“The View” dresses child as the Chinese spy balloon for Halloween

Joey Nolfi
·2-min read
“The View” dresses child as the Chinese spy balloon for Halloween

From the Oscars slap to international espionage, The View's fan-favorite Hot Topics Halloween costume segment again dressed a child in a wild holiday getup.

The show's 2023 edition of its Halloween episode included children parading through the set in attire inspired by 2023's many headline-making moments — including a kid wearing a giant white balloon in reference to the Chinese balloon that invaded American airspace in January.

The View, Surveillance balloon
The View, Surveillance balloon

ABC; US Department of Defense / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images 'The View' dressed a child as the Chinese spy balloon for Halloween.

"Every year there's a news story we're all fixated on, and, this year, it was this one," said the show's wardrobe supervisor, Ashley Alderfer Kaufman, in her introduction for the recurring Halloween costume segment. "At first, no one knew what it was, why was there a floating balloon flying across the U.S. airspace for seven days? Finally, the U.S. Air Force shot it down and officials reported that it was carrying intelligence-gathering equipment, yet no information was sent back to China. What it was doing? I don't know."

One of the off-camera cohosts could be heard exclaiming, "Oh my God" as the child walked the set.

"I love it," legal expert Sunny Hostin quipped as her fellow panelists chuckled at the sight of the child, who also held a tiny magnifying glass and shimmied with the white material flowing around him.

The View Halloween
The View Halloween

ABC (3) Sara Haines, Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin on 'The View' Halloween episode.

Other children's costumes on this year's installment included Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg punching each other in the face, Golden Bachelor star Gerry Turner, a shelf filled with banned books, various iterations of Taylor Swift, and Travis Kelce.

The costume debuted one year after the show referenced the Will Smith/Chris Rock Oscars slap by parading a child on stage as an Academy Award with a red handprint on its face.

Elsewhere on The View's 2023 Halloween episode, the cohosts debuted transformative costumes honoring 100 years of Disney's past, including Whoopi Goldberg as Barbie from Toy Story; Sara Haines as Carl Fredricksen from Up; Alyssa Farah Griffin as Princess Jasmine from Aladdin; Ana Navarro as Mirabel from Encanto; Joy Behar as Cruella de Vil, and Hostin as Avatar character Neytiri.

The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.

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