Casper
- This article is about the character. For the specials, see Casper the Friendly Ghost.
| Casper | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Species | Ghost |
| Gender | Male |
| Affiliation | Hairy Scary Mini Maxi |
| Father | Not mentioned |
| Mother | Not mentioned |
| Marital status | Single |
| First appearance | C&TA: "Casper's Golden Chance" (1979) |
| Played by | Julie McWhirter |
Casper the Friendly Ghost, or simply Casper, is the titular protagonist of the Casper and the Angels animated television series. He is voiced by Julie McWhirter.
Character description
Appearances
TV series
Specials
Biography
Development
Casper was the creation of Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo, the former devising the character and the latter providing illustrations.[1] He was originally made as the basis for a children's storybook in the late 1930s, but the idea garnered little interest at first and the book went unpublished. While Reit was away doing military service during World War II, Oriolo sold the story pitch to Famous Studios for a total of $175, based on a script for what would become Casper's first cartoon in 1945, The Friendly Ghost.[2][3] According to Oriolo, the sale was made for a one-shot production only and thought that the short might increase interest in a potential book.[2] This one-time payment was all that received, missing out the revenue earned from any future films, comic books and merchandise.
Following his debut, Casper appeared in a total of 55 theatrical cartoons by Famous Studios, encompassing an animated filmography that lasted until 1959. His first three entries, The Friendly Ghost (1945), There's Good Boos To-Night (1948) and A Haunting We Will Go (1949), were originally billed as part of the Noveltoons line of shorts before Paramount officially started the Casper the Friendly Ghost series in 1950. The cartoons, which follow more-or-less the same plot, center on Casper as a kind, sympathetic ghost who simply wants to make friends, instead of the conformity of scaring people like other ghosts, before befriending another person or animal that he later saves. The fact that Casper was an actual ghost is especially hinted in his early shorts, although this later was lightly brushed off when the cartoons take on a lighter tone. Casper became a fixture of popular culture as an icon of the supernatural, though in the book Of Mice and Magic, film historian Leonard Maltin wrote that Casper was "the most monotonous character to invade cartoonland since Mighty Mouse. It seemed as if every Casper cartoon followed the same story line, with only minor variations."[4]
Eventually, Casper was first published in comics form in August 1949 by St. John Publications, running for five issues until September 1951. Another run of Casper comics was produced by Harvey Comics in 1952, which was led by Alfred Harvey. The company purchased the rights to the character from Paramount in 1959. The comics inspired a multitude of comic runs and spin-offs, a few of which based on its supporting cast, including Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, Wendy the Good Little Witch, and Casper and the Ghostly Trio.
Following Harvey's purchase of Casper and other Famous properties (including Herman and Katnip, Little Audrey, and Baby Huey), the post-September 1950 Famous shorts aired on television as part of Matty's Funday Funnies, an anthology series sponsored by Mattel that aired on ABC in 1959. A series of new cartoons were created for The New Casper Cartoon Show in 1963, which also aired on ABC; the original Casper shorts were syndicated under the Harveytoons label up until sometime in the mid-1990s, and mostly exist in their televised prints as of the early 2020s through MeTV Toons and YouTube uploads. Casper has since appeared in the later media that followed, with the most notable being a 1995 live-action feature film by Amblin Entertainment. Casper, alongside the rest of the Harveytoons library, are currently owned by DreamWorks Classics, a subsidiary of DreamWorks Animation and Universal Pictures.
Hanna-Barbera licensed the character from Harvey Comics for a television series in 1979, Casper and the Angels, in addition to the holiday specials Casper's Halloween Special and Casper's First Christmas. In these entries, Casper was paired with a big ghost named Hairy Scary and none of his original co-stars appeared in these.
Behind the scenes
- The notion of Casper being a dead child is never acknowledged for the most part, both in his Hanna-Barbera appearances or in other media. It was merely hinted in some of his theatrical cartoons, such as his residence in a cemetery or a haunted house, although he was briefly given ghost parents in the 1959 short Casper's Birthday Party. In the unrelated 1995 feature film, it was revealed once that Casper was a 12-year old human child, who died from pneumonia after playing in the cold past nightfall. In said feature film, his full name is Casper McFadden.
In popular culture
- In The Simpsons episode "Three Men and a Comic Book," Bart points to Lisa that Casper looks similar to Richie Rich, leading them to speculate that he is Richie's ghost. Lisa assumes that Richie died when he realized "how hollow the pursuit of money is and took his own life."
References
- ^ Holland, Steve (December 24, 2001). "Obituary: Seymour Reit". The Guardian. Retrieved December 19, 2024.
- ^ a b "Casper" (from The Encyclopedia of Cartoon Superstars, by John Cawley & Jim Korkis). Retrieved December 19, 2024.
- ^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, p. 63. Checkmark Books. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved December 19, 2024.
- ^ Maltin, Leonard; Beck, Jerry (December 1, 1987). Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, Revised and Updated. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-452-25993-5.
