 Happy Halloween. Throughout the ages, ghosts have been a symbol of fear. Fear in the unknown, fear of death, fear of torment. And for just as long, ghosts have been depicted in popular culture in a number of ways. From Charles Dickens of Christmas Carol to Ghostbusters, ghosts have shocked and horrified us. But not all ghosts are bad or mean. In fact, there's one who's quite friendly. I'm Shannon Cornthwaite and this is History in Origins. Created in 1939 by Seymour Wright, who came up with the idea of a friendly ghost and Joe Oriolo, who provided the illustration, Casper was originally created as a children's storybook concept, with little to no interest in by publishers. Oriolo sold the rights to the character to Paramount Pictures, famous studios, for a total of $175 while Wright was serving in the military during World War II, with no further payments of royalties in the future. Paramount later released the first novelization for the character entitled The Friendly Ghost in 1945. In the story, Casper is a cute ghost child with a New York accent that lives in a haunted house with other adult ghosts who take delight in frightening the living. In the films of the 90s, this would be changed to him living with three other ghosts, whom he calls his uncles. But it's not clear if there's in fact any familial relation, given the events of the film Casper, A Spirited Beginning. Casper, on the other hand, prefers to make friends with the humans he comes across. However, most of the time Casper's attempts in friendship fall short because people and animals are naturally afraid of ghosts. Casper then would appear in two more cartoons from Paramount entitled There's Good Booze Tonight and a Haunting We Will Go. Paramount would then go on to start a Casper The Friendly Ghost series in 1950, with a theatrical release which ran until 1959. Though popular, the series received criticism due to each episode being nearly the same. Harvey Comics would begin publishing comic books of the character, featured in the Paramount cartoons in 1952, with Casper's first comic book appearance being in Harvey Comics It's number 61, in October of that year. Later in 1959, Alfred Harvey purchased all the rights to Casper and his cast of characters. After being purchased by Harvey Comics, Casper would inspire three spin-offs, Spooky the Tough Little Ghost, Windy the Good Witch, and the Ghostly Trio. The Ghostly Trio, similar to the three suges, went through a number of variations through the years. Fatso in the early Harvey stories was the gluttonous leader of the group due to his toughness and being marginally more intelligent than the other ghosts. In the 90s film, Stretch would become the leader of the group. Fusso was the second in command. He was so named due to his fussiness and attention to detail. Lasso was the third of the original trio being the laziest and dumbest of the group. Later iterations had the trio as Stretch, Stinky, and Fatso respectively. In 1987, Harvey Comics sued Columbia Pictures due to the Ghostbusters logo being extremely similar to the design of Fatso. However, the court ruled in Columbia's favor due to Harvey failing to renew the copyrights in earlier stories and the limited ways to draw a cartoon ghost. Numerous cartoons revolving around the character of Casper have been made, which later led to a live-action film entitled Casper in 1995, which stars Christina Ricci as Cat Harvey, Bill Pullman as Dr. James Harvey, Brad Garrett as The Voice of Fatso, Joe Alaska as The Voice of Stinky, and Joe Nippote as The Voice of Stretch, Kathy Moriarty as Katherine Kerrigan Criddingen, Eric Idle as Dibs, Milachi Pearson as The Voice of Casper, and Devin Sawa as Casper in his human form, and a number of other cameos. One cameo I've always found interesting and liked was that of Ray Stance, played by Dan Ackroyd. Ray Stance was one of the Ghostbusters in the first two movies. This would put Casper in canon with the Ghostbuster films. The film gave Casper the last name McFadden, which was actually written unaccredited by JJ Abrams. In the film, Abrams wrote that Casper became a ghost when he died at 12 years old of pneumonia. This differs from many of the original comics, as he was originally written as being born a ghost to ghost parents. The film was originally intended to be directed by Steven Spielberg, but eventually it became directed by Brad Sipperling. An animated series which was based on the film, entitled The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper, was released on Fox Kids in 1996, with the actors who portrayed Casper and the Ghostly Trio in the film reprising their roles. However, Cat and Dr. Harvey were voiced by Dan Castellanetta and Cath Sose. There's widespread belief that Casper is actually the spirit form of Harvey Comics character Richie Rich due to their similar designs in animation and comic form. The idea is that at some point Richie Rich died and came back as Casper. On a personal note, it was the film from 1995 which led to my lifelong admiration for Christina Ricci and childhood crush. Though Ricci gained fame prior to Casper in movies like Mermaids, The Addams Family, and The Addams Family Values, it was in fact her role as Cat Harvey, which won the Hearts of Boys everywhere. And it was these early roles in horror-esque films which led to her adult preference for starring in darker films and series. Personally, I loved her in Lizzie Borden and Took an Axe, and the Lizzie Borden Chronicles. In 2011, Shout Factory released the DVD set Casper, The Friendly Ghost, The Complete Collection, 1945 to 1963. 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