Countdown to Halloween: A-Haunting We Will Go (1949)

A-Haunting We Will Go (Paramount/Famous, 1949) 

Dir: Seymour Kneitel

TC4P Rating: 5/9

For their third Casper Noveltoon film (he would graduate to his own series after this one), Paramount's Famous Studios really switched gears and tried to break free of the formula that their squeaky clean, overly Friendly Ghost character had been mired in through his first two shorts.

Ha! I had you there, didn't I? Of course, the Casper films changed very little from short to short; it is, after all, Famous Studios we are talking about here, and there was no way that they were going to veer that suddenly from a barely trod but safe path. The closest thing that they did here to switch things up for the third Casper film was to give Seymour Kneitel his first shot directing the character; in all honesty, though, sometimes it is truly hard to tell any real discernible difference between Kneitel's films and those of his Paramount partner, Isadore Sparber. One other minor change was an attempt to slowly begin the slimming down of the once rather portly Casper, a progression that would continue until eventually he would reach the dimensions that much of the world recognizes from both his later cartoons and his Harvey comic books. (His head in the first two films seemed to climb right out of his shoulders; here, Casper is beginning to gain some semblance of an actual neck distinctly separate from his noggin.)

Do ghosts naturally behave in the manner portrayed by the previous inhabitants of the abandoned buildings which the spooks now occupy? If so, this would explain the antics of the ghosts who reside in the rundown little red schoolhouse that is seen at the beginning of A-Haunting We Will Go. Unless, of course, Famous is upping the chilling notion at the heart of the Casper series – that Casper is the ghost of a dead child – by casting an entire classroom of recently deceased school-kid spooks?

A narrator, who sounds at first like someone trying to imitate Jack Benny poorly, introduces us back into Casper's world by stating "I don't think anyone ever really believes in ghosts OR ghost stories..." as we see the camera begin a somewhat eerie pan from its starting point on a dark cemetery at night to the one-room schoolhouse that some civil engineering genius decided to build right next to it. The narrator has that "but" tone in his voice as his voice trails off, and sure enough, he continues, "...but there is one they tell about an old, deserted, little red schoolhouse..." (The narrator's continued intrusions are pretty much unnecessary, as his introduction really makes little sense and there is no point that we can't figure out what is happening without him.)

The action begins inside the boarded up schoolhouse, where we meet a bespectacled schoolteacher leading a classroom of small but deeply voiced ghosts since the words of the film's title – "A-haunting we will go!" – again and again. punctuating the chorus with "Boo! Boo! Boo!" The ghosts learn the tools of the haunting trade in this classroom setting that would otherwise seem normal for regular kids except for the sayings that line the chalkboard. "Boo unto others as you would have others boo unto you," "Fright makes right" and "I will spook when spooken to" are the examples shown, and it seems the teacher will not easily accept failure in her classroom. Poor Casper the Friendly Ghost has obviously found this out the hard way, planted as he is in the corner of the room with a dunce cap atop his ghostly little head.

Casper's failure as a ghost lies not in his inability to frighten; as we well know from past films and endless comic books, however inadvertently and unwanted, he frightens others exceedingly well. He is quite recognizably a ghost, after all. No, the problem that causes Casper to achieve outcast status amongst his phantasmic kin is that he wishes not to frighten. Thus, Casper is a dismal failure in his ghosting class. The schoolmarm announces, "For your homework tonight, we will all go out and practice what we screech. Class dismissed!" With a wave of her arms, the class flies right through the walls of the schoolhouse and into the dark of night. And so, yet again, in the manner of the previous two films, Casper will set out to find a friend, departing from the frightening course the rest of his classmates set out to achieve. He marches out sadly from the schoolhouse, but then perks up at the thought of new friendship, and skips happily to a local pond.

But Casper always has problems with the friend-making game. First, a turtle he meets is so shocked that he zips away faster than any rabbit could, without a doubt breaking the turtle land speed record. Next, a pelican is certainly frightened enough by the little ghost, but not as much as the fish inside the huge flaps of the pelican's mouth. The poor fish is easily twice as freaked out by Casper's appearance. He bug his eyes out wide at the sight of the ghost kid – in triplicate, even – and then slams the pelican's mouth shut around himself, and leaps down across the water pulling the pelican behind him! A pond full of ducks immediately disperses at the ghost's sight, and so Casper sits down on a lone duck nest in the middle of the pond and begins to cry in his trademarked fashion. He sputters out, "I might as well be dead!," not realizing the irony of those words, and concludes with "Nobody wants me as a friend!" (Well, not if you are going to whine like that, Ghosty...)

