To help out a little, TV.com has a bunch of ideas for costumes inspired by TV characters. Some are kinda lame (going as Barney from ‘How I Met Your Mother’ means you’re basically just a dude in a nice suit), but there are some you could have fun with. In addition to ‘The Walking Dead’ (above), here are the five best we found from the list.

MTV’s hit reality show, which depicts the exploits of a group of raisin-tanned 20-somethings as they live and party along the New Jersey coastline, has just had $420,000 of its 2009 production costs covered by the state’s Economic Development Authority.