[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Keeps and Tights podcast right here on keepsandtights.com, i'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode is once again brought to you by our friends over at Galactic Comics and collectibles. At GalacticComics and Collectibles.com we welcome back, owner and proprietor of Galactic Comics and Collectibles to the podcast to chat the 1995 Casper the friendly Ghost movie, or just called Casper. But before you listen to this episode, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, bluesky, threads, all those places you can rate, review, subscribe over on Apple, Spotify or wherever you find your podcast. And you can watch the video portion of this podcast over on YouTube.com and as always, you can get so much more
[email protected] but this is Paul Eaton of Galactic Comics and collectibles chatting the 1995 Casper movie right here. Enjoy, everyone.
Welcome to the podcast. Paul, how are you? Happy Halloween or see season Halloween.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Holy smokes. It's getting to be that time of the year. Thinking about all this good stuff.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: It's spooky season. I like how you wrote in your comic book polis this the spooky movie. And you're like, well, it's actually just got Casper the Friendly Ghost, but it's cast. Yeah, it's Casper.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't, I don't think this even scared Caitlyn, which is impressive because most.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: No, it's not scary ghost wise. It's scary as like, this is dark as hell. Like, that's not really. It's like geared towards children, but there's like, themes in there. You're like, this is why parents watch children's movies before children's do. Like, this is why this movie is a children movie.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: You're kind of like a little bit of what the worst is. Like you found out Casper was like murdered or something.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be actually. Yeah, that would be like, it was like, all right. I said the darker version of this, I guess, is like, if you had a darker version of this story would be like, he was kidnapped and like, died in captivity and haunted the house after this with a murder. Yeah, yeah. And now they're like, but they don't know who murdered him. So now like the person that he's friendly with helps discover who murdered him.
You know, I mean, like,
[00:01:58] Speaker B: there we go. We have our next Casper movie already going.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: I just, it was just dark as hell. And I was thinking myself, I'm like, this, I did. I forgot about that. How like it's a dead child. So that's first of all. So children watching it going, wait, mortality is a thing.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: I can die at 12.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: And then like the person, the woman trying to like take over the house or to find the treasure realizes that she could die and then come back to life because of the invention of the dude who lived there wants to either kill the other dude, this henchman guy, or herself and she ends up dying and then the dad dies. Like there's always like death going around this thing. And then like it was, it was dark as hell compared to what I remembered it being back when I watched last. So it was definitely one of those things.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: But I saw this movie like as one of those ABC movie a week things.
Like I probably watched it back then.
I want to say I'm been freshman high school. This came. So I was really the target audience for it. But I, I recalled the movie and thought, oh yeah, it was, it was a cute movie or whatever. I'm watching it. Yeah, it's still a cute movie. But yeah, when you really dig into the plot of this, it's a, it's a little unsettling.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: It is.
We wanted to pick, we talked about doing a horror movie for, for Halloween like we normally. We have done past couple years. And I was like, yeah, that'd be great. So on and so forth. But like, I don't know, like we don't typically review that kind of movie like we do, but like it does. This seems like a little bit abnormal for us to do and this is a real reason for us to do it. And so I thought, hey. And then I real that it's then remembered that it's based in Friendship, Maine. Casper the Friendly Ghost is based in Friendship, Maine, which is a real place in Maine. The shots in the movies are not friendship, ME. The shots in the movies are like Camden and Rockport, Rockland, those kind of coastal towns that have a little bit more of a screen friendly look to them than Friendship, Maine does.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure I've been different, but I don't think there's a whole lot of.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: No, no.
But that was one of the reasons I said let's do the connectivity of like Halloween themed movie, but also the connectivity of, of being in Maine. Because we talked about this actually this weekend at the convention that you and I were at. I talked to some other people and I actually talked to the couple of panels actually brought up. I watched Casper the Friendly Ghost to the Ghost Hunters during that panel, which was kind of a funny Thing.
