Halloween is Better with Casper: “The Friendly Ghost” (1945)
It’s nearly Halloween, and I’d be careless if we didn’t show at least *one* sort of Halloween cartoon. Here is one of my favorites.
It’s nearly Halloween, and I’d be careless if we didn’t show at least *one* sort of Halloween cartoon. Here is one of my favorites.
With a tip o’ me hat, I present the first in a series of articles paying tribute to those diminutive Irish mischief makers: The Leprechauns!
Cheaters typically had plots involving someone sharing memories of the past. Every time a memory would be announced, the old clip would appear. Here’s a list of those cartoons.
Joseph Funaro, pastor of the Catholic church in Brooklyn Heights, got his start at Famous Studios. “I was the first, or one of the first to draw Casper for the cartoons,” said Funaro.
Yes, Hanna Barbera submitted a Loopy De Loop cartoon for Oscar consideration. Spoiler Alert: It didn’t get nominated.
Imagine you are attending the preliminary screenings for the 1952 cartoon short Oscar nominations – watching everything from Little Audrey to Norman McLaren.
Chuck Jones told the Union newsletter in 1976: “I suppose you could call it retroactive plagiarism, because we stole Izzie Klein’s idea of a little boy ghost ten years before he created Casper.”
“(Joe) Oriolo’s role, an important one, was to create the original graphics that accompanied my story,” said story man Seymour Reit. “He did indeed create the first drawings of Casper.”
Casper, Richie Rich, Little Audrey and others appeared in the very first giveaway comic book for an airline. Twenty-one issues of Astrocomics were released to passengers from 1968-1979.
I’ve been frequently asked to compile a “top ten” of my favorite Paramount cartoons. The problem is: how do you compare a 60s Shamus Culhane to a Bill Tytla Popeye?