[scrolling sound]

Hi, my name is Mike, and I’d like to show you some family photos.

O.K., here is a photo of me and my mom.

Now for me, the weirdest thing about this photo

is a Tampa Bay Buccaneers hat.

Maybe I liked the Pirates, or orange,

but we actually lived in Colorado,

and we had a Polaroid job.

We owned a giant Polaroid camera,

and if you went to the mall to get your photo with Santa,

we were the people who took your photo.

This is a guy that lived down the street.

If it was Halloween, and you went to a haunted house,

you got a photo with the price of admission.

This is my dad.

If you went to Gibson’s Department Store on Easter,

we took your photo with the Easter bunny.

So some back story —

my parents started dating as teenagers in upstate New York.

Here they are on a trip to Niagara.

Polaroid side note —

I figured out I was conceived at Niagara Falls

because they used to print the dates

on the side of Polaroids.

May 1969 is nine months before I was born.

So despite wearing full body condoms,

my parents got pregnant.

Being 19 with a kid on the way, my dad needed a job,

and the government was hiring.

So fast forward to 1981, and my dad’s

still working for the government,

and my mom is a manager at Taco Bell.

A friend of theirs has the Polaroid job,

but doesn’t have enough time to do it,

so they buy it from him.

I am thrilled, as all these masks and costumes

are suddenly in our basement.

The first gig that we get is for a store opening.

They ask us to bring a famous person,

so we brought Spiderman.

Polaroid had this deal with Marvel Comics.

We’d call up our local Southwestern rep,

and they would contact Marvel.

Marvel would hire an actor in Los Angeles, give him a suit,

and train him how to do all his special moves.

He would fly out for the day, sign autographs,

jump around a little, fake shoot some webs,

and then go home at night.

So for this one gig, we made $1,000,

so we thought this was “it.”

This is the future.

And now the whole family is going to get involved.

Why would anyone want to come to a store opening

and get a photo with a clown?

Because small-town America is a beautiful, simple place.

So Halloween rolls around, and we are already

part of putting on a haunted house by the Jaycees.

This was sort of like a local Elks Club or 4H.

And all the money would go towards charity.

So again, small-town America —

this is a very lo-fi haunted house.

I think it looked better when there wasn’t

a flash light going off.

Girls would usually scream, but guys always

try to, like, hand us a beer.

I’m actually the mask in the far back.

We also knew this guy who was 6 foot 8,

so he got to be Frankenstein.

Apparently, our money only went towards the mask,

and not the rest of the suit.

This is my mom when she’s not an Easter bunny.

Here’s my mom as a witch.

And if you can’t tell from the leather vest,

this is a local radio DJ.

Here’s my dad as Office Werewolf.

Pretty sure that’s what he wore to work everyday.

And this woman is someone else that worked for us.

Her name was Nia.

She actually worked for the Denver Playboy Club

as a waitress.

And then when she moved to small-town Grand Junction,

she actually made her own version of the suit.

And so we’d also do these store openings with her

as a Playboy Bunny.

And then we knew this local guy

who was a bodybuilder, which was a little more unique back then.

So, for some reason, I couldn’t

find any of the Polaroids with her as a Playboy Bunny,

but I did find some Super 8 footage of Barry working out.

So then after Halloween, Christmas came,

and we were busy for two more months.

Here I am with an appropriate Colorado T-shirt.

We were just raking the money in, but then a bad thing happened.

January.

There’s no holidays in January, February —

Valentine’s Day doesn’t really work.

By the time Easter rolled around,

we were actually hurting pretty bad.

Even robots and clowns couldn’t really

save the business.

My parents got down to their last mortgage payment,

and we had to sell the Polaroid job.

My dad went back to work for the government.

My mom started working as a secretary,

and later got a government job, too.

But they kept some of the masks,

and I recently dug them out of the closet.

Here’s a Frankenstein mask, looking

10 times more terrifying now.

Homemade witch mask.

Office Werewolf’s holding up pretty good.

Here’s some monster feet — sort of like a clown

shoe, sort of thing.

So I decided to restart the business.

My friend Dan has an art gallery

and some old Polaroids, and so we bought some film.

And Dan’s actually — took on the job of Kmart manager

really well — only gave me 10 minutes in between shifts.

Since this a Los Angeles, a friend

of a friend in West Hollywood had a full size Easter bunny

costume, so I borrowed it.

I was pretty excited.

Here’s a stranger that just came in off the street.

A friend of mine who’s a costume designer

help me get a robot suit from 1980.

Office Werewolf made a comeback,

scared a lot of people.

Moby showed up.

I was with my friend Abby, who had the best

reaction, because she’s just a child

and has no reference point.

So she came in, there was a giant rabbit.

So she’s just really shocked.

And then when I said, oh, hi Abby,

she just totally blew her mind.

However, my friend Katie’s child

didn’t have such a good time, so there

might be a — age requirement when you bring kids

to see giant talking animals.

And then later in the night, we

combined Office Werewolf with the robot.

Things got pretty crazy.

After all was said and done, though

it was a pretty long night.

We didn’t really make that much money, but —

so we decided to close down the Polaroid job again,

but we had a good time.

My parents are still together today,

still married, and happy, and now they’re retired.

I found this on the inside of one of the masks.

It says, “Be Something Studio.”

That’s the company that made it,

but it’s such a nice, easy, poetic metaphor.

It’s about the mask —

be Frankenstein, be a giant rabbit, be Santa Claus —

and it’s about the American dream.

My parents took a big risk trying

to make a living with the Polaroid job,

and I think it was worth it.

I learned that making people happy was valuable.

[music]