But we mentioned how, like, as a Mainer, as someone who lives in Maine, grew up in Maine, things like that. When things are based in Maine or mention Maine or, or acquainted or some sort of like, grazed by the. The name Maine, we're all gung ho and excited for it because, like, it's just.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: We're half the country forgets we exist and that we're not Canada.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Yep.
And so to me, it was like, this was huge to me.
And I guarantee you as a child, you're like, oh my gosh, Maine. Because even more so as a child, you're not exposed to things that happen in your own town, in your own city, in your own place. Because Maine again, is a forgotten place in that sense. Yes, obviously we're Stephen King. We've learned over the years Stephen King based a lot of his stuff in Maine.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: So like.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: But they're also fictionalized places in Maine. And so it's not like a lot of them aren't real, actual places in Maine.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: This definitely, like, stands out very easily to say, yeah, that's here. Until you get to all universal sense, you know.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: And I was still excited and loved it, even though it had. Didn't have to be in Maine. Like, it literally could have been anywhere. Has nothing to do with like, oh, he was a lobster or he was a logger or some sort of like, the profession has to be in Maine for it to work. It literally would just happen to be that they were like, on the other side.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: There is a bar there before the. The dad dies. He's out drinking with the ghost. I'm pretty sure I've been there before. I think I drank there down on the coast. I'm pretty, pretty positive.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: But. But it doesn't have to be here. Like, that's the point. It was like, it was one of those things. They just. I think they were in another place of the country. Like, in like, where was it? Like western, west, southwest United States or something like that. So they had to be like.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Or Nevada. They were. They were definitely out that way somewhere.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: And they had to make it be like, we're going to travel across. It had to be like a big gap. Like, it could have been like Iowa because, like, I was not that much further away from where they were. They think they had to make it be like, tell Christina Ricci character, like, we're moving across the country. And so that's why they picked Maine, in my opinion. I don't think it had anything to do with like, had to be in Maine. And I Guess this history in Maine, old haunted houses and things like that are in Maine. So I guess that's that. But like, you could have removed it and put in like, oh, they're in Florida. And it would have been the exact same. We wouldn't have had anything. Nothing would have changed.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Would have been sweatier.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that too. But yeah, I mean, ghost sweat. Ghost sweat on there.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: But keep out. May 26, 1995. So we're actually the 31st year of the anniversary. We missed the anniversary of the 30th anniversary by a year. But so I look back on it, Paul and like, who. Who made the movie, who directed the movie, who written, wrote the movie and things like that. And so it's Sherry Stoner and Dina Oliver were the writers of the movie, who. They don't scream anything to you. Right. However, Sherry Stoner was the writer of a lot of or many of Tiny Toon's adventures and Animaniacs shows.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Yeah, they're both great in my childhood era for sure.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: And so I can understand why she was tapped to write a child story that had some animation in it.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Well, it's based on cartoon series was. Another good reason for us to review this or thought of it is the fact that like Casper had very long running comic series in the like 50s, 60s era.
In fact, I don't even know, Casper might date back to like the 40s in the golden age of comics was the first animated, right?
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Yeah, but it was. Right. That same year the animated show, the short film came out, the same year the comic came out.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Okay, that school age, like, that's crazy. You wonder how old like Casper origin stuff is.
So make perfect for us comic podcast. Look at that. Whoa. We made a connection.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: We made a connection and we're having bad connection here. So I apologize if it sounds weird for Paul, but Paul's getting attacked by the ghosts of Casper at the comic book shop today.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Yeah, my Internet's being haunted.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: But the other side of the is too, is that Dina Oliver, who hasn't done a lot of stuff, was actually the weird, weird thing, the voice of the toaster in the Brave Little Toaster.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Okay, that's a weird one.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: So she was the voice of the toaster.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: Like, technically, Mickey would wonder if that stuff was actually possessed.
Does the toaster really have a personality or is that a possessed toaster?
