Casper the Friendly Ghost


Casper the Friendly Ghost is a fictional character who serves as the protagonist of the Famous Studios theatrical animated cartoon series of the same name. He is a translucent ghost who is pleasant and personable, but often criticized by his three wicked uncles, the Ghostly Trio.
The character was featured in 55 theatrical cartoons titled The Friendly Ghost from 1945 to 1959. The character has been featured in comic books published by Harvey Comics since 1952, and Harvey purchased the character outright in 1959. Casper became one of Harvey's most popular characters, headlining several comic book titles.
Following Harvey's purchase of the character, he appeared in five television series: Matty's Funday Funnies, The New Casper Cartoon Show, Casper and the Angels, The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper and Casper's Scare School. The character made his theatrical film debut in a live-action adaptation of the series by Universal Pictures: Casper, to where he became the first computer-generated character to star in a film. He would later appear in four direct-to-video and made-for-TV follow-up films.
The Apollo 16 Command and Service Module was given the call sign "Casper", since its pilot Ken Mattingly thought, "there are enough serious things in this flight, so I picked a non-serious name."
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Creation

The origins of Casper are disputed, with both Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo claiming to be the character's creator. According to Oriolo, Casper was created on a Halloween night to assuage his four-year-old daughter Joan's fear of the dark. He made a cardboard cutout of a friendly ghost and hung it in the backyard tree to show her that not all ghosts are bad.
Though Joan has corroborated this story, Seymour Reit maintains that Casper was born with a short story which he conceived and wrote entirely by himself and gave to Oriolo to illustrate. Reit concluded, "Joe created the actual cartoon of the character - but the concept, series, idea and plotline were mine, prior to Joe's involvement. Joe played an important part, but I was Casper's legit 'Poppa'."
Reit and Oriolo intended to sell the story to either Fleischer Studios or to a children's storybook publisher, and they eventually lined up a deal with Grosset & Dunlap. When Reit was away on military service during World War II before the book was released, Oriolo sold the rights to the book to Famous Studios for a total of $175. This one-time payment was all that he received, missing out on a share of the revenue earned from the films, comic books and merchandise to come. For his part, Reit received no payment for the book at all.
In the original Famous cartoons, Casper is standing next to a grave inscribed with "Casper", that supports the theory he is indeed a ghost. Originally, stories have shown that his visibility is due to wearing a sheet. In the Casper live-action film, this is not shown and it is implied that he is naturally visible to humans as a white creature.

Appearances

Theatrical appearances

The Friendly Ghost, the first Noveltoons short to feature Casper, was released by Paramount in May 1945 with a few differences from the book. In the cartoon adaptation, Casper is a cute ghost-child with a New York accent who inhabits a haunted house along with a community of adult ghosts who delight in scaring the living. Casper, in contrast, would prefer to make friends with people. He packs up his belongings and goes out into the world, hoping to find friends. However, the animals that he meets take one horrified look at him, scream: "A ghost!" and run off in the other direction. Distraught, Casper attempts suicide by lying down on a railway track before an oncoming train, before he meets two children named Bonnie and Johnny who become his friends. The children's mother, apparently widowed and impoverished, is frightened of Casper. She later welcomes him into the family after he unintentionally frightens off a greedy landlord, who, unwilling to own a "haunted" house, tears up the mortgage and gives her the house outright. The short ends with the mother kissing Bonnie, Johnny, and Casper as she sends them off to school, with Casper wearing clothing as if he were a living child.
Casper appeared in two more Noveltoons shorts, There's Good Boos To-Night and A Haunting We Will Go, released in 1948 and 1949 respectively, even though Famous Studios's president and general manager Sam Buchwald had already given approval for Casper to have his own series. In these cartoons Casper's appearance was cuter and more infantile than in his debut cartoon; head animator Myron Waldman has claimed credit for the redesign. There's Good Boos To-Night differs wildly from later Casper cartoons: although the theme of Casper trying to find a friend and failing in these attempts before succeeding also occurs in later cartoons, the tone of this short turns remarkably dark when a hunter and his dogs appear, chasing the little fox cub named Ferdie that Casper has befriended. Although Casper scares the hunter and dogs away, Casper discovers Ferdie dead after a harrowing chase scene. Ferdie returns as a ghost to join his friend Casper in the afterlife.
These three cartoons were initially billed as Noveltoon shorts before Paramount started the official Casper the Friendly Ghost series in 1950, which ran until 1959. Most of the entries in the series were relatively the same: Casper escapes from the afterlife of a regular ghost because he finds that scaring people can be tiresome year after year, tries to find friends but inadvertently scares almost everyone, and finally finds a friend, whom he saves from some sort of fate, leading to his acceptance by those initially scared of him. Animation historian Leonard Maltin, in his book Of Mice and Magic, criticized the series for its reliance on repetition, saying that Casper was "the most monotonous character to invade cartoonland since Mighty Mouse. It seemed as it every Casper cartoon followed the same story line, with only minor variations." One of the animators, Lee Mishkin, similarly complained, "With the Casper series, you never knew what picture you were working on because they were all exactly the same."

