Something to Lift Your Spirits: Casper’s Halloween Special

By Michael Lyons

You just can’t watch “It’s the The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!” One more time...but what other Halloween TV Specials are out there?  “Garfield’s Halloween Adventure?”  Seen it!  

How do you satisfy the need you may have for marginally animated Halloween fare?  Consider spending half an hour with the Friendly Ghost (“the friendliest ghost you know”).

“Casper’s Halloween Special” debuted forty years ago this month, on October 30, 1979.

A most innocuous special that focuses on Casper helping save Halloween for a group of innocent orphans (yup, you read that correctly) who have their trick or treating threatened by the villainous ghosts Hairey Scarey and Screech Ghost, as well as Winifred Witch.

The show is the perfect vehicle for the character of Casper, the ghost who doesn’t want to scare and just wants to be accepted.

This special comes to us from Hanna-Barbera, during their “Golden Age” as the kings of limited TV animation.  The Studio didn’t invent Casper (he had been around since the late ‘30’s in theatrical short subjects).  Hanna-Barbera obtained the rights to Casper in the late ‘70’s, giving him a “re-boot,” of sorts with a new Saturday Morning series, “Casper and the Angels,” that paired the Friendly Ghost with a “Charlie’s angels”-like group.

During this time, Hanna -Barbera also produced two prime-time Casper specials (there was also “Casper’s First Christmas” that paired him with Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and some other of the HB Stars).

“Casper’s Halloween Special” hasn’t had the lasting cultural impact of “The Great Pumpkin,” the story is VERY simple, the songs somewhat forgettable and the animation is...well...very Hanna-Barbera.

But, even with that, there’s a charm to “Casper’s Halloween Special”; Hanna-Barbera animation from this time period is like TV comfort food. And the basic story of Casper helping kids on Halloween night has a certain “niceness” to it as a reflection of an innocent time gone by (the subtitle of the special is :”He Ain’t Scary, He’s Our Bother,” a riff on a famous ‘60’s song).

Long before he was CGI and hanging out with Christina Ricci, there was “Casper’s Halloween Special.”  Give the ghost a chance this season...then, you can go back to “The Great Pumpkin” for the 1,057th time.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Sources:

Wikipedia