Am very fond of Hanna Barbera and Casper and a good deal of his cartoons are easy to like. Christmas is also my favourite time of year and it has always been very special to me and my family. So a lot appealed to me into watching 'Casper's First Christmas', which did sound like it would be a fun and charming Christmas special that is as hard to dislike as Casper himself and the numerous Hanna Barbera characters featured.
Fun and charming 'Casper's First Christmas' was. It is not quite a classic and it's not perfect, but what it has going for it is enormous and its good points are numerous in quantity and big in size. Always like animated festive specials to make me laugh. To make me cry. To leave me with a warm heart. To keep me fully engaged for the whole length. To make me "aww" at least once. 'Casper's First Christmas' does all of those things and although a very short length (perhaps slightly too short) it does do the featured characters justice.
Maybe there are slightly too many characters, there are a lot here and some with a little more memorable contributions than others.
Did find Hairy Scary to be not always be very interesting, outside of some of his interplay with Casper, and he was sometimes annoying. His subplot for my tastes was resolved too patly and predictably, as well as feeling rushed.
However, the animation is bright and colourful with surprisingly more detail and refinement than most cartoon specials from this period. The music is catchy and fits well too, not sounding stock or cheap, again an improvement on other cartoon specials. The story may not have many surprises as such but is always engaging, appealingly good natured and very heart-warming with a message that is easy to relate to and well-intended, delivered tactfully without preaching, traps too often fallen into with messaging.
There are a lot of funny moments, especially the opening and some of the interplay between Casper and Hairy Scary, at its best hilarious. The emotional moments are genuinely touching while not falling too much into sentimentality. The cute moments warm the heart without being sugary sweet. The story didn't feel too thin or like an over-stretched short-length cartoon. The characters are done justice, both the popular ones and ones not given as much exposure. Casper is at his most likeable since perhaps the early 50s. The voice acting is spot on, Daws Butler having the lion's share and doing a bravura job, not once is there any fatigue and there is still a consistency vocally comparing here and in Hanna Barbera's output 10 plus years earlier.
Summing up, not flawless but with so many good things it's a winner. 7/10 Bethany Cox
Fun and charming 'Casper's First Christmas' was. It is not quite a classic and it's not perfect, but what it has going for it is enormous and its good points are numerous in quantity and big in size. Always like animated festive specials to make me laugh. To make me cry. To leave me with a warm heart. To keep me fully engaged for the whole length. To make me "aww" at least once. 'Casper's First Christmas' does all of those things and although a very short length (perhaps slightly too short) it does do the featured characters justice.
Maybe there are slightly too many characters, there are a lot here and some with a little more memorable contributions than others.
Did find Hairy Scary to be not always be very interesting, outside of some of his interplay with Casper, and he was sometimes annoying. His subplot for my tastes was resolved too patly and predictably, as well as feeling rushed.
However, the animation is bright and colourful with surprisingly more detail and refinement than most cartoon specials from this period. The music is catchy and fits well too, not sounding stock or cheap, again an improvement on other cartoon specials. The story may not have many surprises as such but is always engaging, appealingly good natured and very heart-warming with a message that is easy to relate to and well-intended, delivered tactfully without preaching, traps too often fallen into with messaging.
There are a lot of funny moments, especially the opening and some of the interplay between Casper and Hairy Scary, at its best hilarious. The emotional moments are genuinely touching while not falling too much into sentimentality. The cute moments warm the heart without being sugary sweet. The story didn't feel too thin or like an over-stretched short-length cartoon. The characters are done justice, both the popular ones and ones not given as much exposure. Casper is at his most likeable since perhaps the early 50s. The voice acting is spot on, Daws Butler having the lion's share and doing a bravura job, not once is there any fatigue and there is still a consistency vocally comparing here and in Hanna Barbera's output 10 plus years earlier.
Summing up, not flawless but with so many good things it's a winner. 7/10 Bethany Cox