Harvey Comics

Casper was first published in comics form in August 1949 by St. John Publications, running for five issues until September 1951. In 1952, Alfred Harvey, founder and publisher of Harvey Comics began producing Casper comic books. Casper appeared in Harvey Comics Hits #61, and then moved to a solo book with Casper the Friendly Ghost #7, picking up the numbering from the St. John Publications series. The series was written and edited by Sid Jacobson and drawn by Warren Kremer, who broke from the formula established in the cartoons by redesigning Casper to have feet, avoiding undue emphasis on the fact that Casper was a dead child, giving Casper a supporting cast of friends, and creating stories in which Casper used his powers to do good. In 1959, Harvey purchased the rights to the character outright.
Casper went on to headline a large number of comic book series, as well as appearing in back up stories and guest appearances in other titles. Many of the characters introduced in the comic book series went on to appear in the Casper cartoons. The Casper series inspired three popular spin-offs: Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, Wendy [the Good Little Witch], and The Ghostly Trio. Casper's titles include:CasperCasper Adventure DigestCasper and...Casper and FriendsCasper and Friends MagazineCasper and NightmareCasper and SpookyCasper and The Ghostly TrioCasper: A Spirited Beginning Casper Big BookCasper DigestCasper Digest StoriesCasper Digest WinnersCasper Enchanted Tales DigestCasper GhostlandCasper Giant SizeCasper Halloween Trick or TreatCasper in SpaceCasper in 3-DCasper MagazineCasper Movie AdaptationCasper Space ShipCasper's GhostlandCasper's Scare SchoolCasper's Haunted ChristmasCasper SpecialCasper Strange Ghost StoriesCasper, the Friendly GhostCasper TV ShowtimeFamous TV Funday FunniesThe Friendly Ghost, CasperHarvey Two-PackNightmare and CasperRichie Rich and CasperRichie Rich, Casper, and WendyTV Casper and CompanyCasper and the Spectrals
In 2009, a new Casper comic was published, called Casper and the Spectrals by Arden Entertainment. Much like The Man of Steel and Batman: Year One did with their respective characters, it revamped Casper and several other Harvey characters for a new audience. After selling 6,400 copies of the first comic, the last two issues were published in 2010. Comic book publisher American Mythology picked up the Casper the Friendly Ghost title, and has also published Casper & Wendy and Casper & Hot Stuff.