However, the single egg that was left in the nest when the mother flew off hatches beneath the ghost, and as Casper has orphaned the duckling quite by accident, he takes up the duties of the child's missing mother. (I would call her neglectful because, after all, she has left her young to the mercies of an invading spirit.) The baby quacks relentlessly in obvious hunger, so Casper feeds the baby (who from here on out is named Dudley) a worm. Casper is astonished that the little duckling isn't afraid of him (or just isn't grown up enough to know to be afraid of ghosts yet), and he starts to believe that he finally has a real friend in this world. The narrator returns to say, "Over the next few weeks, I'll bet you couldn't find a ghost in better spirits than our little Casper!"

Next, the Friendly Ghost takes little Dudley for swimming lessons, and the attempt is a success from the moment they hit the water. When the rain pours down on the nest that night, Casper attempts to shield the baby duck from the downpour. The narrator reads, "Each night, they snuggle together in their little nest, and Casper would guard his little friend Dudley with his very life... or, whatever you might call it." However, Casper notices that the rain is going through his body and hitting Dudley instead, so he flips the nest over to wear it like a hat to shelter his pal from the storm, looking for all the world like a giant mus. The next day brings flying lessons, but Dudley doesn't quite get it at first and Casper has to catch him in a rescue. He shows Dudley what to do, and Dudley finally gets it.

In the midst of his first successful flight, Dudley spies a quacking duck in a clearing within the reeds. He lands near the duck, but it turns out to be a decoy. Nearby, there is a hunter lurking with a dog in a nearby rowboat. (The hunter may be the same one from There's Good Boos To-Night, though the dog is different from either of the hounds in that picture.) Casper calls to his friend, and Dudley responds to the ghost's voice. The hunter fires at the departing but completely oblivious duckling, and poor little Dudley is clipped in the tail by the shot and plummets toward the ground below. Before the hunting dog can grab Dudley, Casper swoops down to catch the little duck and whisk him away to safety. The arrival of the ghost scares the spots off of the dog, and then Casper similarly frightens off the hunter, who rows his boat on top of the land in a mad effort to escape.

Just as you think that for the second picture in a row, Paramount is going to kill off a cute baby creature just to give Casper a ghostly companion (but only for a single film's close), the duck comes back to life within Casper's arms. It is presumed that Casper is the toast of the duckpond, because now he gets to fly south with the rest of the ducks, with little Dudley riding on top of Casper with his wing in a sling, while Casper honks the duck call left behind by the hunter. Iris out.

There seems to be a double standard here with the switch in the ending scenes in two successive Casper films, and I think it has to do with what type of creature who faces death in each film. I still maintain that you can kill off an impossibly cute cartoon creature only if it is of a predatory nature and get away with it. That is what happened, shockingly, to Ferdie the Fox in There’s Good Boos To-Night, a film that milks that little fox's death for all it is worth, until finally Ferdie is allowed to play forever with Casper in the afterlife. (Ferdie is, surprisingly, way cuter than Dudley Duck as well, and they still have him croak.)

Now, depending on the type of duck and where they live, ducks do have a predatory side as well. Yes, they eat some plants and grains, but they also eat land bugs and water insects, and some ducks will catch small fish and crustaceans as well. But mankind does not think of ducks this way. We think of them running up to catch small parcels of corn from the farmers who keep them, not as adorable creatures completely capable of cold-blooded murder in order to survive. (Don't even get me started on duck cannibalism, and I am not talking the type where Donald Duck has a turkey for Christmas.) So, to the common public eye, ducks are cute and innocent and most decidedly not possessed of that killer trait (except for where possibly bugs are concerned). So, unlike little Ferdie the Fox who would grow up to be a villain, baby Dudley Duck gets to live by picture's end where Ferdie does not.

