Everyone enjoys a good topical Halloween costume. Well, except for those guys that are still wearing Nixon masks. That’s about as clever as dressing up as a ghost. So what’s the “it” costume this year? Aside from Kate Gosselin’s hair of course. Why Balloon Boy, naturally! And as funny as Kate’s hair is, I’ve definitely seen women in Brooklyn sporting similar hairstyles for years now. So depending on the fashion sense in your area, it could be difficult for people to tell you’re in costume in the Gosselin wig.

But they’ll definitely know you’re something amazing when you dress up as Balloon Boy! At first they’re going to think you’re carrying a giant silver thermostatic chef’s hat. And that’s okay; you’re just going to have to explain it to them. Then wait for the laughs to erupt as they chuckle at your creativity. Or at least your ability to buy things off the internet last minute.

The news that a Canadian company is already selling a Balloon Boy costume for Halloween, just days after millions of people around the world were concerned for the safety of a 6-year-old boy said to be in mortal danger, is a measure of how rapidly the Heene family drama, played out live on 24/7 cable news, moved from tragic to comic.

When Karl Marx wrote that history repeats, first as tragedy and then as farce, the length of a news cycle was in part determined by the number of hours it took a pigeon to fly between major cities. Today that cycle seems at times to have been reduced to the number of minutes it takes someone to produce a YouTube video showing Hitler complaining about the news event.

As if to provide the perfect ending to the media-studies thesis that must surely be in the process of being written about the Heene family, the company selling the costume is promoting it with this Web video, which is a parody of the apparently staged home video the family provided to broadcasters.

[From the New York Times blog The Lede]

I guess you’re really going as Balloon Boy’s mom or dad, depending on your gender. They suggest adding your own box, but I’ll point out that Balloon Boy wasn’t actually anywhere around the balloon, that was his parents. If you were to dress up as Balloon Boy, you’d just be an average kid with a close-cropped haircut looking confused about why you’re hiding in the attic. And probably wondering why your dad is so messed up in the head, and if at six years old you’re too young to pull out the DSM-IV and diagnose him with something. Maybe that’s just me.

Here’s the site if you want to buy the Balloon Boy costume. I don’t know why, but I strenuously urge you to. Make sure you keep it away from children, so they don’t fly off or end up traumatized by your insanity.

Thanks to Fame Pictures for the photos.