Editor’s Note: Sean Morris is the grandson of Morris Costumes founder Philip Morris, and he is working on a project to preserve his grandfather’s legacy. In the first installment of this Q&A, Sean described briefly the history of Morris Costumes. In this installment he discusses his plans for the future. Click here to read the first installment.
Q: So what’s your goal regarding your grandfather’s legacy and all the archival materials that you are sifting through?
My goal has been ever evolving since the beginning, but essentially what I'm hoping to do is create a history of all the aspects of my grandfather’s legacy. For example, I've got all of our catalogs going back to somewhere in 1968 or something like that. I’m trying to go back and archive all of it and then kind of make sense of it.
And then from there, I’ll pull out some new things. I've started some YouTube channels and some social media channels just so that I can post stuff on a daily basis about what it is that we're doing. And I've just finished going back and scanning his first book, on how to own and operate a financially successful haunted house. I'm working with the printers now and having it printed.
I also did a 3D scan of my grandfather's head, which was used for an old gag back in the eighties called the Philip Morris Love Doll. It was actually his severed head that came in a box that said “Love Doll” on the front of it, and it was pretty funny. I've scanned that and remastered it and had it 3D printed on some really crazy laser resin printers, and then went back and molded it. So now I'm recreating my grandfather's head in silicone and latex.
Philip Morris with Bigfoot
And then we're working on some other stuff. I've got a Bigfoot costume that I hope will be done by the end of the year. A pretty famous sculptor is working on it for me at the moment. I'm also hoping to make reprints of the ghost show posters so that they're available to buy.
My main goal of this is really just to share the history. We have so many facets of history that'll be coming out. It'll be on magic, it'll be on the circus, it'll be on costumes, haunted houses, really a whole gamut of topics.
Q: Now when you talk about having these archives from your grandfather, are they in your garage or at the store or where are they? How much are we talking about?
Well, it's kind of mixed. I've got a basement that's about 3000 square feet, and basically all of the rooms in my basement filled to the ceiling with stuff. But then we also have some stuff at my distribution facility. I still have almost like a half an 18 wheeler’s worth of magic illusions and some other kind of memorabilia type stuff. Lots of photos, videos, ghost show posters, circus posters. I still have some elephant blankets and some horse blankets and some stage show illusions.
I have a bunch of the documents on the Barney lawsuit that we were part of. I've got stuff with the Batman. It's all milestones I guess.
Q: In what form do you envision this history coming out?
Well, I would like to do a museum of some sort. If that doesn’t work out, my idea is then is to come up with a bunch of books. For example, I have images of all the masks we ever sold, so maybe we'll make a book just on Halloween masks. We'll make a book just on Halloween animatronics and props since the beginning of time. And we could do a book just on ghost show posters. I probably have several hundred of them alone that are all different.
Q: Ultimately, you envision this being a business, right?
Yes, within reason. We made some Bigfoot statues and I've been hand airbrushing them. I'm hoping that maybe some stores would like to pick 'em up. My goal is to make some money, but I’d also like to be able to travel the country and have some things to sell.
Q: It would be fascinating if you took your iPhone and once a day or once a week and said, “Hey, we're going to walk into one room and I'm going to open up one box…”
I think that you are right on track! I could do that and go live on TikTok….
Q: People would love that, especially the random aspect of it.
It has been fun. It's like a treasure hunt because you never know what you're going to find and it just leads you down new rabbit holes and it's really cool stuff, really neat stuff.
Q: And it's so culturally pertinent. You're in the heart of the Halloween culture there.
Absolutely. And people really should know about these ghost shows. It literally was the biggest form of entertainment of its time. I mean it would be like Taylor Swift showing up.
This was the second of two parts of this interview with Sean Morris. Click here to read the first part, and stay tuned for updates on his project.