But back to that ghost school thing... if the ghosts don't take on the traits of the previous occupants, then how come we don't see ghost schools in buildings that weren't schoolhouses? If an abandoned schoolhouse is required for ghosts to learn how to be ghosts, then the “ghostal” learning for each town is dependent on there being at least one abandoned schoolhouse in each town. Or maybe, ghosts set up school districts or have an exchange program for teaching their haunted craft to new ghosts, in which case they could bus ghosts from the poorer ghost areas for their lessons, instead of depending on there being a school readily available in their vicinity. Or maybe, these ghosts were just having fun playing at "school" simply because they were already in the building. Or maybe, as I stated beforehand, they indeed have an instinct for adopting the behavior of previous occupants.

I should just let it go. After all, now I have cannibalistic ducks to worry about suddenly...

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven’t seen it…

[This post was originally published on 02/06/2006. It was greatly rewritten, re-edited and updated with new video and photos on 10/09/2017.]

Countdown to Halloween: Boo Moon (1954)

Boo Moon (Paramount/Famous Studios, 1954)
Dir: Seymour Kneitel
Cel Bloc Rating: 5/9

Paramount and Famous Studios jumped onto the 3D bandwagon in the early 1950s, as a great many studios and independent producers were quick to do as they searched for that always elusive, cinematic pot of gold. Taking their two most popular characters, the studio produced a pair of extra-dimensional cartoons in 1953; both, not coincidentally, were set in outer space (because, apparently, at least to movie producers, 3D is instantly identifiable with science-fictional settings): Popeye, the Ace of Space, with the spinach-popping sailor, and Casper the Friendly Ghost in Boo Moon, released into theatres on New Year's Day, 1954.

Apart from his non-stop, whiny search for friends, Boo Moon almost completely does away with the Casper formula: there is no crying for attention, and except for two opening scares on Earth, Casper doesn't go through the usual parade of possible friends turned horrified recipients of Casper's ghostliness. After frightening everyone out of the subway, the producers decide to give us a first taste of 3D thrills, and have Casper flight straight at the screen slowly. Just as his giant smiling face fills up most of the frame, Casper disappears.

Casper happens upon a salesman working the street with a telescope by selling views of the "Wonders of the Moon" for 10 cents a peek. At first, the salesman thinks Casper is just any other little boy, but a second glance has him leap up and then smash himself down into his shoes, while pulling his hat down on top of himself. The salesman then leaps towards the camera as Casper did before, and we see the large sole of his left shoe as he leaps out of frame. A frowning Casper peers through the telescope and sees the Man in the Moon smiling at him. From this brief slice of evidence only, and always desperate for a friend, Casper reasons that the moon seems to be a friendly place. The friendly little ghost undertakes a long, solo flight through space, using just his ghostly powers, to meet the Man in the Moon himself.

When he arrives, Casper is disappointed to find "nothing but rocks and holes," and his long journey has left him weary. Casper stretches, yawns, and lies down to sleep. As he does, tiny Moon People crawl out of the craters, declare Casper to be "a monster" and cage him on a wagon to bring him back to their Moon King. This visual allusion to Gulliver's Travels is incredibly apt, as it turns out, because the Moon King Luna, is played by none other than King Bomba himself from the Fleischer Studios feature-film adaptation of the Swift classic. It is not entirely apt, however, since Bomba played the king of Lilliput's rival, Blefuscu. (Fleischer Studios was notoriously bilked out of existence by Paramount/Famous Studios in 1942, and Paramount kept the film rights to all previously-owned Fleischer properties, including Popeye and their original Gulliver's Travels characters.) Essentially playing the same character, only facing a giant white ghost kid instead of a giant white man, Bomba/Luna is not pleased with Casper, and orders "the monster" to be sent away to the royal dungeons.

Conveniently for Casper (though he could fly out of the cage at any time owing to his non-corporeal form), the Moon Kingdom is attacked by large and vicious Tree Men, who are apparently pissed off about being on the moon when the casting call for The Wizard of Oz took place or something or other, and a violent battle commences. The diminutive Moon Soldiers launch large (or rather, small) balls of fire at a pair of the Tree Men: one is burned through the middle, and runs off pulling his two separated sections together; the other is burnt to about the width of a very tall blackened toothpick, and after his eyes pop open telling us he is still alive (no actual death apart from Casper in these cartoons), the charred stick hurries off in fear.

But the Tree Men won't be stopped. They run to a crater filled with water and suck up the liquid through their branches that serve as noses. The Tree Men squirt the water back at the castle and put out the fires creating the Moon People's only defense. The Tree Men finally break through the gates of the walled city and capture King Bomba/Luna. Casper finally gets in on the hero action, materializing through the ground of the moon, and pulling two roots of each tree under with him and tying them in bows, thereby literally rooting each tree in place. The Moon Kingdom is saved! 

