Casper
The friendly ghost who just wanted a friend. Casper made history as the first feature film with a fully CGI lead character, and the 1995 merchandising blitz — Pizza Hut hand puppets, packed toy aisles — put him everywhere that summer. A Halloween cable staple ever since.
Casper was released May 26, 1995, by Universal Pictures with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment — the feature directorial debut of Brad Silberling. Bill Pullman plays Dr. James Harvey, a "ghost therapist" who counsels the "living impaired"; hired to clear the spirits out of Whipstaff Manor in Friendship, Maine, he moves in with his daughter Kat (Christina Ricci). She befriends Casper, the lonely young ghost of the house, while his obnoxious uncles — the Ghostly Trio of Stretch, Stinkie, and Fatso — do everything they can to drive the living out.
The film was a technical landmark: the first feature film with a fully CGI character in the lead role. It was also a monster hit, grossing $290 million worldwide on a $55 million budget. Devon Sawa appears as Casper in human form for the dance scene — "Can I keep you?" is the line every 90s kid remembers — and Dan Aykroyd drops in for a one-joke cameo as Ghostbuster Ray Stantz, fleeing Whipstaff in defeat.
The merchandising blitz was real and enormous: toy aisles filled with Casper figures and plush, and Pizza Hut sold glow-in-the-dark hand puppets of Casper and the Ghostly Trio in a 1995 tie-in — exactly the stuff a 90s kid remembers alongside the movie itself. Casper has been a Halloween-season cable perennial ever since, the gentle end of the decade's family-spooky canon.
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