The Casper Franchise

Casper was created in the late 1940s by Joe Oriolo and Seymour Reit. They both believed in the concept of an amiable ghost and submitted their unpublished book to Famous Studios, a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. In 1945, Paramount released the first Casper cartoon, "The Friendly Ghost," with story and adaptation by Bill Turner and Otto Messmer. Though the initial audience response was tepid, Paramount revived Casper for a 1948 cartoon, "There's Good Boos Tonight," and a 1949 cartoon, "A Haunting We Will Go." The ghost segued to his first comic book in 1949 when St. John published Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Casper gained tremendous popularity when Harvey Comics, who took over publishing Casper comic books in 1952, acquired all the rights to the friendly ghost in 1959 and expanded the concept into a television series in 1963, sponsored by Mattel and airing on ABC. Casper quickly became one of television's most beloved cartoon characters.

In 1995, Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment produced the blockbuster feature film, Casper, which was distributed by Universal Pictures. The film, released on Memorial Day weekend of 1995 has made over $300 million in worldwide box office receipts since its release and has sold over 14 million video units.

In 1996, "Casper," a new animated television series, produced by Universal/Harvey Animation Studios debuted as the #1-rated animated TV show on the Fox Kids Network.

In 1997, Harvey partnered with Saban Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment to produce and distribute two all-new direct-to-video feature films. The first film, Casper, A Spirited Beginning, was designed to answer the question that was on every young child's mind. How did Casper become a friendly ghost? This state-of-the-art special-effects driven adventure has sold over 5 million video units worldwide.

The next feature film, Casper Meets Wendy, was released on video in 1998, and introduced Casper's long-time friend, Wendy the Good Little Witch. The two join forces in order to save Wendy's eccentric witch aunts from eternal limbo, and thwart the plans of an evil warlock. More than 3 million video units were sold worldwide.

Released October 31, 2000, Casper's Haunted Christmas is the newest installment in the Casper franchise, an all-new feature film produced in state-of-the-art computer animation and featuring the music by country superstar, Randy Travis. This new film is undoubtedly the perfect way to celebrate the most boo-tiful time of year!