Gotcha! ready for Halloween

The costume shop has all your Bruce Lee-Chicken needs.

By Eva Dou

Published Oct. 28, 2008

 Talk to anyone working at the Gotcha! costume shop, and it is clear the store doesn't just rent personalities and disguises. It creates them.

Ashley Counts will tell you about the "Kung-Pow Chicken" getup they concocted: a chicken costume crossed with Bruce Lee.

"It's been rented two Halloweens in a row," she said with pride.

She'll show you the fairy outfit she made from a recycled prom dress and she'll tell you about how she helped a boy transform into a very specific type of hog he'd seen in a book.

Her co-worker Matt Morgan will describe how he lent the hat off his head to complete an impromptu "small boy" costume that a customer requested as an accompaniment to a Michael Jackson outfit.

The culture of spontaneity and a plethora of options are two reasons customers say they return to the costume and magic shop on Tenth Street.

Just last month, the store opened a new outlet, Getcha! Bazaar, two storefronts down the block. Getcha! specializes in smaller for-sale costume items and Gotcha! contains the more elaborate costumes for rent.

The original store, Gotcha!, opened its doors 12 years ago when husband and wife Aaro and Michelle Froese decided they wanted a new challenge. Michelle had just completed a doctorate in theater. Aaro was working in freelance marketing, but hated the corporate setting.

When they heard the owners of the Nostalgia Shop were selling the store's stock of costumes, they realized it was an opportunity to start their own shop, Michelle said. Gotcha! took off from there, and it's been a lot of fun, she said.

On Sunday afternoon, Michelle was showing customers around the shop under the guise of Sarah Palin. As she bustled about in her "hunter Barbie" outfit - a camouflage vest, tiara and Palin-esque wig and glasses - she demonstrated how to apply bloody makeup while occasionally affecting an Alaskan accent.

Michelle said her theatric background has helped her in the shop with wig and makeup application, as well as selecting historically accurate costumes.

"It helps to know historical periods," Michelle said.

For instance, sometimes a customer will want a costume straight out of the Victorian period.

"Now, the Victorian period is pretty long. So is that a hoop skirt from the 1860s Victorian period? Or a dress with a bustle like the 1890s Victorian period?"

Either way, Michelle said, Gotcha! has it covered. The jam-packed rows of outfits contain dozens of categories, starting with Renaissance garb at one side and ending with "fuzzy people" (think SpongeBob SquarePants, enormous bunnies and the like) on the other. In between is almost anything else, including astronaut suits, pimps, mustard jars and fat-lady-suits-for-men.

Michelle said the most popular costumes vary from year to year, although there are the perennial mainstays like gangsters and flappers and Playboy bunnies. This year's hot personages include John McCain, the Flintstones, the Joker and various superheroes.

Pirates have been popular, too, ever since Johnny Depp brought them back, she said.

There has also been a penchant toward "scarier" stuff like zombies, which Froese attributes to a depressed economy.

Halloween season is by far the busiest period for Gotcha! During this time, the store has extended hours from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day.

Although owner Aaro was away this weekend, he is usually the one customers see, Michelle said. Michelle's primary job is as a public relations manager for MU Student and Auxiliary Services, but she's been in the shop more often during the rush before Halloween.

On Sunday afternoon, a steady flow of Halloween aficionados circulated through the shop.

Columbia resident Emilie Myers was browsing the racks with friends in preparation for a costume party that evening. She said she had worked for Gotcha!'s singing telegram service in past years and often came for costumes.

"They are really creative and give you lots of things to try on," she said.

Elizabeth Gaydos, a high school sophomore from Jefferson City, was also in search of a costume.

"I either want to be a queen bee or a merry maid," she said, vacillating between the two.

She said her family first stumbled across the shop three years ago when they were in town. They've made the trip from Jefferson City every October since.

Froese said costume-seekers have come from as far as Chicago, and have also included notable performers like Wyclef Jean, 311 and Slipknot.

The shop draws a variety of employees as well.

MU senior Toby Holmes was working the register on Sunday, dressed as a harpy with a golden tunic, green tights, snake armbands and soaring feathered mask.

She said this is her second Halloween at Gotcha! and she liked being able to dress up however she liked.

Morgan, a longtime friend of the Froeses and a theater professor at the University of Denver, said he was working at Gotcha! while taking a sabbatical from his teaching job. His chow-lab Bo followed him around the shop, greeting customers and wagging his tail.

In an outlook many of his coworkers echoed, he said he liked the atmosphere because every day is different.

Morgan said the only constant to their attire is "steampunk Thursdays," when all the employees dress up in the style that meshes Victorian era fashions with science fiction gadgets. Other than that, all bets are off.

In trying to sum up the store, Counts, who makes some of the costumes by hand, said, "I like to think about it as being in layers. "

Looking around at aisles spilling in every direction with outfits, masks, baubles and accessories, she shrugged.

"Few people know where all the stuff is in here," she said.