I reviewed this movie a while back, regretfully well before the holiday season. On the upside I didn't see it all the way through back then, but now I was able to see it, mostly, and given how Thanksgiving is getting shafted more and more every year, why not?
Along with an earlier review, I did a ranking of the Casper movies I have seen, and this ranked at the bottom. I was able to change my perspective on Legend of Frosty the Snowman (review coming on that hopefully), but for me, I went from not caring to hating on it.
Casper's Haunted Christmas was produced in 2000 by Mainframe Entertainment. This would be the first computer-animated Casper movie ever, with Casper: A Spirited Beginning, Capser Meets Wendy and the 1995 film being live-action films with CG ghosts. Most of the Christmas films I covered beforehand came out in November, but this one is special in that it came out on Halloween, and I don't mean during the Halloween season, I mean straight up on the exact day, and on home video when kids would be out trick or treating and parents would be handing out candy.
One of the only other Christmas films I know of to have been released on October was Goodtimes Entertanment's take on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and that was in the middle of the month.
The film would see a release on television five years after on Cartoon Network, and based on my recollection of seeing airings of The Swan Princess and the second Land Before Time movie on the network, I assume Cartoon Network were willing to air any movie they could get their hands on. The first I've seen of this movie was on the network, and the more I do these reviews, the more I'd get an exact idea on what network I watched the most as a kid.
The film was produced by Mainframe Entertainment, their resume should go without saying. But since this was co-financed by an American company, we have some American talent appearing alongside Vancouver's, well... one. Of it is the voice of Casper, Brendon Ryan Barrett. Barrett previously appeared in Spirited Beginning as Chris, Casper's obligatory human friend. He had some bit roles spanning to 2001, with his last role being in an independent comedy film.
Randy Travis produced a cover of the Casper theme... and that covers the American contributors.
For our Canadian cast, we have Tegan Moss as Holly Jollimore, yes. Moss had roles spanning both live-action and animated, but if I had to guess anything significant she did, she provided the voice of Penny in later Inspector Gadget movies. Casper's uncles are voiced by Scott McNeil, Terry Klassen and Graeme Kingston. While the former two are recognizable, this was Kingston's final project of an eleven year career, though he isn't dead yet.
As this is a Vancouver-produced program, Tabitha St. Germain would rear her head, not that it's a bad thing, I just happen to see her a lot. Samuel Vincent also appears in this as Spooky, basically a Brooklyn doppelgänger. This was the first I ever saw of him so I can't say if he was bastardized.
One last thing to note, this video was released with a cross-promotion from Baskin Robins, initial runs of the VHS release included coupons and a tie-in ice cream flavor, I believe it was called plain vanilla.
Animation
From here on out, I'm gonna cover the animation first. I typically have less to say about it than the premises.
Casper's Haunted Christmas was produced around the time Mainframe still used their earlier software. You know how there's a stark contrast between Mainframe's pre-2003 projects? Well around 2003, Mainframe updated their software and projects in that pipeline would show it off. Those new projects would feature more cartoony animation and utilize the infamous dots-for-eyes look, best shown in the two Scary Godmother movies and Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy.
Before then, Mainframe was a bog-standard computer animation studio, and the cartoony nature of their productions at the time were okay at best, but didn't hold up as well. This suffered the most as it was released much later than ReBoot and Beast Wars, while those shows are built around whatever limits they had at the time, this used more over-the-top effects, leading to varied results.
Plot
Something I noticed between this and Casper's Scare School is that they share similar concepts, not that I'm complaining because Scare School is starting to show more and more merits every time I go back to it (the movie that is.) Both movies start with Casper's Uncles going on a haunting spree. Scare School had them do it in town, namely a grocery store, here, they do it at a drive-in. Key difference is the cartoony over-the-top reactions in this.
Casper doesn't make it to either, but once more the reasons are different. In Scare School Casper forgot about the haunting spree to help his friend prep for a soccer tournament. In this movie, Casper didn't make it because he didn't want to be rude by going in without a ticket. With my knowledge, you can get in without a ticket as long as you're not human or a giant atomic-powered plankton.
They try to save this movie with some meta humor and pop culture references, but while admittedly some are not lost on me, they feel forced. None of the characters have the right delivery or the scenes don't leave room for the jokes to be made. This is "Elephant Man in a sports car" levels of lame.
Another key difference between Scare School and this is the dynamic between Casper and his Uncles. In Scare School, they actually give a shit about him, and are only hard on him at times because his lack of ability to scare would lead to repercussions. It might not be the norm in other Casper movies, but I doubt Spirited Beginning had them much less.
