Would you be possibly able to do a costume breakdown for either (or both, if you have time!) the original CB played by Michael Staniforth, or the Bochum 1992-93 era CB?
Let's have a look at London CB! I want to take a look at the few glimpses we get of CB later in the run too, if you don't mind, they're pretty rare to see!
So what are we looking at for the very first Caboose? Well, compared to later versions, we're leaning more into the American classic baseball vibes - this guy at Casey's Corner in Disneyworld is showing us so many of the same elements! John Napier wove together strands of "train" and recognisable archetypes from normal life to create costumes that tell us so much about the characters - CB is giving us All-American Wholesomeness! the moustache may seem like an interesting choice to us now, but it's absolutely in keeping with the source.
One of the things I love about him is that he's brick-red, a dusty red. We know it's not that the photos have faded, look at him next to Electra, even the candy-apple red wheel on his belt contrasts his dusty jacket! He definitely feels more like an older, sun-bleached freight, compared to the glossy Electrics. You can believe this caboose has been around a while...
On thing to remember is that most of the good pics we have are from the press call before the show opened, and before he got any shoulder boxes at all. It's more apparent in some other characters that their costumes were unfinished- I mean, the Pearl saga for example... but it's also relevant here. The photo above is from once the show opened, and while it's not the full realisation of the design, he's got SOMETHING going on with his shoulders as intended! Of course they needed photos ready before the press night, but it's a shame they didn't save the full show photography until after the costumes were finalised.
Yes, but practically, how does this costume go together? Oddly! So he basically just consists of a jacket and the leggings (plus hat, belt, gloves, kneepads...) Michael Staniforth had elaborate, padded leggings with the stripes enhanced with foam. Bobby Collins, Paul Reeves, everyone else seems to have had more simple leggings without the raised detail. That level of detail is common in the German costumes, not so much London, especially early on.
Michael Staniforth also appears to have had two belts? In the photo of him with Electra and Volta, with the jacket untucked over the belt, his belt has silver trim, matching the German version. All the other photos show plain black with the central red wheel.
His jacket is, apparently, just the one piece, which I would love to know the logic behind. The body is padded, there's a front zip hidden under the front panel - then there's excess fabric to try to tuck under the belt and hold it in place! It's meant to be three dimensional and bold, but they clearly hadn't come up with an effective way to layer the costume pieces yet. Similarly his arms are meant to appear to be short sleeves like the baseball player, over fitted black sleeves, yet they chose not to actually make the costume in two layers and the short sleeves, black under-sleeve, and details that appear to be the gauntlet of the gloves are all one piece. Was it simpler to make that way? I can't imagine it was much easier to wear and dress than if the actor had been wearing a unitard with grey body and legs and black arms, and the gloves had the gauntlets attached. And as we see in a couple of these pics including the press photo - it didn't stay in place.
Later years... the shoulders get a bit weird. What started for Michael Staniforth as a black seam between shoulder and body that would have included a gusset for more movement, and anchorage for the shoulder pads, became a full on separation of the arms from the body.
This press photo shows a really nice clean version of the costume, with the strong diagonal on the front panel. We got a couple of pics on the wiki of covers wearing this version in 1991-1992, but nothing more on this particular version!
There's this one costume worn by William Adams in 1991 for sure, where the front panel is much more prominent, and the sleeves aren't really related to the jacket at all! But we also have William wearing a costume much more in keeping with earlier versions - major armpit gussets, but a square front there.
I'm not aware of any confirmed "Final Farewell CB and Belle" footage or images, so I don't know for sure, but I assume that William Adams' bold front version was the last CB costume worn in London. I hope there was some sort of aknowledgement the last time those roles were played, before the new show took over completely!
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