Casper Saves Halloween (NR, 1979)

In CASPER SAVES HALLOWEEN, Casper must prevent a group of mischief-making ghosts from ruining Halloween for a group of trick-or-treating orphans. Next, Casper's pal Harry Scary has a crush on space-age entertainer Zsa Zsa Amour and is determined to meet her, in "Love at First Fright." In "The Impossible Scream," Harry discovers he has lost the ability to scare people, preventing him from helping Minnie and Maxie capture the bad guy Muscles McSnort. Then Casper and Harry help rescue a seal kidnapped from the circus, in "Something's Fishy." When Minnie and Maxie are assigned to protect Eric Von Schmart's new time machine in "Prehistoric Hi-jinx," Casper, Harry, Nerdly, and Fungo are accidentally transported back to prehistoric times. Finally, in "Fatula," Casper and Harry must protect Minnie and Maxie from Fatula -- an overweight vampire who has sworn revenge on our crime-fighting heroines.

These cartoons aren't especially funny, and fail to produce any compensating charm. Most of the featured cartoons are from a late '70s TV series called Casper and the Angels. The premise has Casper and his 1000-year-old uncle, Harry Scary, living in the futuristic metropolis of Space City, assisting Minnie and Maxie, a pair of female cops. The 22-minute "Casper Saves Halloween" is a more traditional story, in which Casper decides that Halloween is the perfect night to go out and make friends, as everyone will assume his ghostly appearance is just a costume. Naturally his fellow ghosts are mortified, and do their best to ruin the holiday for Casper and the group of orphans he befriends, before winding down to a happy conclusion. While this is standard Casper fare, the segment fails to build any real sympathy for the characters. To make matters worse, Casper comes off as whiny, rather than a gentle, misunderstood soul.

The episodes of "Casper and the Angels" fare even worse. The science fiction and crime fighting elements have little to do with the world of Casper, and come off as a feeble effort to update the character for a new generation of kids. The animation has the cheap, limited look common to most 1970s TV cartoons. Grade-school kids will identify with the misunderstood but always well-meaning Casper. Older Casper fans will enjoy this; others will be bored with these uninspired efforts.