Here, they couldn't give less of a shit about him. Not saying it as someone who whines about mean-spiritedness, but as someone who feels this would get old within minutes. The conflict comes when Snivel arrives, and the Uncles spell their own bad fate when they blow a summoning whistle for Kibosh.
While Scare School has similar elements, it seems this movie was going off of Spirited Beginning. I say this because Lee Tokar's Snivel is trying to replicate Pauly Shore's portrayal. It's mediocre at best, but Colin Murdock's Kibosh leaves much to be desired. It's certainly no James Earl Jones. I can't compare Scare School to this because Snivel doesn't appear in it. Kibosh does, and I can excuse Kevin Michael Richardson's take because it's more his than going off of a definitive voice, plus it strikes the perfect balance between intimidating and reasonable.
Scare School's point of conflict is that Casper's refusal to scare anyone is disrupting a balance between monster and humans, where the former has to scare the latter, but to a reasonable level to discourage an uprising against them. In this, Casper's in trouble because he didn't scare anyone throughout the year, plus a Free Willy 3 joke, but Barrett wasn't even in that movie.
Casper faces time in a realm called "the dark", which is as literal as you think, and neutered in reveal by Snivel. You'd think Scare School would falter here, but Casper's punishment for not fulfilling his scare obligations, along with him having to go to get educated on it, is banishment to the Valley of the Shadows, a mysterious area which is actually a friendly paradise that's only scary to monsters who like to scare, its notoriety meant to keep creatures in line.
As a motivator, the Uncles' haunting licenses are revoked until Casper can pull off one scare. I get that they are his legal guardians, but haunting licenses? Makes as much sense as ghosts treating haunting like a realty-type deal.
I get lost around the point Kibosh claims that the deadline is Christmas day. Have you never heard of December 26th-31st? You could've made this a New Years Eve special and be the potential first to do it, but nope. Also, all four ghosts are forcibly sent to a town in Massachusetts, a town called Kriss, because Christmas. No, seriously, because by abbreviation it says Kriss, Mass. Kriss-Mass.
At the very least this is a town that takes Christmas very seriously, to the chagrin of the obligatory human friend for this movie. Holly Jollimore. On first glance, she seems to live one hell of a radish cure kind of life on Christmas, putting up with her parents who literally force it down her throat. But her emotional drive is that she moved to Kriss and lost her friends.
You took something that is rarely approached in Christmas specials and replaced it with the most obvious plot line imaginable. I'm not asking for genocide in the name of romance, but if it isn't people who ruin classic Christmas specials by only bringing their love for it to spite a later adaptation, it's repetition.
Casper is seen as a snowman upon landing, and rolls with it. Scenes with them from then are them playing around and Holly buying into the snowman aspect.
Anyhow, I feel there could've been an interesting aspect with the haunting licenses, where their scares would lose impact without them, exemplified by their attempt at scaring people at a Christmas Carol play audition. But nothing. I expect them to otherwise get in trouble for scaring without them, you can't do anything without a license. But nothing. I think Kibosh shares my perspective in that ghosts needing licenses is a load of hogwash.
Because Holiday joy breeds idiocy, they invite the Uncles to their house. I would talk about how whether or not material goods would've corrupted the Cratchit family in the Mr Magoo special, but that was made in the 60s, well before people felt more comfortable about exploring new ideas and it being a sign of the times, and I still love that movie.
The Uncles try to convince Casper to scare someone, but rather than sack up and get one scare outside of Holly, he blows it. At least in Scare School he tries to sack up to impress his teachers and actually scares his obligatory human friend in it before banishing himself out of guilt, where he faces his inner dark side, and am I crazy? Or is Scare School better than people give it credit for?
For the sake of saving their own asses, the Uncles bring in Spooky to masquerade as Casper. Samuel Vincent can pull off a Brooklyn accent, and I can't blame him if bits of his roles as Edd and Krypto slip in. As if the writers were scared to hell of people wanting to side with someone different, they hammer in that the Uncles are terrible, and this is where I quit on my latest viewing.
But not to worry, I still have memories of how it mostly played out afterwards, both by memory and predictability. Spooky scares Holly, she and Casper have a falling out, all ends happily and the Uncles get shredded by a ceiling fan, then pun.
In Conclusion
All this movie did was further my liking of Casper's Scare School. However you feel about it, it's superior to this film.
With dated animation, hit-or-miss clunky humor, so many missed opportunities, this is one of my least favorite Christmas specials of all time, that isn't already beloved.
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