Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Remember, back in the day, watching Casper cartoons with Casper the Friendly Ghost? I have a small collection on DVD of Casper cartoons and a couple of them date way back to the early 1950’s. I used to enjoy them tremendously because Casper was so nice, cute and just a wonderful little ghost. He kept me from being scared of the “unknown”. Ghosts haven’t really been a big worry for me and monsters, well, they really didn’t faze me much either! But, in my teens a good haunted house could scare the dickens out of me and I loved it!

Now that I am older and have a little one to warp, errrr…….raise, I felt it in her best interest to introduce her to things like Casper the Friendly Ghost and the old time Looney Toons characters. I am sorry to say this, but a lot of the junk on the television for children (talking toddler and preschool aged) is such junk, I almost hate turning on the cartoon channel most times. There are some really disgusting and inappropriate stuff on these channels. Therefore, I have spent a lot of time and money building up a cool collection of fun, entertaining and enjoyable cartoons from my youth. Maybe my husband and I are just trying to relive our youth or live vicariously through the babester. But, regardless, we are enjoying introducing our child to the fun time cartoons when they were playful and fun and did not have people talking about passing gas, belching and just plain ole being stupid.

The Movie

I will try not to spoil this for those who might have yet to see this. But, I did want to sway you into a “new school” Casper that does still hold to some of the old school charm. Casper’s Scare School was something we ran across at the store one day and thought it looked pretty charming. My daughter was already intrigued because we had the compilation of roughly 12 – 16 old Casper cartoons and she was interested in getting this movie. We decided to, as it looked just right up her alley.

The movie is distributed by Classic Media and was made in 2006 and the movie was released in 2007. There are some really great talents on this like Phyllis Diller, Captain and Tennille, and Jim Belushi offering their vocal talents. The movie runs about 75 minutes and it is not rated, but I would give it a G for general audiences. My daughter is 5 and just enjoys it tremendously. There is a little bit of cruel behavior in the movie, but what child doesn’t face this in school nowadays. And, the cruel behavior was more of a bad student making fun of others and he might get his just desserts for being naughty to others!

The director I had not really heard of before this movie. His name is Mark Gravas. Upon reviewing his details, I found that he directed the following movies or shows: Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie, Yakkity Yak, Show and Tell. Possibly, you have either seen these or heard of them or the director.

The basic movie story is that Casper is too friendly to the “fleshies” (humans). Ghosts are not supposed to be friendly to fleshies, they are supposed to scare them and help keep the balance. Scare too little, the fleshies will retaliate; scare too much, the fleshies will retaliate.

So, Casper was being sent to scare school to learn how to be scary to the humans and help keep the balance. Along the way, he encounters some hard times, being away from his family and then trying to be something he is not. He has some good times at school, but overall, it is just not his thing. He heads off somewhere that he can be himself and surprisingly, comes across a bad plot by the headmasters at scare school.

Casper then has to help save his family, his friend and try to help maintain the balance. Can he do it or is he stopped before he gets the chance to make everything right again? You should watch the movie.

Overall Impressions

If you have younger children, I don’t think they will be frightened by any of the spooky happenings. The movie has just enough spooky to make it interesting without any frightening bits to make every one think they are seeing ghosts around the corner or under the bed. It is probably a decent movie for the older toddler/preschool set into possibly 2 – 3 grade.

The movie rolls along nicely in the approximately 75 minutes and the characters are intriguing enough to enjoy the nice ones and just mean enough to root against the bad ones in the movie! If you liked the older Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons, this one shouldn’t disappoint you. It is obviously more current and made with the latest in movie technology.

You can likely find this in the stores for about $10 or possibly even less. I cannot recall how much it was as we bought the movie roughly a year ago and my daughter has watched it numerous times in this year. It’s enjoyable, fun to watch and it is cute, non-threatening and it helps get a good message out to the younger kids! If you get it or rent it, I hope you enjoy it!

~Thanks for spending time with me today!~






Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8