The Kiss Impersonators started by accident in 1976. Troy Correia wanted to do something different for Halloween that year. He wanted to do something that was entertaining and out of the norm, something where he could play the role of someone famous. His first idea was to dress up as Alice Cooper, but he also wanted to include some of his close friends in on it too. That meant finding someone other than Alice to dress up as. In 1976, The Bay City Rollers were hitting it big with recent hits like "Saturday Night" and "I Only Want To Be With You". Their image was based around their plad outfits. This was a group Troy felt would work well for Halloween so he got together a group consisting of his brother Chris and three other friends, Paul Alberts, Jack Standish, and Eugene Vaccaro to complete the group. Plans started a couple weeks before Halloween to get their costumes put together. Three days before Halloween, the group ran into a problem. Eugene got in trouble, was put on restriction, and was unable to go out on Halloween. This left the other four to either find another member or come up with another idea. With such a short amount of time left to try and find a replacement, Troy showed the others a photo of a band called KISS that he had seen in his Columbia House Record Club book. All of the others liked the idea and The KISS Impersonators were born.

Original make-up used by the group in 1976

None of the members, including Troy, knew much about KISS other than they were different. On October 29th, the group got to see KISS perform when they appeared on the "Paul Lynde Halloween Special." The following day Troy went to collect the money needed for their make-up, it was at that point more changes were about to happen. Jack Standish did not want to put in fifty cents toward the make-up. When Jack would not contribute his portion, another friend, Dean Gulbrandson, that was with Troy and Jack, asked if he could be in the group if he paid the fifty cents needed for the make-up. Troy said yes and within a couple minutes, Dean was back with his fifty cents in hand so Jack was now out of the group. That afternoon the make-up was purchased. Back in 1976, white face make-up was very hard to find unlike today when every store with Halloween accessories carries it. Troy had no luck finding white face paint, but he did find small white lipstick samples at Longs Drugs at the Fremont Hub. Loading up on white, red, and one silver lipstick along with a tube of black make-up, Troy had the make-up needed. Once home, Troy was able to gather up a few afro wigs and talk with everyone about their costumes which would consist of Levi jackets and jeans.

Finally Halloween arrived and the KISS Impersonators made their first of nine Halloween appearances. They ventured out to Patterson Elementary School. Unfortunately they didn't get much recognition. They entered the costume contest, but lost to a boy dressed as a robot. He had a pretty cool costume and deserved to win over the simple costumes and make-up the group had. Even though they didn't make much of an impression on anyone, they had no idea what laid ahead for them.

This year the members were (L-R) Troy Correia as Peter Criss, Chris Correia as Paul Stanley, Dean Gulbrandson as Ace Frehley, and Paul Alberts as Gene Simmons.

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