No longer afraid of him, King Bomba/Luna stands on Casper's palm and awards him with a medal and the title of "Sir Friend Casper." Even though he has finally made a large group of friend that trust him, Casper decides to take off to return to Earth, and as he leaves, the Man in the Moon winks at the audience.

Of course, we will never see these "Friends of Casper" again, just as we never see any of Casper's friends again when the next formulaic cartoon rolls around. Until Spooky and Wendy show up, that is. I have two theories:

1) Casper is actually a ghost who befriends and then murders these new "friends" in the space between each film. He is unable to retain any memory of having met or killing these friends; thus, his slate is wiped clean at the beginning of each film, and the repetitious cycle of each Casper film begins anew. Casper is a serial friend killer from beyond the grave.

2) Somewhere there is a Hollywood chapter of the Friends of Casper Anonymous, where abandoned "friends" of the "love 'em and leave 'em" spook meet confidentially to work through their anger issues over Casper. There is Bonnie and Johnny, Dudley Duckling, Wheezy the Elephant, and the ghost of little Ferdie Fox; every couple weeks a rocket lands and King Luna and the Moon People arrive to join in the group hate session, and Luna details an attack plan on whatever haunted house Casper is holed up in that week. The meetings always fall apart when it is decided that Casper is hardly worthy of such attention and rage, but they all agree wholeheartedly that only a truly pathetic individual would spend even a day discussing the life and crimes of a middling cartoon character, let alone five days in a row.

Oh, I think they must be talking about me.

And in case you haven't seen it...

[Editor's note: The text and photos for this article were updated on 12/9/2015.]

SPOOKING ABOUT AFRICA (1957)

Somehow, Casper has ended up in the Dark Continent in Spooking About Africa, and while there might be an implicit racist joke buried in the title, there is no such behavior alive in the cartoon itself. It is a pleasant and innocuous animal tale, where Casper breaks routine a little bit (he forgoes the crying jags to which he often finds himself succumbing), and directly aids an elephant with a serious dilemma and a crying jag of his own: the pachyderm is stuck in a deadly series of monstrous sneezes that are swiftly making him a social outcast in the jungle. While Casper does continue his friend-seeking ways, they are a minor distraction to the plot; except for the opening scene with a zebra, who is naturally scared out of his stripes, and then the hanging-in-midair stripes are scared separately, giving chase swiftly after their horsey body, there is little of the traditional Casper plot within this film's center.

The elephant is named, understandably, Wheezy, and he has already sneezed the proud feathers off of a peacock before Casper runs into him. He then knocks a trio of obnoxious monkeys off of their vines, but before they can get retribution for the accidental act, Casper arrives, forcing the set to adopt the cliched but useful See-Hear-Speak-No Evil pose in midflight before escaping into the trees. The elephant is not the slightest bit afraid of the ghost (he has much bigger problems than poltergeists), and actively seeks Casper's counsel in the matter. Casper ties a knot in the pachyderm's trunk, but the next time he sneezes, the air gets trapped and the trunk turns into a large grey balloon, carrying Wheezy off into the atmosphere. Casper flies up and releases him, and his flight down is exactly that of a normal balloon in the same circumstance. Only with a larger crash. And with an elephant tied to the end of the balloon.

However, in the release of all that air, Casper discovers a feather has been loosed from within the elephant's trunk: the very cause of all of Wheezy's problems. He is overjoyed at the thought of not sneezing constantly, but then fate has something else in store for him: a large fire has broken out in the jungle, and tens of animals go dashing past the pair in fear from the inferno. It is decided that only one of Wheezy's sneezes is sufficient to blow out the fire, which is funny, because it should be only be sufficient to enlarge and spread the flames. But apparently jungle fires are different from forest fires, and they can be simply snuffed out like a birthday candle. So, Wheezy sucks the feather back into his trunk, sneezes in a very large fashion, and saves the jungle. The animals celebrate, but then Wheezy sneezes directly at them and knock them end over end. Casper dives inside of Wheezy's trunk and retrieves the offending feather, and the film ends with the two of them as heroes.

