First published at 04:08 UTC on October 17th, 2020.
Hey kids (of all ages), it's Saturday Morning Cartoon time again! Hallowe'en-style!!!
When Paramount took-over the pioneering Fleischer animation outfit and rebranded it Famous Studio, they continued some of the popular characters create…
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Hey kids (of all ages), it's Saturday Morning Cartoon time again! Hallowe'en-style!!!
When Paramount took-over the pioneering Fleischer animation outfit and rebranded it Famous Studio, they continued some of the popular characters created or produced under license by the former, and did some fairly successful knock-offs of existing characters. But they managed only one really successful original character of their own...
CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST was featured in highly formulaic, sugar-sweet cartoon shorts through the 1950s. The character was also featured in Harvey Comics publications. They bought him from Paramount in '59, along with the rights to all his '50s 'toons, which they released to TV. Then there were new series, feature films, direct-to-video releases, etc... Right through to today.
But before he got his own series, Casper was featured in three Noveltoons (Famous' blanket designation for one-shot shorts) from 1945 to 1949. These films are considerably darker than the later iterations of the character, with the disembodied dead child (we actually see his grave) suicidally bereft after his failed attempts to make friends.
I think it was Cliff Clavin who observed that every cartoon begins with lonely Casper trying to find friends, then ends with him having friends, only for him to be alone again at the start of the next episode... Did his undead, vampiric nature surface between 'toons, causing the demise of his companions?!
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