Into The Enchanted Forest !

Last week while I was plumbing the depths of a quintet of Harvey Comics collections I was also spending some time watching some vintage Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons. I picked this collection up earlier this year and it contains a wealth of Casper stuff. There are all 55 Casper cartoons made for theater release from 1945 to 1959 by Famous Studios (the former Fleisher Brothers operation) for Paramount Pictures. Also included are 26 new cartoons made in 1963 when the Casper TV show hit the air. It's a remarkable collection to watch as the series switches from full animation to a stylized versions similar to what UPI was doing to the limited animation which came to dominate and make possible television animation. There is even one of them which was designed for 3-D though this collection only has the very handsome 2-D version. 

Now I've always been a little off put by Casper's treacly personality in the past and at times it grates here still, but I found more of a classic cartoon subversive quality to many of these cartoons. I especially grew to look forward to the nigh inevitable reactions from adult humans and animals to the presence of a ghost with the classic "It's a G-g-g-Ghost!" stammer and a creative exit. My personal favorite is a cartoon where a scientist working a time machine is explaining his device, sees Casper and then erupts with fear transforming into a rocket and heading into the stratosphere. The the Popeye transformations when Spinach got onto the scene and into his system, these fearful changes were something to energize the cartoons. 

The cartoon series and the comic book were particularly interrelated with many of the cartoons adpated to comics later the reverse when Harvey took full control of the character and made the TV episodes. We get lots more Spooky and Wendy, both who had shown on the big screen and we get Nightmare's debut. These cartoons from the Shout Factory were quite entertaining at times, more than I expected. I got them because of the high quality of Shout Factory products and my general interest in the Fleisher Studios and Famous Studios cartoons. I liked them for their own merits quite a bit. 

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