in the ratings. Stewart has been on the cover of New York Magazine and Rolling Stone within the past 12 months. You can't say that about any of the other hosts. Despite being on Comedy Central and Stewart's protestations, both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have strong points of view, and the trend toward opinionated news and culture sources only strengthens the import of both shows while weakening the relevance of the decidedly impartial network late night shows. The most (only?) genuinely interesting event in network late night over the last five years was the NBC/Conan/Leno debacle. It's not a good sign when a debacle is the most poignant example of your cultural significance. I would, however, recommend that you all see the documentary "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop". It ranks up there with "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work" in its excellence at displaying the manic obsession its subject has with working and staying relevant. I laughed more at/with Conan during the documentary than during any of his shows over the past few years.

Re: The State of Late Night Television?

This is an interesting topic to me, and one I actually was thinking about just last week. I had Conan on one night, watched about 15 minutes of it, then switched over to a Seinfeld re-run (the original Art Van de Lay episode--still hilarious).

Late night talk shows used to be a cornerstone of family time. To call Johnny Carson an icon is to understate what he really was. He eclipsed what any current (or future, I would dare say) talk show host could ever hope to be (I am excluding Oprah; I think she falls in a different genre).

I don't think there is one thing we can point to that would satisfactorily explain the relegated status of late night TV. But I will offer a few things which i think play a factor:

1. More options

Talk shows had little to no competition until realistically the 1990's. It's no longer just Leno vs. Letterman. Like Colls said, now it includes Kimmel, Fallon, Conan, Ferguson, Stewart, Colbert, Handler, Lopez (I think that was cancelled, but my point still stands), and Handler. This is a far cry back when Ed Sullivan or Johnny Carson were literally the only shows in town.

The options extend far past talk show hosts though: Television back when Carson ruled the airwaves was restricted to like four channels. Now with more options, it's getting harder to watch a talk show which follows the same format every night for five nights a week. As I mentioned in the opener, I switched quickly to a Seinfeld rerun, but that just as easily could have been a hockey game, a History channel special, or a movie.

2. An aging fan base

I remember back when Conan took over the Tonight Show, there was a big debate as to why Conan wasn't getting the same rating Leno was? Conan was younger, more energetic, had a cult-like fan base, and appealed to the younger demographic in general.

I think they are dead on with their assumptions, however, the viewer base for late night talk shows is declining rapidly. I would say 9 out of 10 people age 18-24 would prefer Conan over Leno, however, I would say that less than 1 in 10 people in that age group actually watch talk shows. This goes back to point number one about there being more available options.

Contrast that to the older generations, which grew up with talk shows. Watching Carson/Leno/Letterman was a part of their nightly routine. They're the ones still watching, and Conan's humor just isn't for them. I guess my point is that loyalty to talk shows in general trumps loyalty to a specific host.

3. Access

I do remember a handful of occasions years ago when I thought to myself "wow, I really want to see Conan's interview with (insert celebrity) tonight." It seemed fantastic to get a candid look into the life of a famous actor/author/sports figure.

I haven't had that thought about a talk show since probably 2006. 60 Minutes certainly arouses that feeling occasionally, but Conan? Kimmel? Fallon?--no.

I think part of this is that we currently have access to what every celebrity is doing/saying/thinking 24 hours a day. If I am that interested in what a celebrity has to say, why wait until 11:30 PM when it's literally just a mouse-click away. The social media boom is a big factor in this (case-in-point: Tom Hanks' most recent tweet was 14 minutes ago). Same idea with websites like TMZ and Perez Hilton (both the scum of the universe, mind you--pretty sure if Dante was alive he would include a new circle of hell solely for these asshats).

I'm not going to give a rundown of each of the hosts, as Colls covered all the bases there, and I have nothing intelligent to add.

Last point: huge ups to Colls for taking the reins and getting us back into gear. All it took was a thought-provoking topic, and I'm back in 100%.

One love,

PBR