If you think that I am being cruel in giving only a series of "5" ratings to all of the Casper films that I have reviewed this week, it is only because of what they are: bland, inoffensive, unprovocative, unremarkable stories and animations. They are not bad films, per se, but they are not necessarily good films either. Much of Paramount's product, like much of the Terrytoon and Walter Lantz catalogs, fall into this category. While Disney films could often affect this same stance, there was usually far superior animation involved (and, admittedly, larger budgets, but a larger budget does not a good film necessarily make), but there are examples where this is not enough to warrant a rating above "5" either, when an underwhelming or blandly developed storyline fails the entire film. (See my review for Football Now and Then for an example.)

Casper was usually about a safely played formula, and this generally relegates him to the suburbs of my ratings system; but even here, where the formula is broken to a certain small degree, the film is still not remarkable enough to warrant much more than a casual acceptance of its very existence. It's probably the least amount of attention a ghost is likely to warrant without truly scaring. Like Casper.

Spooking About Africa (Paramount, 1957) Dir: Seymour Kneitel
Cel Bloc Rating: 5

There's Good Boos To-night (1948)

There's Good Boos To-night (Paramount, 1948) 

Dir: Isadore Sparber

Cel Bloc Rating: 5

Roughly three years passed before Paramount decided to give Casper the Friendly Ghost another go, and in that three-year period, someone at the studio apparently gained a thirst for blood. Not content to let Casper simply find a living friend with whom to pal around gaily, the studio decided that the best way to get a chum for the fat little ghost was to cold-bloodedly kill something. I'm not complaining -- someone needed to inject some excitement into this series -- but since the Casper films are generally considered to be kid-friendly, this is about as shocking as you can get. Who expected this bland series to get all Bambi on us

There's Good Boos To-night starts out almost exactly like the original Casper flick, The Friendly Ghost (reviewed yesterday here), with the hero ghost earnestly reading while his fellow ghosts plot and exact an air raid-like attack on all of humanity. The book on this go-around is called "Animal Friends", and it is filled with pictures of children befriending furry little creatures. The ghosts implore Casper to join them as they did before, but he will have nothing of it. Again, he decides that it is best to strike out on his own rather than remain in the company of these warlike savages, and off he goes to make friends.

This time, the first recipient of his well-meaning but misunderstood ghostly affections is a calf, which runs worriedly away to its mother. When she goes to check out Casper herself, she is frightened enough that she runs to the nighttime horizon and jumps clear over the moon! Casper follows an adorable skunk for a stretch, but when the striped stinker discovers who is riding caboose, he bolts off, but leaves all of his odor behind to latch onto the ghost. Casper then grumpily takes a bath, rolling himself through the wringer to squeeze out the water. He begins to cry, which sets into motion the normal reply: a new friend comes calling, a small and very cute red fox.

The fox nuzzles Casper and licks his face. Casper names him Ferdie and they become fast friends and boon companions. In the midst of their play one day, a hunter arrives with two hound dogs in tow. It is clear from the music that he is after foxes. The dogs give chase to Ferdie as the hunter fires hordes of bullets at the fox. Casper steps in at the last second to try and stop the assault, and he scares off the trio in his normal manner. He turns to Ferdie to see if he is alright, but the little fox shows no signs of life. Casper picks him up and tries to revive him, but it is no use: Ferdie is dead. The final scene shows Casper at the gravesite of his only friend (apparently the children he saved and befriended in the first film no longer found him pleasant or interesting anymore), and as he bemoans his fate, the ghost of Ferdie Fox rises from the ground and begins to nuzzle and lick Casper once more! Hooray! And they died happily ever after! THE END

My favorite touch in the film is at the beginning with the opening narration. The first film’s narrator told you immediately that there would be nothing to fear despite the foreboding imagery that opened it; this film tricks us with an opening that is actually somewhat creepy as the narrator affects a tone befitting the great Thurl Ravenscroft, asking us "Now, isn't this a perfect setting for a spine-tingling ghost story? Well, this is a ghost story. Do you scare easily? Do you have nightmares? Do shadows on the wall frighten you?" The camera pans across a misty, murky swamp scene, with bats flying out of the darkness, and moves to the outside of a cemetery. The narrator then pulls the switch and says, "Well... relax. This isn't that kind of a story." For about thirty seconds, the film has a good mood going, and then turns into practically the same film as the first one... but with that one major difference.