Television

Casper has starred in five television shows:Matty's Funday Funnies The New Casper Cartoon Show Casper and the Angels The Harveytoons Show The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper Casper's Scare School
After Harvey bought the rights to Casper and many other Famous properties in 1959, they began broadcasting the post-September 1950 theatrical Famous shorts on a television show sponsored by Mattel Toys titled Matty's Funday Funnies on ABC in 1959 which introduced the Barbie doll to the public. The other Famous produced Casper cartoons had already been acquired by television distributor U.M. & M. TV Corporation in 1956. U.M. & M. retitled just "A Haunting We Will Go", but credited "Featuring Casper The Friendly Ghost" as "Featuring Casper's Friendly Ghost".
New cartoons were created for The New Casper Cartoon Show in 1963, also on ABC. The original Casper cartoons were syndicated under the title Harveytoons in 1963 and ran continuously until the mid-90s. Casper has remained popular in reruns and merchandising.
Hanna-Barbera Productions also gave Casper two holiday specials, Casper's First Christmas and Casper's Halloween Special, and also the Saturday morning cartoon series Casper and the Angels in the autumn of 1979, all on NBC. Also featured on the NBC version was a big ghost named Hairy Scary. None of Casper's original co-stars appeared in the show.
Between 1990 and 1994, Casper appeared in The Harveytoons Show which was known as Casper and Friends in the UK. This show featured other Harvey Comics characters and series including: Little Audrey, Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare, Baby Huey, Herman and Katnip, Buzzy the Crow, Modern Madcaps, Possum Pearl, Professor Schmatlz, Jeeper and Creeper and others. The show consisted of Famous Studios-produced cartoons from 1950 to 1964 and each episode of the series included three full cartoons and one "ToonTake" segment.
In 1996, Amblin Entertainment and Universal Cartoon Studios created a new Casper series for Fox Kids called The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper, based on the 1995 feature, that lasted two years and was never seen on television again after 1998.
In 2009, MoonScoop Group, in association with Classic Media, TF1 and DQ, produced a TV show named Casper's Scare School, based on the film of the same name.
In 2020, Casper appeared in a supporting role in the "Scare Bud" episode of Harvey Girls Forever!, a series based on Harvey Comics characters.
A new live-action television series was announced to be in development at Peacock, co-produced between Universal Content Productions and DreamWorks Animation with Wu Kai-yu writing and executive producing. There has been no new information since then.
Casper can be seen on Casper and Company on MeTV Toons weekdays.

Films

The Famous Studios version of Casper was one of many characters considered to appear in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Casper would have appeared at Marvin Acme's funeral, rising from Acme's grave as his coffin is lowered, scaring away the mourners. The funeral scene was storyboarded but cut before being animated.
Numerous Casper cartoons were released on home video by Universal Studios, which also adopted the friendly ghost into a live-action feature film titled Casper in 1995, where he and his wicked uncles, the Ghostly Trio, were rendered via computer animation, which initially created the first CGI lead character in a film. The film constructed a back-story for the character and is the only time in the series that the question of his death has been addressed. According to the film, Casper was a twelve-year-old boy living in Whipstaff Manor with his inventor father J.T. McFadden until he died from pneumonia after playing out in the cold until it was past nightfall. Two live-action direct-to-video follow-ups to the film, Casper: A Spirited Beginning and Casper Meets Wendy, were made. They were followed by Casper's Haunted Christmas, and Casper's Scare School, which were done entirely in CGI with no live-action elements.
In 2001, Harvey Entertainment was acquired by Classic Media which, until 2012, licensed the Harvey properties including Casper.
Casper made a cameo in a MetLife commercial along with several other cartoon characters in 2012. Later that same year, Classic Media was acquired by DreamWorks Animation. In 2013, DreamWorks Animation announced that they were developing a computer-animated reboot film based on the Harvey Comics character of the same name. Simon Wells, who at one point was previously attached to write and direct the unproduced sequel to the live-action film, was attached to write and direct this adaptation, with writing duo John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky to co-write the film's script along with. It was set to be DreamWorks' second attempt at an animated film based on characters from the Classic Media library following Mr. Peabody & Sherman, but nothing came of it since its announcement. Concept art for an unproduced film was posted by animator Danny Williams in December 2023, stating that the pitch "never went anywhere". Two years afterwards, the Casper character and any and all of Harvey Comics characters would be acquired by NBCUniversal in 2016, and thus Universal Pictures, the producer of the original live-action feature film, now manages the rights to the character and other related characters in addition to regaining the rights to Casper's Haunted Christmas. However, Casper Meets Wendy is currently owned by The Walt Disney Company through BVS Entertainment and 20th Television.
In 2019, Casper made an appearance in a GEICO commercial. In April 2022, a live-action/animated TV series for Peacock was announced, with Wu Kai-yu being the showrunner. As of 2025 the show is still in development and no news has been heard on it since then.

