The Joker
The Author As The Joker
After creating the Mask costume, I wanted a reason to reuse the yellow tuxedo I had spent so much money on. I may be wrong (it's been so long), but I believe I was talking with Kim at Why Not? Costumes in Wyandotte about this and she may have suggested doing the Joker. I know she was involved in this somehow, because she made the pocket square, bolo tie scarf and pants for the outfit.
Usually I am a stickler for details. I knew in my heart that the Joker typically wore a purple coat with green or yellow accoutrements, not the other way around. This is why I think Kim convinced me to do this because if I had really wanted to do a Joker costume impression, I would have purchased a dark purple suit coat. I do recall wrestling with the whole idea for quite some time (and I guess still am as I write this).
Full Length Joker Costume
In the end, I decided it would be good enough for the costume party where I would be wearing it. (In fact, I'm 99% certain that most of the people there probably had no idea what color the Joker's coat was.)
I used clown white for the makeup and only colored my top lip red for some reason. I am going to guess that my reasoning was that I didn't want to build prosthetics for the sides of my mouth like Jack Nicholson had used in the Batman movie. Plus he didn't have that in the cartoon. (Keep in mind that this costume was created in 1995. Heath Ledger was only 16 at the time, so our most recent cultural reference for the Joker in the movies was Nicholson and Batman: The Animated Series.)
I also used a TON of green hairspray. My hair is pretty dark brown, however, so the effect is somewhat muted in these photos. I even went to a lot of trouble to try and color my eyebrows, but this is hardly noticeable in the photos. (To be honest, I'm lucky there are photos. I had forgotten entirely about this costume until I happened to be looking through a box of stuff I found at my folk's house.)
You'll also notice the spats reappeared. This was another nod to the Batman: The Animated Series version of the Joker.
I don't know if the clown prince of crime would have approved of this costume, but it was a nice way to get a bit more mileage out of an expensive yellow tuxedo coat that had only been worn once at this point. (And which has never been worn since. Although I do still have the outfit, I'm fairly certain it wouldn't fit me now. Alas.)