For while this may not be that kind of a ghost story, it is a ghost story where a cute little fox dies tragically. I wonder if the fact that Casper's friend is actually a predatory animal had something to do with it being socially acceptable to kill him at the end. I also wonder if they would have done the same thing if Casper's buddy was a lamb or the baby calf from earlier in the film. I think most likely they would not have done so. I also wonder that if we didn't miss some interesting scenes by not having Ferdie live; I would have enjoyed seeing goody two-shoes Casper's reactions when Ferdie went out and killed a baby bird or bunny for his evening meal.

As for the bloodshed that did make it onto the screen, I have one question: if Paramount was so eager to kill something in one of their cartoons, why didn't they cross Casper over into the Popeye series, and then do in one or all of Popeye's annoying nephews, Pip-Eye, Pup-Eye, Poop-Eye and Peep-Eye? Now, that would have been a good cartoon, and it would have immediately improved the fortunes of two stagnant cartoon series. That's a bargain any way you carve it up.

RTJ

P.S. This review was written just before I found out that Myron Waldman, a chief animator and director with the Fleischer and Paramount/Famous Studios died Saturday morning at the age of 97. He was an animator throughout the Casper series, in addition to creating Pudgy the Pup and Hunky and Spunky for the Fleischers, and while I may seem cynical about the Casper series over the next four days, there is no denying Waldman’s incredible contribution to animation history. (You will notice that while I may have taken silly or odd story elements to task, I have not done so with the animation.) Read more about Mr. Waldman here at Cartoon Brew.

*****

And in case you haven't seen it...

[This piece was edited and updated with video and new photos on 10/4/2016.]

The Friendly Ghost (1945)

The Friendly Ghost (Paramount, 1945) 

Dir: Isadore Sparber

TC4P Rating: 5/9

They always tell you not to judge books by covers, but you do it anyway. How ever many times that I swear that I will abide by this rule, I still fall for it over and over again. Spy an appealing cover on something, and you are certainly more apt to pick the thing up than if it hadn't one; if you are not into actually reading a portion of what you purchase before you buy it (one doesn't always have the time), then you are more likely to get sucked in by this method. I personally have been done in a thousand times over by this when collecting comics; nothing is worse than seeing an awesome George Perez cover, getting it home, only to flip the pages to discover an inferior artist’s rough scrawling inside.

The cover trick that always intrigued me as a kid (not really a trick, though, simply an editing choice) was "The Roll Call,” or, The Lineup of Prospective Stars Appearing in This Issue. DC Comics, in the pages of Justice League of America, would have an annual team-up between the JLA and their "Earth-2" counterparts (i.e. DC's 1940s characters), The Justice Society of America, and the covers would often have a strip on the side showing the major players from one team, and a strip on the bottom showing the power hitters for the other. Often, because a third group would get thrown into the mix, such as The Secret Society of Super-Villains or the "Earth-X” (a world populated by DC's purchased Quality Comics heroes like Uncle Sam and the Black Condor; DC had a lot of Earths to explain their continuity, all now cast to the winds) team of heroes called The Freedom Fighters, there would be a third strip on the comic showing members of that third group. I, of course, could never resist this, and even if the story or art inside might be lame (though they usually weren't), I was fascinated by these lineup shots. That comic sold the second I walked in the grocery store.

Many comics have used cover lineups over the years, but hardly any so frequently as did Harvey Comics. Harveys were always the same inside: formulaic, goody-two shoes, kiddie stories (not counting The Sad Sack, though he was still stifled by a bland formula himself). Despite this handicap, I still loved the design of the characters and the world that they haunted. But I was mainly captured by the little TV-boxes on the left hand side of many Harvey covers listing out that issue's occupants, such as in a Casper comic where you would be assured that you would get a little Spooky, Wendy, The Ghostly Trio, Nightmare the Horse, and The Friendliest Ghost You Know: Casper.

That Casper is the shade of a dead child seems to go unnoticed. Even when a character who meets Casper calms down enough to engage him in conversation, they never ask him "So, Casper, just how exactly did you kick the bucket?" In his first animated adventure, The Friendly Ghost, a Paramount Noveltoon from 1945 directed by Isadore Sparber, Casper is a fat slacker ghost (who bears little resemblance, except in behavior, to the ghost who would become world famous in short order), and he is in no way interested in scaring people like the rest of the ghosts in his home. The clock strikes midnight, the ghosts of a haunted mansion wake up and take to the skies in the form of an airplane squadron, dive-bombing the populace of the town below with scares and frights. Instead of joining them in this pursuit, Casper lies about reading a book entitled "How to Win Friends". Ashamed at the display of his ghostly companions, Casper decides to run away, picking up his kit and throwing it over his shoulder, and swearing that he will find a friend somewhere.

