Week Eighteen: Aircraft Party

Time to Dress Like an Aviatrix. Better Find Some Lace Trousers

What better way to start off a party than by identifying your guests with the type of aircraft they most resemble? That’s how Cokesbury wants you to start out your Aircraft Party:

Divide the guests into three groups, pinning on the dress or coat the name of the aircraft they represent – Balloon, Blimp, Airplane – and pinning these on so there will be an equal number of each.

Yeah, you certainly wouldn’t want an unequal number of blimps at your party. And if you get too nay airplanes, they’ll all be off to that sale at Penneys. (Note: This is the first and LAST reference to ZAZ’s Airplane! I promise.)

By the way, be careful whom you identify as a “balloon” or a “blimp.” Some people are so sensitive . . .

Back to the party. Here’s the invitation:

If you’ve never been up in the air,
You will be next Friday night;
For we’re giving a party and want you there,
And we’re going to fly all right.
For the party’s an Aircraft Party, you see,
And each one must take the stick
And fly to the land of fun and glee –
The thrills will come fast and thick.

It’ll be helpful to remind your guests that this is a costume party. It’s won’t be The Honeymooners "Man from Space" caliber of costumes, however:

Costumes. The costumes for this party will be easy – just a pair of goggles, a headgear, lace trousers, and boots. Any one of these will carry with it the thought of the aviator. The costumes should be judges, and the one having the nearest appearance to a good aviator should receive the prize.

Bad aviator costumes, I suppose, would include those resembling Amelia Earhart zombies, aviators with bits of prop embedded in their foreheads, et cetera. Probably wise to avoid those costumes anyway, just in case there are people on your guest list who are afraid to fly. Heaven forbid.

As for decorations, Cokesbury is going for verisimilitude this time:

Have a sign on the door, “Airport.” To give the idea of wind, have some electric fans with paper streamers tied to them blowing the streamers into the room. Pictures of aircraft and famous aviators like Colonel Lindbergh and Admiral Byrd may be on the wall. Crepe paper streamers may also be used.

Yes, nothing says “aviator” more than crepe paper streamers. I won’t go into an airport or choose an airline if crepe paper streamers aren’t, as Cokesbury is wont to say, “in evidence.”

Let’s move on to the games, the first of which is so lame I won’t repeat it here – but it is vital to know that in the aforementioned game, you assigned each guest the name of a part of an airplane by affixing a paper with the part written on it to their backs with pins. For the next game, it suffices to move the pins to the front, or, alternatively, to have your guests take off their outer garments and put them on backwards.

Airplane. The guests are seated in a circle, with all the chairs filled. The leader starts telling a story in which she uses different parts of the airship. As the story is told the guests having the parts rise and act them out. The propellers may throw their arms around, the motor make a noise like an engine, the wings stand with arms outstretched; and if there is nothing that can be done, merely get up and turn around. Whenever the leader says, “Airplane,” all must get up and change places, whereupon the leader tries to get in a chair; if he succeeds, the one left out must continue the story.

Remember the game that preceded this one was even more lame. So you’ve got guests you’ve labeled initially as blimps – they still must bear those labels, by the way; you’re not done with them yet – who are given plane parts like “aileron,” or “shaker stick” to emulate. The poor saps with no imagination are just to get up and turn around, so those in the circle may identify them and thus avoid being on their teams when you play Pictionary or charades. Maybe use this game to weed out unimaginative guests.

On to the next game, which will further help you weed your guest list by identifying those with weak bladders.

Airplane Ride. Take a board about six feet long and about ten or twelve inches wide and raise it from the floor by using bricks or blocks on each end. A player is blindfolded and asked to step into the plane for a ride. He is permitted to keep his hand on the shoulder of the pilot while two other players take hold of the board and raise it two or three inches from the bricks or blocks. At this time the pilot stoops down to make it appear that the one on the boards is being lifted. Someone takes a broom, and after crying out, “Look out for the ceiling,” touches the passenger on the head with it. Usually the passenger will jump at this time, and it is comical to see how he acts when he finds that he is only six or eight inches from the floor. This stunt may be done in the yard or in a separate room, and the guests brought in one at a time.

Maybe you’d better invent a game to weed out the litigious or any lawyers in on your guest list before you try this game out. But now it’s time to move on to your Blimps, Balloons and Airplanes and make their nametags worthwhile:

Airplane Race. The three groups, the Blimps, the Balloons, and the Airplanes, line up in parallel lines facing each other. Four toy airplanes are placed on a chair at the head of each line. Upon signal from the leader, the player at the head of the line picks up the first airplane and starts it down the line, then the second and third and fourth. The player at the other end of the line must lay down the planes on another chair until he has all four. Then he starts them back up the line. The relay may be lengthened and made more interesting by having the planes make two or three laps up and down. The group that gets all the planes back to the starting point first wins.

Next go on to a game that will challenge your guests’ mental acuity, fine motor skills and, perhaps, drive the weaker-minded completely insane. Try it and see. It is a good stunt.

This is a Blimp-Airplane. The players are seated in a semicircle. The player on one end has an object; it makes no difference what it is. A spool or a thimble or any kind of a wood block will do. The person on one end of the line turns to the next one in line and says, “This is an airplane.” He does not take it the first time, but says, “A what?” to which he replies “an airplane.” The second player then takes the object and turns to the third player and says, “This is an airplane.” The third player does not take it, but says, “A what?” The second player then turns to the first and hands him back, the object ans says, “A what?” He takes the object and immediately hands it back and say, “An airplane.” He then passes it to the third player and says, “An airplane,” whereupon the third player takes it and passes it to the fourth. Each time it must go all the way back to the first man. But in the meantime at the other end of the line an object has been started in a similar way, except the one who started it has said, “This is a blimp,” and the blimp is passing back and forth at the other end of the line. The fun begins to come when the airplane and the blimp cross each other. It is puzzling which way to send each object and what to say. Try it and see. It is a good stunt.

Now it’s refreshment time. Dig out the old sandwich standby, allowing your guests to drown their sorrows in coffee. If you’re out of sandwiches, use doughnuts. And then, as your guests unwind in their aviator togs, spool that old Twilight Zone classic “Nightmare at 20,000 feet,” and identify each actor in the show as a Blimp, Balloon, or Airplane. William Shatner, given his method acting ability, could be any of the objects, all of them, or none. Just try to peg him down.

That’s it for now. But get ready for next week’s party – the Shipwreck Party, which is another costume extravaganza.