Theatrical appearances The Friendly Ghost, the first
Noveltoons short to feature Casper, was released by Paramount in May 1945 with a few differences from the book. In the cartoon adaptation, Casper is a cute ghost-child with a
New York accent who inhabits a haunted house along with a community of adult ghosts who delight in scaring the living. Casper, in contrast, would prefer to make friends with people. He packs up his belongings and goes out into the world, hoping to find friends. However, the animals that he meets (a rooster, a mole, a cat, a mouse named
Herman, and a group of hens) take one horrified look at him, scream: "A ghost!" and run off in the other direction. Distraught, Casper attempts suicide (apparently forgetting that he is already dead) by lying down on a railway track before an oncoming train, before he meets two children named Bonnie and Johnny who become his friends. The children's mother, apparently widowed and impoverished, is frightened of Casper. She later welcomes him into the family after he unintentionally frightens off a greedy landlord, who, unwilling to own a "haunted" house, tears up the mortgage and gives her the house outright. The short ends with the mother kissing Bonnie, Johnny, and Casper as she sends them off to school, with Casper wearing clothing as if he were a living child. Casper appeared in two more Noveltoons shorts, ''
There's Good Boos To-Night and A Haunting We Will Go'', released in 1948 and 1949 respectively, even though Famous Studios's president and general manager Sam Buchwald had already given approval for Casper to have his own series. One of the animators,
Lee Mishkin, similarly complained, "With the Casper series, you never knew what picture you were working on because they were all exactly the same." • ''
Matty's Funday Funnies'' (1959–1961) •
The New Casper Cartoon Show (1963–1970) •
Casper and the Angels (1979) •
The Harveytoons Show (known in the UK as
Casper and Friends) (1990–1994) •
The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper (1996–1998) • ''
Casper's Scare School'' (2009–2012) After Harvey bought the rights to Casper and many other Famous properties in 1959 (including
Herman and Katnip,
Little Audrey, and
Baby Huey), they began broadcasting the post-September 1950 theatrical Famous shorts on a television show sponsored by
Mattel Toys titled ''
Matty's Funday Funnies'' on
ABC in 1959 which introduced the
Barbie doll to the public. The other Famous produced Casper cartoons had already been acquired by television distributor
U.M. & M. TV Corporation in 1956. U.M. & M. retitled just "A Haunting We Will Go", but credited "Featuring Casper The Friendly Ghost" as "Featuring Casper's Friendly Ghost". New cartoons were created for
The New Casper Cartoon Show in 1963, also on ABC. The original Casper cartoons were syndicated under the title
Harveytoons (initially repackaged as
Casper and Company) in 1963 and ran continuously until the mid-90s. Casper has remained popular in reruns and merchandising.
Hanna-Barbera Productions also gave Casper two holiday specials, ''
Casper's First Christmas (which also starred Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Quick Draw McGraw, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy) and Casper's Halloween Special (aka Casper Saves Halloween
), and also the Saturday morning cartoon series Casper and the Angels (an animated takeoff on two live-action hit shows Charlie's Angels
and CHiPS'') in the autumn of 1979, all on
NBC. Also featured on the NBC version was a big ghost named Hairy Scary (voiced by John Stephenson). None of Casper's original co-stars appeared in the show. Between 1990 and 1994, Casper appeared in
The Harveytoons Show which was known as
Casper and Friends in the UK. This show featured other
Harvey Comics characters and series including:
Little Audrey,
Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare,
Baby Huey,
Herman and Katnip,
Buzzy the Crow,
Modern Madcaps, Possum Pearl, Professor Schmatlz, Jeeper and Creeper and others. A new live-action television series was announced to be in development at
Peacock in 2022, co-produced between
Universal Content Productions and
DreamWorks Animation with
Wu Kai-yu writing and executive producing. The series ultimately did not move forward. Instead a new series, inspired by
Netflix's
Wednesday, was announced for
Disney+ in 2026, and set to be executive produced by
Steven Spielberg,
Rob Letterman, and Hilary Winston. Casper can be seen on
Casper and Company on
MeTV Toons weekdays.
Films The
Famous Studios version of Casper was one of many characters considered to appear in the 1988 film
Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Casper would have appeared at Marvin Acme's funeral, rising from Acme's grave as his coffin is lowered, scaring away the mourners. The funeral scene was storyboarded but cut before being animated. Numerous
Casper cartoons were released on home video by
Universal Studios (via
MCA Inc.), which also adopted the friendly ghost into a
live-action feature film titled
Casper in 1995, where he and his wicked uncles,
the Ghostly Trio, were rendered via
computer animation, which initially created the first CGI lead character in a film. The film constructed a
back-story for the character and is the only time in the series that the question of his death has been addressed. According to the film, Casper was a twelve-year-old boy living in Whipstaff Manor with his
inventor father J.T. McFadden until he died from
pneumonia after playing out in the cold until it was past nightfall. Two live-action direct-to-video follow-ups to the film,
Casper: A Spirited Beginning and
Casper Meets Wendy (which introduced
Hilary Duff as fellow Harvey Comics character
Wendy the Good Little Witch), were made. They were followed by ''
Casper's Haunted Christmas (starring Spooky and Poil from the comics), and Casper's Scare School'', which were done entirely in
CGI with no live-action elements. In 2001,
Harvey Entertainment was acquired by
Classic Media which, until 2012, licensed the Harvey properties including Casper. Casper made a cameo in a
MetLife commercial along with several other cartoon characters in 2012. Later that same year, Classic Media was acquired by
DreamWorks Animation. In 2013, DreamWorks Animation announced that they were developing a computer-animated reboot film based on the
Harvey Comics character of the same name.
Simon Wells, who at one point was previously attached to write and direct the unproduced sequel to the live-action film, was attached to write and direct this adaptation, with writing duo
John Altschuler and
Dave Krinsky (
King of the Hill,
Blades of Glory) to co-write the film's script along with. It was set to be DreamWorks' second attempt at an animated film based on characters from the
Classic Media library following
Mr. Peabody & Sherman, but nothing came of it since its announcement. Concept art for an unproduced film was posted by animator Danny Williams in December 2023, stating that the pitch "never went anywhere". Two years afterwards, the Casper character and any and all of Harvey Comics characters would be acquired by
NBCUniversal in 2016, and thus
Universal Pictures, the producer of the original live-action feature film, now manages the rights to the character and other related characters in addition to regaining the rights to ''Casper's Haunted Christmas
(which Universal itself originally released in late 2000). However, Casper Meets Wendy'' is currently owned by
The Walt Disney Company through
BVS Entertainment and
20th Television. In 2019, Casper made an appearance in a
GEICO commercial. == Actors who have voiced or portrayed Casper ==