COSTUME SHOP MAKES CHARACTERS COMFY : COOLED SUIT SPARES MASCOTS FROM THE HEAT.

Byline: Julia Angwin San Francisco Chronicle 

Twenty years ago, Ed Breed was looking for movie props when he met a guy inflating hand puppets with a hair dryer and a lantern battery.

Breed, who tracked down things like slime and goo for special effects masters Industrial Light & Magic, thought there must be a better way to inflate things. So he went home, fiddled around and figured out how to do it using a small fan and a battery pack.

The result was the first lightweight, air-cooled inflatable costume, a vast improvement over heavy foam and fur costumes being worn at parades and street fairs.

He has created M&M characters for the Mars candy company, Jelly Belly for the Fairfield candy maker, Jingle Bear for the now-defunct Emporium, Clo the Cow for Clover Stornetta Farms in Petaluma, and a 14-foot-high stack of three dancers for an Aladdin parade at Disney MGM Studios in Florida.

Breed's company, The Costume Factory, can fashion almost any kind of character, from a mobile Mickey Mouse hand to a walking garbage dump. However, since characters are mostly used to market products to children, he refuses to work for alcohol and tobacco companies.

The business of building characters employs about 10 people full time and brings in about $1.5 million a year, Breed said. But it's tremendously cyclical - the summer months are obviously flush with parades and preparations for Christmas; the winter months are dead.

This year, Breed is trying to compensate for the cycles by adding a line of standard, noncustomized characters to his product list and is considering branching out into costume rentals for parties.

``In 17 years of business, we've seen some ups and downs (in demand for costumes) and it can be devastating,'' Breed said. ``So we're hoping to increase our volume in order to have a stronger and more diverse base.''

But for the moment, Breed is riding on a recent surge of interest in inflatable costumes.

He recently created a new ``Rusty the Fox'' mascot for a Fox television affiliate in Henderson, Nev.

The mercury sometimes hits 110 degrees in the summer in Henderson, and the old mascot was sweating it out inside the heavy, clingy costume as he made his rounds of Little League games and McDonald's Playlands openings.

``People could only stay in the costume for 15 to 20 minutes,'' said Laura Denue, the station's kids club coordinator.

The new Rusty - created by the Costume Factory - is equipped with a set of fans that cool the person inside and inflate the costume away from the person's body. A backpack-like frame also keeps the costume's head from resting on the wearer's neck and shoulders.

``We can do up to half an hour in this one,'' Denue said.

Comfort doesn't come cheap. Rusty cost about $4,200 - about double the price of a comparable standard contraption. Customized costumes can cost between $5,800 and $9,500 apiece. Standard noncustomized costumes cost between $3,200 and $4,800 apiece.

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Photo

PHOTO Steffani Lincecum cuts pieces for a Michelin Man suit at the Costume Factory in Napa.

Associated Press