Casper the Friendly Ghost

The Friendly Ghost may not be the best of the Casper cartoons, there is understandably a not-quite-found its feet yet. However, this still manages to be a good start, and made room for better to follow.

The Friendly Ghost is not the best-looking of the series, it's not quite as lush or colourful, the grainy picture quality doesn't help and Casper did look odd and as if his design was still developing (understandable). Overall however, it is still quite good, most of the characters are well drawn and move well, some of the colours are beautiful and the backgrounds are very detailed and have a lot of atmosphere in the early parts of the cartoon. Winston Sharples' music as always is outstanding and often one of the best assets of all the cartoons they feature in. It's beautifully orchestrated, lively, poignant-sounding without being saccharine and in the early parts it's also quite spooky.

Dialogue here is sweet and moving (this is not the sort of cartoon that's particularly funny, the man at the end's fright at seeing Casper is wonderfully exaggerated), though Casper feeling sorry for himself doesn't quite avoid being too sentimental. The story, while not particularly innovative, is incredibly cute, with the befriending of the children, has a lot of charm and atmosphere and is quite poignant (if not as heart-wrenching as the cartoon made afterwards). I do agree that the family's acceptance of Casper was too rushed and too quickly introduced. The moral does avoid being laid on too thick or heavy-handed. The characters are engaging, and the voice acting is very solid.

All in all, there is better in the Casper the Friendly Ghost series but this is a good start. 7/10 Bethany Cox