Happy Halloween with Casper - "The Friendly Ghost" (1945)

If you're reading this on the day it drops, it's Halloween, but how to celebrate? Sadly, there are only so many appropriate Transformers to cover (that last one was, admittedly, a stretch), and I really want to focus on something fun rather than creepy. 

It turns out that Casper, the Friendly Ghost, is just about to celebrate his 80th birthday! Casper first appeared in a cartoon entitled (appropriately enough) The Friendly Ghost, which first appeared in theaters on November 16, 1945 (oddly, a couple of weeks after Halloween!). Also, conveniently, this short is in the Public Domain, so I can safely drop the whole thing right here and not worry about whether or not my usage qualifies under Fair Use doctrine:

Voiced by Walter Tetley (better known to many as the voice of Sherman from the Peabody's Improbable History cartoons that aired alongside Rocky and Bullwinkle), Casper was intended just to be a one-off, but proved so popular that he went on to star in dozens of further cartoons, and I don't think I'm exaggerating to say literally hundreds of comic book stories! Other cartoons often followed much the same plot as The Friendly Ghost. Casper is a lonely ghost, who struggles to make friends because nearly everyone he meets runs away in fear. Eventually, Casper finds another lonely soul, perhaps in danger from some persecutor from whom Casper is able to save them, and the cartoon ends with a new friendship forged. Why Casper always seems to be lonely again by the time the next cartoon begins is never addressed, and it's best not to think about it too hard. The later comic stories tended to give Casper a far more stable social life.

Whatever your Halloween plans, have a happy and safe one!

Jeffrey Prime (2016)

7 years ago, we said good-bye to Toys "Я" Us. At that time, I picked up this toy, a Japanese-exclusive, one of the surprisingly-few examples of a Toys "Я" Us-branded Transformer item, as a memento of the chain. It has hung quietly on a hook on my computer desk ever since. I never really intended to keep it in its package. I seldom do, anyway. Toys are meant to be played with, as I often say. But this toy is more of a symbol, certainly. So, for 7 years, it just stayed on the hook....

...Until now.

The Wild Wild West Comic Mini-Series (1990)

Before there was Legend, there was The Wild Wild West, a melding of western and spy genres that aired on CBS from 1965 to 1969. Its popularity was so great that it not only spawned two "reunion" specials (one in 1979, and the other in 1980... and there might have been even more if one of the leads didn't unexpectedly pass away the next year) and a theatrical spin-off starring Will Smith in 1999 (which wasn't generally well-received, but was responsible for rescuing a damaged historical locomotive engine. I say more about that here), but also a couple of comic book series. There was a series published by Gold Key in the '60s, which I've never seen, and a more recent comic book mini-series published by a company called Millennium in 1990, which is what I'll be talking about here.

Thrilling 30 Sandstorm (2013)

About mid-way into 2013, Hasbro started (perhaps prematurely?) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Transformers franchise (which started well into 1984) with what they called the Thrilling 30. Toys were released as part of already-established Generations line, revisiting characters from all of the various aspects of the franchise to this point (not just "Generation One," although it's undeniable that those characters were given a bit more attention than other specific lines that came later, and which had been on toy shelves more recently).

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the JSA's "Next Generation" (All-Star Comics #58, cover date February, 1976)

In previous entries referencing the Justice Society of America, I've discussed how the group, which originated in the few years before World War II, fell out of favor in the years immediately after the war, but had started to make return appearances a decade or so later, especially alongside the Justice League of America. These "Crisis" appearances became an annual tradition for many years. However, it wasn't until 1975 that the industry's first super-hero team made a comeback in a comic book devoted specifically to them. In fact, All-Star Comics, the book which originally featured the JSA, itself was brought out of cancellation, with the first "next generation" issue of All-Star Comics being given issue number 58, as that would have been the next issue All-Star Comics in 1951 if DC hadn't decided to rename the whole book as "All-Star Western" (removing the JSA in favor of Western stories) with #58 at the time.