In 1976, comic book fandom experienced a novel event. Marvel Comics and DC released a historic oversized comic book (for only $2.00!) featuring the first-ever superhero crossover featuring their most hallowed characters: Superman meets Spider-Man! Fans lined up at comic book shops nationwide. When Hanna-Barbera and Harvey Entertainment teamed up for crossovers in 1979, however, the reaction from animation fandom was far more muted.
Casper’s First Christmas had the friendly ghost meet up with Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Boo-Boo, Quick Draw McGraw (without Baba Looey?), Snagglepuss and the familial Doggies, Augie and Daddy. Throw in Casper’s BFF Hairy Scary (late of Casper and the Angels) and Santa Claus, and you have one fantastic team-up. Or not. Let’s take a look, shall we?
By 1979, the classic HB stars (see above) were at or nearing their twentieth anniversaries. They all had either an individual TV series or copious appearances under their belts, and by this point their merchandising value was likely worth more than their reruns. It wasn’t easy to find novel ways to present the long-lived (by TV standards) characters. Besides, the era of superhero cartoons was well underway, especially at HB. Witness the various iterations of Super Friends, featuring different ensembles, for example.
HB attempted a similar ensemble approach. Yogi’s Gang (1973), Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics (1977-1978), and Yogi’s Space Race (1978-1979) all featured team-ups of well-known HB characters. It’s no surprise that Casper’s First Christmas, made during the same period, tested out the format.
A digression: Casper the Friendly Ghost first appeared in 1945 at Paramount/Famous Studios. Harvey Entertainment acquired Casper in 1959. The ghost appeared in several TV productions under a later arrangement with Hanna-Barbera. This fact has led to some confusion among more recent audiences about whether Casper was an HB creation or whether HB purchased Casper’s rights. No on both counts.
Meanwhile:
It’s a not-so Merry Christmas for Casper and his friend Hairy Scary, who live in a ramshackle house that has been condemned and marked for demolition. Where can they live now, and more importantly, where shall the wraiths celebrate Christmas? Hairy doesn’t care; all he wants to do is terrify people and hang the consequences!
Heading their way in a crowded jalopy is the HB gang (see above), merrily singing “Coming Up Christmas Time” as they get lost looking for a lodge. One of the pals sees the decrepit mansion and decides that it’s as good a lodge as any. You can guess who the gang found inside.
Anyway, Hairy Scary hates Christmas, as does nearly every antagonist in nearly every Christmas cartoon special, and upon returning to the home destroys the decorations that the HB bunch and Casper put up for Santa (there is one neat scene in which Scary strangles the Christmas tree, done in silhouette). He chases the HBs from the place and revels in the wreckage until he finds a note to Santa, written by Casper, asking only that Hairy’s home not be demolished.
(Obligatory Scene Where-Antagonist-Realizes-That-Christmas-Is-Not Just-An-Excuse-For-Selfish-Greed-And-Instantly-Reforms) Hairy redecorates the home just in time for Santa to appear with gifts for all! The jolly old elf manifests godlike powers: He presents Scary with a deed to the home in perpetuity (apparently in defiance of the County Commission), dissolves the bulldozer poised to destroy the house, and transforms the decrepit house into a 5-star resort with a huge neon sign proclaiming “Hairy’s Haunting Lodge! Meeeeeery Christmas!
Of course, there are inconsistencies: Boo-Boo, at first scared of Casper, readily accepts Yogi’s explanation, as does the HB gang, that Casper is a kid in a costume (living alone in an abandoned house?), even though later Yogi and the HB crew see Casper do things like levitate. It’s also obvious from the dialogue that it cannot possibly be Casper’s “first” Christmas, since he knows every ritual of the holiday and is well aware of Santa Claus. But shame on me.
The voice cast will be familiar to anyone who knows HB’s history back to its inception. Daws Butler provides the voices for Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss, and Augie Doggie. John Stephenson voices Hairy Scary as he did in Casper and the Angels and Doggie Daddy. Long-time voice artist and character actor Hal Smith is good ‘ol Santa Claus. Many artists, starting with Cecil Roy, have been the voice of Casper, but Julie McWhirter does as fine a job as any of them. Singing voices are courtesy of Paul DeKorte, Ida Sue McCune, and Michael Redman. Of note: the musical sequences were under the direction of Tex Avery!
The animation was done by HB staffers, virtually the same crew that worked on the previous HB/Harvey special He’s Not Scary, He’s Our Brother starring Casper and Hairy Scary. The two specials were probably in production simultaneously, with release dates only two months apart. The main difference was the presence of Tex Avery. His direction of the musical numbers features the film’s best sight gags.
Otherwise, the animation is what you might expect from artists trained in the HB limited animation style. Some of it falls below that standard; when Casper and Scary first appear, their relative sizes fluctuate several times, making Casper seem no bigger than a wren in some shots. The animation of Santa Claus is generally poor.
