Casper: A Spirited Beginning | |
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Casper, his uncles and the evil Kibosh
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Directed by | Sean McNamara |
Produced by | Mike Elliott |
Written by |
Karey Kirkpatrick Jymn Magon Thomas Hart Thomas McCluskey(story) Rob Kerchner (story) |
Based on |
Casper the Friendly Ghost by Seymour Reit Joe Oriolo |
Starring |
Steve Guttenberg Lori Loughlin Rodney Dangerfield Michael McKean Brendon Ryan Barrett Voices: Jeremy Foley Bill Farmer Jim Ward Jess Harnell James Earl Jones Pauly Shore |
Music by | Udi Harpaz |
Cinematography | Christian Sebaldt |
Edited by | John Walts John Gilbert |
Production
company |
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Distributed by | 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment |
Release date
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September 9, 1997 |
Running time
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90 min. |
Language | English |
Casper: A Spirited Beginning: The Soundtrack | |
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Soundtrack album by Various artists | |
Released | October 24, 1997 |
Label | EMI-Capitol |
Casper: A Spirited Beginning is a 1997 direct-to-video film based on the Harvey Comics cartoon character Casper the Friendly Ghost. It is a prequel/spin-off to the 1995 film Casper, giving more details to Casper's origin. The film is produced by The Harvey Entertainment Company and Saban Entertainment and released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on September 9, 1997 after the company's acquisition of the character from Universal.
Casper is on a train full of ghosts heading to the Ghost Central, with no idea of where he is and is completely unaware of the fact that he is actually a ghost himself. He gets kicked off the train, and then finds himself in the city of Deedstown, where he unintentionally scares all of the town's citizens, which leads him realize that he is a ghost.
Meanwhile, a loner boy named Chris Carson, with a passionate obsession of the supernatural, has a strained relationship with his father, work-obsessed Tim Carson, who is attempting to demolish the Applegate Mansion, to make way for a new renovation for the town: building a brand new mini-mall in its place. However, a group of protestors, led by Sheila Fistergraff, are against the demolition, as the house was confirmed to be a historical landmark. The wrecking crew that Tim hired and protestors are eventually terrorized by the Ghostly Trio, Stretch, Stinkie and Fatso, who are in possession of the Mansion.
Meanwhile, Chris runs into a gang of bullies on his way to school who antagonize him about his obsession, but the frightened victims from the ghost attack run past them, allowing Chris to flee from the bullies as he realized it was the work of the Ghostly Trio. He comes to them and asks join their group; however, the Trio reject him, since he is human.
Meanwhile, the train that Casper was on arrives in Ghost Central run by the evil ghoul Kibosh, where new spirits are trained to learn the proper ghost lifestyle and work to receive a haunting license. After discovering Casper is absent, Kibosh becomes furious about the idea of letting a rookie ghost being let loose without any education. He forces his spineless assistant Snivel to find Casper and bring him back.