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What makes Halloween so appealing isn’t the bulging bags of candy or the thrill of fright. It’s the out-of-personality experience that comes from putting together a costume and being someone else.

I say “putting together” a costume, rather than buying one, because to me, that’s half the fun. With a mask and the outfit of accompanying clothes, you escape yourself for a while. It’s fun simply to regard others regarding you.

Back in the 1970s, we would assemble costumes from old clothing and random props, creating personas that were sometimes scary, sometimes ghoulish, usually cliché, but always original. The hobo. The mad scientist. The vampire.

The whole house became our wardrobe: dad’s workshop, mom’s makeup drawer, even kitchen utensils were all fair game. Nothing was too outlandish.

A British sketch comedy show called “The Two Ronnies” once came up with a sinister yet silly character known as the Phantom Raspberry Blower. Dressed in a Victorian cape and top hat, he would knock on farm-house doors. When the unsuspecting resident opened it, the PRB would throw open his cape and, in the universal human sound for flatulence, issue a lengthy raspberry. Invariably, it killed the victim instantly.

To the 10-year-old me, this was the funniest thing in the world. Little did I realize the show was actually spoofing contemporary serial killers, not to mention alluding to Jack the Ripper. But for us it was harmless fun.

So that Halloween my younger brother and I dressed as phantom raspberry blowers. Old beach towels were our capes. We found old hats and dabbed on Mom’s makeup powder so we’d look pasty and ghoulish. Then we hit the streets. (Of course, we’d already honed our best rip-roaring raspberries from years of standard childhood practice.) Years later, a friend once dressed up as a cereal killer. He wore a simple suit to which he affixed various boxes of breakfast cereal.

Today, corporate America sells flimsy, Chinese-made replica costumes from every TV show, movie and cartoon, deftly playing on children’s strong desire to become that which they see. Creativity is gone from the equation.

I recently asked our 3-year-old who she wanted to be for Halloween. “Belle,” she responded, referring to the angelic beauty from Beauty and the Beast. I won’t even bother to root around the closet to help her assemble a homespun costume. Next time we’re in Wal-Mart, she’ll spot a flimsy, mass-produced costume, cunningly and colorfully packaged and strategically placed at her eye level.

At least I’ll take comfort in the fact that, regardless how contrived her costume will be, she’ll walk, carry herself and feel, if only for a few hours, like an actual princess.

Then the sugar high will wear off, and she’ll fall into a deep, polyester-clad slumber we grownups can only wish for.