Note: Two mice appear in the special that strongly resemble Pixie and Dixie, but they are not those characters. The resemblance is likely due to the animators using the HB house style. Besides, either Pixie or Dixie would have to be in drag for this special.
So, Casper’s First Christmas is not the imaginative collaboration it could have been. Still, it is a bunch of innocent (if cliched) fun for kids, typical of the family-friendly Hanna-Barbera fare of the time. It might have been fun to have seen Ralph Bakshi give this special the Tattertown treatment, but those are two different animals, ain’t they? You can’t call this movie outstanding, but you certainly can’t hate it, either.
Martin Goodman is a veteran writer specializing in stories about animation. He has written for AWN and Animation Scoop – and lives in Anderson, Indiana.
I suppose “Casper’s First Christmas” might have been his first Christmas as a ghost, and he would already have been familiar with the holiday rituals from having celebrated them with his family before he died. On the other hand, “Casper’s First Christmas” proves that “Yogi’s First Christmas”, which aired a year later, wasn’t Yogi’s first Christmas either.
The songs “Coming Up Christmas Time” and “Making a Big To-Do” were both later reused in “Yogi’s First Christmas”, without any input from Tex Avery. For some reason neither has become a yuletide perennial.
I notice that Santa entered the house through the front door, as the fire that Hairy Scary reignited in the fireplace would have prevented the jolly old elf from coming down the chimney without getting burnt to a cinder.
As Hairy might put it, this special is “Ree-diddle-dee-diculous!” Oh, I can’t hate it, can’t I? You underestimate me, Doc.
“Casper’s First Christmas” shares songs with both “Yogi’s First Christmas” and “A Flintstone Christmas” which were evidently produced around the same time. The same song pool seems to have been dipped into for all three specials, including much of the background music as well. “Yogi’s All Star Christmas Caper” came along a year or two later and is not part of that particular mix, but it does have in common the blending of several HB characters in one special.
There is also a discrepancy between “Casper’s First Christmas” and “Yogi’s First Christmas,” the latter of which states that Yogi has always hibernated through Christmas, whereas in the Casper special, Christmas is a regular thing for Yogi and Boo Boo. The recordings of the song “Comin’ Up Christmas Time” seem to have been done simultaneously, as it sounds like the same chorus and orchestra. In “Yogi’s First Christmas” the song occurs before Yogi has joined the mix of characters, and so Yogi’s vocals are dropped, but someone forgot to remove Boo Boo’s voice from the song. Oops! Also, Quick Draw McGraw’s lines in the song are replaced in the Yogi special by Doggie Daddy. For some inexplicable reason, Quick Draw is entirely absent from “Yogi’s First Christmas.”
Despite these anomalies, and the fact that the songs are unlikely to make anyone’s top ten favorite Christmas songs list (except possibly mine), “Casper’s First Christmas” is delightfully festive and a lot of fun. Nice to have a story in which the disturbances are mild and minor and where everyone isn’t freaking out because Casper is a ghost. I also notice that pretty much every time Santa Claus appears in a Hanna-Barbera production he is voiced by Hal Smith. He certainly exudes the required warmth and jollity. The resolution of this story may be pat and easily achieved but within the context of the story it works. It’s also a nice touch that Hairy inadvertently frightens the reindeer at the very end.
For my holiday viewing, I generally join this special with “Yogi’s First Christmas” and “All Stars” under my own informal title “Yuletide with Yogi.”
(information regarding “Christmas Comes to Pac-Land” (another Hanna-Barbera production related to Christmas) from a certain Behind the Voice Actors site: “Peter Cullen is the voice of Santa Claus in Christmas Comes to Pac-Land“)
Quick Draw wasn’t in “Yogi’s First Christmas”? I thought he was, although, it was a while since I saw that. That’s false memories for ya.
Either Bill and Joe were trying to give Tex the gift of screen recognition for Christmas, or this was the nadir of his career.
Saw that comment coming.
Oh well, better than when The Looney Tunes met the Groovie Goolies at least.
Ancient enough to remember first runs of Rudolph, Charlie Brown, and Mr. Magoo; and thereafter excitedly anticipating a few new cartoon specials each year. Plus holiday airings of whatever non-Disney animated features existed. For kids of the 60s that was more than even older siblings got. Now you could program a full cable channel with holiday specials.
Was there ever a Yuletide-themed theatrical cartoon for Casper? He crashed a Halloween party by pretending to be in costume, and worked up Grampy-style toys when a little boy took him for a genie.
I’m afraid you’ve conflated “Casper Genie” (1954) with the Christmas cartoon “True Boo” (1952), in which Casper dresses up as Santa Claus and makes toys for a little boy out of ordinary household objects, just as Grampy did for the orphans in “Christmas Comes But Once a Year “.