Woody

Costume Debut: September 2013

Costume Reprised: Halloween 2013, April 2019, November 2021

Honors: "Best Costume" at Ginger's Birthday Party, 3rd Place at NYU Stern Costume Contest

Irvin's friend Ginger had a costumed birthday party, with the theme of Joss Whedon. And while there are many delightful Whedon characters to choose from (with Firefly being most represented at the party, but also featuring characters from Buffy, Avengers, and Much Ado About Nothing), Irvin turned to Disney, and the Pixar movie that Joss Whedon helped write: Toy Story.

The outfit presented several challenges, not least the fact that it was a very warm outfit worn on a very hot weekend. But the biggest challenge proved to be the shirt; it transpired that not a single store in New York City has a bright yellow button-down shirt. So Irvin had to make the shirt from scratch - dyeing a white shirt yellow with food coloring, then drawing on the red lines. Even more upsetting, this shirt can never be washed lest it return to its original state.

But the effort was well worth it, for Irvin won the costume contest at the party, beating out Claudio from Much Ado by one vote. His prize was an Avengers jigsaw puzzle.

Irvin decided that Woody would be his Halloween costume. The other students at NYU Stern were deeply impressed by the costume, particularly by the homemade shirt, and awarded him third place in the Halloween Costume Contest. The prize was a $25 gift card to the Cheesecake Factory... which does not exist in New York City.

As usual, Irvin marched in the Halloween Parade with his friends, where a lot of the crowd got very excited upon seeing him. Whenever the occasion called for it, he would pause to yell, "You are a toy! You're a child's plaything!" At the parade, he ran into two Buzzes, two Jessies, and another Woody, so there were two sets of Toy Story characters running around independent of each other. He also ran into a lot of other Disney costumes and paused to take many group pictures with them (many because the group kept getting bigger). And for once, he was warm on Halloween, and the hat served to keep him dry.

Irvin returned to Woody years later, for AwesomeCon 2019. Among the options for photos with celebrities was one with Wallace Shawn, the voice of Rex in Toy Story, so Irvin dusted off the Woody costume for said photo. It was a good decision, since upon seeing him, Wallace Shawn exclaimed, "What a great costume!"

Woody was once again reprised in November 2021 when Irvin went to Pixar Putt, a Pixar-themed minigolf course. This proved to not be the wisest course of action, given the freezing temperatures and the gales of wind blowing the hat away, but Irvin was determined to get a picture of himself as Woody with The Claaaaw. He succeeded at that, but failed miserably at the minigolf itself, coming in a distant last place.