Halloween 2012 at Dick Van Dyke’s House

  As I have mentioned countless times before, this stalker is just a wee bit obsessed with the movie Burlesque.  Upon first seeing the flick in 2010, I fell head-over-heels in love with the “But I Am a Good Girl” number (which you can watch by clicking above) and Ali’s (Christina Aguilera’s) feathered costume, and promptly announced to the Grim Cheaper that we would be dressing up as Ali and Jack (Cam Gigandet) the following Halloween.  His response, “I am SO NOT wearing eyeliner!”  LOL  Because we were invited to a prom-themed Halloween party last year, though, we ended up instead dressing up as Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) and Brenda Walsh (my girl Shannen Doherty) from the Beverly Hills, 90210 “Spring Dance” episode (which you can see photographs of here).  But believe you me, as soon as November 1st rolled around, I immediately began hunting for the perfect “But I Am a Good Girl” outfit – which was not as easy as I had hoped.

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I thought for sure that I would be able to find something resembling the “But I Am a Good Girl” costume (pictured below) quite easily online, but, unfortunately, that was not the case.  While plenty of Burlesque-style outfits seemed to be available, none of them looked a thing like Ali’s.  Then, in March, I happened to come across Madame Gigi L’amour’s Esty page which featured a slew of handmade Burlesque ensembles.  And while Gigi did not have one that resembled the “But I Am a Good Girl” corset, I wrote to her and asked if she would be able to custom-make one for me.  Thankfully, I heard back from her just a few hours later and she said that she would be happy to.  She even provided some suggestions to help keep the costs down – i.e. using less Swarovski crystals than were used on the movie costume and swapping out the ostrich feathers for turkey feathers, which are much less expensive.  Oh, and she also threw in some nude-colored fishnet stockings.  At the time, I was not even aware that Ali had worn nude fishnets in the scene, but as it turns out she had!  Thank you, Gigi!

I received the finished product at the end of May and, let me tell you, when I opened the package I just about had a heart attack!  I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY as the costume FAR exceeded my expectations.  I was devastated that I would have to wait a full five months to wear it!  And believe me, if I thought I could have gotten away with walking around Old Town Pasadena in a Burlesque costume during the summer, I so would have!  Having that thing in my closet, unworn, for five months was like the Tell-Tale Heart in Edgar Allen Poe’s story of the same name – I could almost hear it calling out to me, “Wear me!  Try me!  Come on – just put me on!”  So when Halloween did finally roll around, I was BEYOND excited to finally don the costume.  I was a little nervous, though, being that it looks quite delicate, but I am very happy to report that the outfit was completely wearable and even comfortable!

Thankfully, the GC’s costume was much easier to find.  To become Jack, he just wore a derby-style hat (which my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, tracked down for us), a black shirt and black slacks.  Oh, and eyeliner, which he finally (and begrudgingly) agreed to wear.

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.    The “But I Am a Good Girl” outfit turned out to be my favorite Halloween costume of all time!  I did NOT want to take it off and am already trying to figure out where I can wear it next.  Words cannot express how much fun it was to walk around in that thing!

Halloween day actually turned out to be a completely amazing whirlwind!  In the early afternoon, Miss Pinky (who dressed as, what else, Princess Pink) invited me to attend a Mad Hatter Tea Party at Walt Disney Imagineering, where she works.  Um, Halloween and Disney mixed together?  Count me in!

The party was held outside and, as you can see below, the decorations were absolutely amazeballs.  There were tea-themed trinkets as far as the eye could see.

The display below had all sorts of fun surprises, like a tea pot that spit water at passersby, spinning tea cups and a hidden monster who would grab at people’s feet from underneath the tablecloth.

My favorite, though, was the Venus Flytrap that would come to life intermittently.  You could feed the plant gummy worms, stick your hand in its mouth or scratch its chin and it would respond accordingly.  So incredibly cool!

There was also a professional photo booth set up where guests could pose for pictures with props while pretending to kill a giant octopus.  Love it!

And no visit to WDI would be complete without a stop at the onsite Starbucks. 

At night, the GC and I headed, once again, to Malibu to visit our friends who live next-door to Dick Van Dyke.  As I mentioned in my 2011 Halloween post, DVD puts on a massive annual Halloween extravaganza at his house in the gated Serra Retreat community.  Thankfully, our friends were nice enough to invite us over again this year (even though they JUST had a baby) so that we could check out the festivities.  And while I didn’t think it would be possible, amazingly enough, this year’s spooktacular was even better than the last!  That’s Dick’s front porch pictured below . . .

which he had decked out with a creepy hologram picture of himself;

along with a few mannequins that writhed and shook constantly.

As I said last year, being at Dick Van Dyke’s house on Halloween is like being in the middle of a huge horror movie set.  It is simply incredible to witness (especially for this Halloween-obsessed stalker) and there is so much to look at and so much detail put into the whole thing that it is virtually impossible to see it all.  In the video below, Dick says, “We’ve got the Haunted House in Disney beat!” and he couldn’t be more right!

As you can imagine, I ate it all up with a spoon – from huge mannequins that moved, talked and jumped out at passerby;

to a witch stirring a bubbling caldron;

to figurines in various states of undead;

to the burn victim below, who looked so real it was almost unbelievable –

check out his shoes, the attention to detail is amazing! –

to a huge graveyard made complete with with cauldrons, crows and random severed heads;

to a second huge fenced-off graveyard with writhing bodies and, like last year, an invisible screen on which was projected a video of skeletons doing the Thriller dance, which I (obviously) LOVED.

The animatronic attack dog from last year was also back.

And the GC somehow convinced me to try to hold its leash, which was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life!  The dog of course attacked just as I got ahold of it and I pretty much jumped right out of my skin.  SO MUCH FUN!

There were also random creatures walking around, scaring people and posing for pictures.

At the perimeter of the extravaganza was a GINORMOUS 12-foot statue that I just had to pose in front of.

What I did not realize at the time was that the darn thing would not only come to life, but that a guy also jumped out of it!  Thank God that didn’t happen while I was posing for a picture – I probably would have had a heart attack!

The highlight of the night, though, had to be when James Cameron and his wife, Titanic actress Suzy Amis, came to our friends’ house – in costume! – to trick-or-treat with their kids .  And while I was too scared to ask them for a photo last year, nothing was stopping me this year!  And I am very happy to report that they honestly could NOT have been nicer!  They even told me that they had been admiring my costume earlier in the evening!  Like seriously????  James Cameron and Suzy Amis liked my costume???  OMG dying!  I know I said it last year, but I’m going to say it once again – hands down the Best.  Halloween.  Ever.   Can’t wait for 2013’s!

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It:  Unfortunately, because Dick Van Dyke lives inside of Serra Retreat, a gated community that is not accessible to the public, there is no stalking location for this one.  You can check out the Madame Gigi L’amour Etsy page here and her Fackbook fan page here.  And my exact costume can be purchased here.