Actors who have voiced or portrayed Casper

Friends/supporting characters

Enemies

  • Unnamed Greedy Landlord
  • An unnamed fox and duck hunter and his two hunting dogs
  • Tree Men Army
  • Winifred The Witch
  • Screech The Ghost
  • Big Bad Wolf aka Wolfie
  • Kibosh The Ghost
  • Snivel The Ghost
  • The Wizard
  • Four Dragons
  • Krank
  • Doctor Deranged
  • Captain Pegleg Potbelly
  • Ghostly Trio (Casper's uncles): Stretch, Fatso and Stinkie
  • The Witch Sisters : Thelma, Velma and Zelma
  • Catherine "Carrigan" Crittenden
  • Paul "Dibs" Plutzker
  • Bill Case
  • Brock Lee
  • Danny
  • Leon
  • Jennifer
  • Desmond Spellman
  • Vincent and Jules
  • Josh Jackman and his unnamed friend
  • Alder and Dash
  • Thatch
  • Volbragg

Home media

In 2011, Shout! Factory released a DVD set titled Casper The Friendly Ghost: The Complete Collection 1945-1963 which contains The Friendly Ghost, There's Good Boos To-Night, A Haunting We Will Go, 55 theatrical cartoons, and all 26 episodes of The New Casper Cartoon Show.

Video games

''Casper''

Several video games were based on the 1995 film for PC, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Sega Saturn, 3DO, PlayStation, and Game Boy Color. In subsequent years Windows 95 and Game Boy Advance games were released serving as sequels to the film.

''Casper: A Spirited Beginning Activity Center''

Developed by Sound Source Interactive, published by WayForward Technologies and released in 1998 for PC, it is based on the film of the same name and is similar in format to Disney's Activity Center. Set at Ghost Central Station, the player earns Casper coins by completing Casper's Spinning Squares, Stretch's Memory Game, Fatso's Kitchen, Stinkie's Goo Toss and Snivel's Mix & Match. The player must collect at least 15 Casper coins from these five games to unlock Kibosh's Magic Puzzle.

''Casper: Friends Around the World''

Developed by Realtime Associates, published by Sound Source Interactive in the United States and TDK Mediactive in Europe, this game was released in 2000 on PlayStation. It is a mostly 2D side-scrolling platform game with occasional forward and backward movements. The evil Kibosh has invented a device to send Casper's human friends to a place where they "would not have a ghost of a chance of being found" and has hypnotized the Ghostly Trio into doing his bidding. However Casper finds a page from a map of Hollywood giving him a clue on where to start his quest to find his friends and the three missing pieces for Kibosh's imprisoning device to get them back home safely. The game is played across ten levels set around the world with 40 friendship crystals on each level to collect in order to advance to the bonus level at the end.

''Casper: Spirit Dimensions''

Developed by Lucky Chicken Games and published by TDK Mediactive, it was the first 3D game, to have a movable game camera, based on Casper. It was released in 2001 for PlayStation 2 and in 2002 for GameCube. The evil Kibosh has taken over the Spirit World and is intent on also taking over the mortal world. Meanwhile, Wendy the Good Little Witch summons Casper, the only remaining free ghost, and opens the portals to the Spirit Dimensions to help in their only chance to defeat Kibosh.

''Casper and the Ghostly Trio''

Developed by Data Design Interactive and published by Blast! Entertainment, it was released in 2007 on PlayStation 2. It is a 3D game in which Casper has legs and is affected by gravity though he can glide, unlike his flying ability in Spirit Dimensions. The Ghostly Trio have kidnapped Wendy the Good Little Witch in an attempt to use her magic to create a potion that would give them the power to rule Ghostland. Wendy manages to use her magic to get the message across to Casper who must find his way through six levels to rescue her. At the end of the first five levels is a bonus stage in which Casper must collect as many jewels as he can while avoiding the Trio's lightning which is chasing him.

''Casper's Scare School''

Developed by Data Design Interactive for PlayStation 2 and Nikitova Games for the Nintendo DS, it is based on the animated film and TV series of the same name released in 2008 and 2009.

''Casper's Scare School: Spooky Sports Day''

Developed in 2009 by The Code Monkeys for Wii, Nintendo DS and iOS.

Copyright status

As a result of a lawsuit between Harvey and Columbia Pictures in 1984, a court determined that a lapsed copyright had allowed Fatso, Casper's brother/uncle, to enter the public domain. Former Disney researcher Gregory S. Brown later discovered that Harvey had failed to renew other copyrights covering the company's ghosts, including Casper.