The cartoon character, Casper the Friendly Ghost who appears in numerous cartoon shorts as well as Harvey Comics publication, has appeared in five films since his inception, most of which were either released in television or straight-to-video while only one was released theatrically. Many for the most part are unrelated to each other. Like in the comics and animated shorts, the films feature Casper, a ghost of a deceased child, who refused to frighten others and would like nothing more than to be friendly around the world, due to the nature of what he appears to be, it would often get him shunned by whoever he encounters, but along the way, he would find and befriend a certain someone he could identify himself with, and would often help that someone in need.
Created by Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo, the character made his debut in three theatrical animated shorts in the mid to late 1940s from Noveltoons, and were released by Paramount Pictures and produced by Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios, then started a series of theatrical shorts from 1950 to 1959, right before Harvey Comics ended up buying the rights to the character.
After having numerous Casper cartoons released on home video by Universal Studios, a deal was made for a live-action feature produced by Amblin Entertainment with executive producer Steven Spielberg hiring Brad Silberling in his directional debut to direct Casper (1995). The film became a commercial success but was met with mixed reviews from critics. In the late 1990s, The Harvey Entertainment Company and Saban Entertainment brought the Casper film rights and produced two direct-to-video films released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with Casper: A Spirited Beginning (1997) and its sequel, Casper Meets Wendy (1998). Both films are highly regarded as prequels to 1995 film, despite not having the same storyline from the latter. The films were also critically panned by critics, which led Universal Studios to cancel further plans for a sequel to the theatrical film.
In the early 2000s, Harvey Entertainment returned once more along with Mainframe Entertainment (replacing Saban Entertainment) with a film released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment entitled Casper's Haunted Christmas (2000). Unlike the previous three films, this was completely done in computer animation. This was also the last Casper film to be involved with Universal. In the mid-2000s, was the second computer-animated film made for television produced by Moonscoop and released by Classic Media titled Casper's Scare School (2006). The film eventually had its own spin-off series with the same title airing on Cartoon Network, released in 2009.