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Hanna-Barbera TV special that teams up many of their popular characters. It's Christmas Eve and Casper wants to spend it at home but his friend Hairy Scary makes him go out and search for a new place to haunt. While they're gone, Yogi Bear and friends show up and decide to celebrate Christmas at their house. The ghosts return home to find the group decorating the house for a Christmas party. Casper is excited but Hairy is angry and decides to scare the uninvited guests. There's not much more to this but it should hold a lot of appeal for Hanna-Barbera fans, who will no doubt enjoy seeing all of the characters hanging out together. In addition to Casper, Hairy, Yogi, and Boo Boo, there's Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Quick Draw McGraw, Augie Doggie, and Doggie Daddy. There's a lame laugh track which is thankfully used sparingly. I'm not the biggest Hanna-Barbera fan so this cartoon didn't do a lot for me. But it is good natured and pleasant with likable characters (except for annoying Hairy Scary). Not a bad way to pass a half-hour if you catch it on television during the holidays.

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

Casper's First Christmas (1979)

*** (out of 4)

Casper and Hairy Scary leave their old, dark house for a few and while they're gone Yogi Bear, Boo Boo, Huckleberry Hound and various others move in. When the ghosts return Hairy wants to scare the group while Casper wants to become friends. CASPER'S FIRST Christmas certainly isn't a masterpiece and it contains a pretty weak story but it's still quite a bit of fun seeing all the Hanna-Barbera gang in one film together. I think the best part of the movie is actually its animation, which is what you'd expect from the company. I really liked how dark the film was early on and when it finally lights up towards the end, you get a great sense of Christmas. I thought the Casper character was put to good use here and I liked how he wanted to experience Christmas for the first time with friends. The entire subplot of why Hairy is so unhappy doesn't really pay off in a big way but it's decent enough. Fans of these characters will certainly enjoy seeing all of them together and with the short running time it's really a no-brainer.

Yogi Bear, Huck Hound, Snaggle Puss, Quickdraw McGraw, Augie Doggy and Doggy Daddy, Boo Boo Bear, all arrive at the abandoned condemned hotel lodge that Casper and Hairy Scary haunt.

The gang wants to celebrate Christmas, Hairy wants to scare them away. Casper runs away too.

Only then does Hairy learn what Casper really wanted for Christmas and has a change of heart.

As bad as the Yogi's First Christmas cartoon, in fact, the annoying song shows up here as well, but thankfully, Casper's Christmas is only a half hour long, while Yogi's was a two hour movie! Neither is worth watching, but if you want to forget what is going on around you this holiday season, these cartoons are ideal for checking out.