On this day that we celebrate the creation of the United States. Let's stop a moment and give a patriotic "thank you" to another great creation, one of America's favorite entity from the spirit world, Casper the friendly ghost.
Casper was created in the late 1930s by New York native Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo, the former devising the idea for the character and the latter providing illustrations. Intended initially as the basis for a 1939 children's storybook, there was at first little interest in their idea. When Reit was away on military service during the Second World War before the book was released. Oriolo sold the rights to the book to Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios animation division, for which he had occasionally worked.
"The Friendly Ghost," the first Noveltoon to feature Casper, was released by Paramount in 1945 with a few differences from the book. In the cartoon adaptation, Casper is a cute, pudgy ghost-child with a New York accent, who prefers making friends with people instead of scaring them (Casper used to scare people but got tired of it all). He escapes from his home and his brothers and sisters at the Winchester Mystery House and goes out to make friends.
So, It turns out that although Casper may have been born (or died) in New York, it seems he resides in California, and spends most of his time in Hollywood... visiting the actually haunted Chinese Theater and Paramount Studios... at least according to this cartoon...
GHOULA, as protectors of local lore, on this day salutes CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST.