As Casper would discover in film after film after film, this friendship thing is not an easy thing. A formula would be repeated in each of these cartoons, where Casper would encounter a variety of animals or people, he would scare the bejeezus out of them, he would eventually cry over his misfortunes, and it would be at that instant that something or someone would befriend him. He would then have to frighten away some threat to his new friend, there would be much glee and kissing and hugging, and the film would end happily on that note. In The Friendly Ghost, Casper first meets and frightens (to no particularly funny effect) a rooster, a mole, a cat and mouse team (it could almost be Paramount's own Herman and Katnip, but not quite), and a gossiping circle of hens. (The gals do drop a henhouse full of eggs on the fat little ghost, but it's not all that humorously done.)

Shockingly (and stupidly, I might add), Casper decides to kill himself. The pathos, like in most Casper films, is ladled on about three times over; once Casper realizes that he can't have a train run over him like a normal person, he continues to lie on the train tracks bawling his eyes out while the score plays behind him sickeningly sweet. A girl and a boy with rhyming names – Bonnie and Johnny – discover Casper, and seemingly having no fear of him, ask him to play. They throw a ball around and jump rope, and then they make the critically idiotic decision to take their new friend home to meet their mother. She is, understandably, frightened of the spectral intruder, dragging her young under the bed while yelling at Casper to leave. But the door is kicked in by an evil landlord (complete with mustache, ‘natch!) who melodramatically announces he is buying the mortgage on the house. Casper pops up, the villain is frightened away, and the mortgage is safe in the hands of the mother. The final shot of the film has the mother kissing first Bonnie, then Johnny, and then Casper (in full schoolboy outfit) as the three kids skip off hand in hand to a school over the hill. (There is no final scene where the school reacts to the spooky albino kid that has joined Bonnie and Johnny's family suddenly overnight.)

You can probably gather that, outside of watching the progressional development of Casper into the comic book character he would eventually become, I find the Casper films, for the most part, unbelievably redundant and boring. There are moments in each film that are well done – the aerial ghost bombing at the beginning of the film is that moment for this one – but overall, the stilted and saccharine injections of pathos and goodness are almost completely unbearable, and somewhat embarrassing to view. I would suppose that if I were six years old in 1945, this would've been the bee's knees (kids, and actually, most adults, thrive on repetition; practically any Saturday morning cartoon show or PBS educational effort will bear this out). I also realize that I am watching it as a middle-aged adult sixty years after the film first played in theatres. Even with my critiques, I still find a certain charm to the proceedings, even if I continue to wonder just exactly how this ghost kid bit the dust.

Apparently you can love your ghost cat only so much,
according to unfaithful Casper...

But the part that I struggle with the most in this picture is a scene early on, just before Casper runs away from the haunted mansion. As he prepares to leave, the Friendly Ghost leans over a nearby chair and kisses a sleeping cat goodbye on the forehead. Why is Casper running away if he has befriended this cat? Every creature that he tries to befriend from that point on is an animal, and Casper would usually end his search as soon as he found at least one friend, so why is this cat not enough? What the hell is wrong with this cat? Well, the answer to that question is simple: the cat is a ghost cat. Ghost cats apparently don't go out at night to scare people; like Casper, it is content to lie about its home, napping contentedly on a chair, with the checkerboard pattern of the chair's seat seen faintly through the cat's spectral form. So even though he shows it certainly more affection than he does his fellow human spirits, why is a ghost cat not enough of a companion for Casper?

Simple: Casper is a self-loathing ghost. The series actually gets it drive not from Casper wishing to have a friend; however much he tries to convince himself and the audience that he does, what he really longs for is to be corporeal. Casper wants to be human again.

Casper, baby... it's not all it's cracked up to be. Once you are human again, the dangers of the world multiply, and you besieged on all side by terrors unimaginable in the ghostly world that you now inhabit.

You could get stuck watching Casper cartoons...

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it...

[This post was edited and updated with new photos on 10/4/2016.]