The calendar has turned to October, but here at Saturday Morning Archives, it's known as Spooktober, as we will be featuring the likes of Sabrina, The Groovie Goolies, Milton the Monster, Tales From The Cryptkeeper, and, of course, Casper.
The year is 1979. Hanna-Barbera, after acquiring licenses for Godzilla (NBC) & Popeye (CBS) the previous season, began an altogether too brief association with Harvey Comics by picking up a license to bring Casper back to television. However, rather than another solo series, like he had in the 60's on ABC, the Friendly Ghost was sent forward in time in a comedy-adventure series that was a cross-parody of ABC's Charlie's Angels (which H-B had already skewered at ABC with Captain Caveman & the Teen Angels) and NBC's CHiPs. Regrettably, Casper & the Angels fell victim to poor writing and even poorer ratings, resulting in a pink slip after 1 season.
Impressionist Julie McWhirter (ex-Wacko!) was the voice of Casper, who now had a sort-of-sidekick in Hairy Scary (John Stephenson), who actually was subbing for the absent Ghostly Trio in that he was trying to convince Casper to do what comes naturally to ghosts and scare people. Ultimately, Hairy gave up that tack and became more of a working partner with Casper and human space cops Minnie (Laurel Page, using her Taffy Dare voice from Captain Caveman) & Maxie. Minnie, a redhead, was just as much an airhead as Taffy was, to tell you the truth, but she didn't mind flirting with Hairy & Casper.
Here's the intro:
Even though Casper flopped, H-B would bring in another Harvey Comics icon, Richie Rich, the next season, for ABC, and Richie would last about 3 years there. It would be 15 years before Casper would return to Saturday mornings.
Rating: C.
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