Spirit Halloween claps back at ‘SNL’ after sketch show spoofs it

Costume retailer Spirit Halloween is trying to have the last laugh at Saturday Night Live, after the show’s 50th season contained a fake commercial spoofing it. 

“We are great at raising things back from the dead,” read a Spirit Halloween post on X, showing a costume package with SNL‘s anniversary logo, described as “Irrelevant 50-year-old TV show.” The accessories therein were listed as “dated references, unknown cast members, and shrinking ratings.”

The SNL sketch spoofed how the stores pop up in abandoned storefronts across the country “for six weeks before bouncing,” according to a voice-over by Heidi Gardner.

“Times may be good on Wall Street, but on Main Street, communities are struggling,” she says. “Closed stores, shuttered businesses, empty parking lots. When hard times hit, it’s easy to feel like no one cares. But help is on the way because when others leave, we show up.”

Chloe Fineman adds, “We’re here providing vulnerable communities with the things they need most: wigs that give you a rash, single-use fog machines and costumes of famous characters tweaked just enough to avoid a lawsuit.” On the latter, a costume listed as “Candy Slave” is obviously an Oompa Loompa from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, for example. 

Gardner also touts how the company provides “six-week jobs for some of America’s hardest-hit perverts,” with a scuzzy Mikey Day advising an under-18 customer that he’s “not legally allowed” to talk to her.

At one point, a little girl asks Fineman if they have a Taylor Swift costume, only for the employee to happily hand her a “Blonde Singing Woman” one. “That’s not Taylor Swift!” the little Swiftie protests, only to have Fineman boop the girl’s nose, saying, “Neither are you.”