The Friendly Ghost

Casper the Friendly Ghost saw his movie debut in November 1945 "The Friendly Ghost." The cartoon was part of a series created by the newly-established the Famous Players, Paramount Picture's animated film department. When Paramount took over the financially-failing Fleischer Studios in 1941, it renamed the division Famous Players, and continued to produce Popeye the Sailor and Superman cartoons. In an addition to its lineup, the studio developed 'Noveltoons,' whose purpose was to draw one-shot characters. It soon discovered a few of these characters were popular and deserved their own series. Casper the Friendly Ghost, one of Noveltoons' first cartoons, is introduced in "The Friendly Ghost." Casper lives in a haunted house with other ghosts taking delight in scaring people around the neighborhood. The boy ghost Casper gets bored by his fellow ghosts' antics, and decides to go into the world intending to make friends with mortals. But everyone he meets are deathly afraid of him. He's so sad he attempts to commit suicide by straddling tracks before an oncoming train. Since he's already dead, his efforts are futile. Casper meets two kids, who befriend him. They take him home, but their mother is scared out of her wits. Casper makes amends by frightening a mortgage banker about to repossess the family's home, causing the banker to do something unheard of in cartoons.

This pattern is nearly duplicated in nearly every Casper cartoon, so much so it prompted film historian Leonard Maltin to describe Casper as "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." A slimmer version of Casper received his own series in 1950 and ran in theaters until 1960 where the ghost became a television fixture.

This cartoon has historic value in that it is the first "Casper" animated short, so they give a short introduction about the main character. The narrator even gives the viewers the option of believing in ghosts, saying if you do, you'll like the story and if you don't well.....just pretend you do! Who says people weren't "tolerant" in the "old days?"

The basic premise is that all the ghosts in the haunted house would go out each night and scare people. However, Casper preferred to stay home and NOT scare people. Hence, the title "the friendly ghost." He would even sit and read a book called, "How To Win Friends."

The story is about how he gets disgusted with his fellow ghosts and one night decides to leave his house to go out and try to make friends in the world. He finds that easier said than done as people freak out when they see him!

This Technicolor cartoon would look really good with a nice restoration job as has been done with Looney Tunes and Popeye cartoons. The color and artwork in this one is excellent.

This first CASPER cartoon is an engaging little film (though Casper is almost unrecognizable--his design was later "cleaned up" and streamlined as he developed, much like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny) that has much to offer younger children. Issues such as fair play, overcoming peer pressure and being accepted for who you are (not by how you appear) make this a charming bit of animation for children that offers a nice moral education as well.

Later on, as Famous Studios would try to understand how to approach Casper as a character, they would often get esoteric (THERE'S GOOD BOOS TONIGHT is an example of how they tried to make Casper a "serious" cartoon, and features actual death). Ultimately, Harveytoons would make Casper into a brain-dead ghost--but here he is a ghost with a soul.

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

This is the first Casper cartoon, and it is a fine start to the series. I recall viewing this short on an old VHS tape that also had the other two early Casper cartoons. Unfortunately, we lost the tape quite some time ago.

The story starts with a pudgy Casper running away from home, upset about the ghostly antics of his many siblings. Along the road, Casper tries to make friends, but they all run away. Poor Casper was so sad and depressed that he tried committing suicide by sitting on the railroad tracks, but he forgot he was already dead and wept. At that moment, two children came by and asked Casper if he wanted to play with them. Of course, Casper said "yes," and it looks like he made two friends. But will it last? I highly recommend watching it. I absolutely love this cartoon! It's a fantastic introduction to the Casper series.