[00:08:53] Speaker A: But yeah, so it was kind of funny. I was like, ah, that's kind of cool. Like, looking back on this, like, I always love to see like, who wrote this thing? And they Went on to write like the Odyssey or something. Like some sort of, like, crazy big movie. They were all like. All their stuff was in that vein of, like, childhood.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it all fits together pretty well.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: But obviously the other thing about this is, like, the people that are in the movie. You got Christina Ricci, Bill Pullman, Kathleen Morari, Eric Idle. Malachi Pearson voices Casper, who's not the guy who plays the boy Casper when he comes alive, but he voices. So it's like I mentioned you, it's like a Darth Vader of it all. Like, when he's in his costume, he's one voice. When he's in his. Not as his costume, he's in a different voice or different person.
But he also voiced him on the animated show too, which is. Which makes sense to me that they
[00:09:38] Speaker B: have to do the absolute this morning. She remembers animated series and she said she definitely did, because I was like, they did animated. Yeah.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: New Adventures of Casper. The Spooktacular. New Adventures of Casper.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Yep. And still had the characters from Cat in it and her dad. Yep. So it's like basically the same storyline.
So.
And I was reading they, like, we're really looking at doing a sequel to it. They did what, two direct to video movies that both flopped. So. And Christina Ricci was like, I don't know if I really want to do another Casper movie. And that was like the whole plot and premise, I guess, would bring her back. So they're like, okay, well then never mind. Because this whole thing kind of.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Well, man, what would you have done?
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Successful financially.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Yeah. But, like, what would you have done? Like, what are the story wise? Like, I feel like she was.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: It was like 2000s, so it should have been like teenager, early 20s, something like that.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Going to college and Casper goes to college with her.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: College with her. Or like, she's growing up and Casper has to move on. Like, he could have wrapped up the series of like, now he's found his closure in the fact that he, like, connected with her and her best friend and all. All of that sort of stuff. And then, like, maybe sort of he finally moved on. Or at the end of it, she's still in the house as a kid. Now he's like, connecting to that kid.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, there's this.
I don't know, it just felt like it encapsulated it enough in that story that if you did something.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: It almost has to be something that we're like, where Casper.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Like, we needed more of it every year.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: Its story changes to a point now where because of this whole interaction with, with, with Christina Ricci's cat's character in this movie that every year on a certain day he gets to be boy for, for a day and she does something with the real life version of him.
And then that's that too. I don't know. Like it builds up to that. Hey, it's coming up and there's a build up and an afterwards kind of thing and they do something special or whatever it may be. But I don't know. I don't just to me it would seem like how you'd make a sequel because you made two hundred and something million dollars on it. That's the reason why you make a sequel that feels like, yeah, yeah.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: It's not like she cooled back like, holy crap, we had over $200 million.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: Well, yeah, 290 million was the box office on a 55 million dollar budget. So I mean if you say, if you take it to Hollywood accounting, they made $200 million because like there's another $45 million in, in, in or $35 million.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Marketing.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Marketing and behind the scenes stuff. But like, yeah, I remember like profitable.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: I want to say there was like casper buckets at McDonald's for trick or treating and like McDonald's toys. It was like there was like a huge promotion of all of this Casper stuff. I sort of remember being around.
So it obviously got like, like quite the hit for that.
And apparently everyone went to go see it. So. Because it rushed the box office while not having terrific reviews, like the reviews were all sort of meh for it.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: There was toys for sure. I know that much. There was like the stinky in the uncle's toys that you could get to.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: Was there?
[00:12:43] Speaker A: Oh my gosh. Is that a record?
[00:12:46] Speaker B: What is that?
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Oh, it's a book. Okay. I was like, oh my God. It's a vinyl record of this movie. That's amazing. I'm like, I don't even remember the music in this movie. It's a final record.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: So what was a like hole that thought was weird.
Why.
Where are these uncles? Where do they come from? Why are they like abusive?
What is what, what the hell is going on with this? We never found any of this out. Who these guys are? Are they been his brothers, like other ghosts that started haunting the house like later.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Guess that could have been the sequel or the prequel. It could have been like.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: Right?
[00:13:20] Speaker A: It could actually have been. Actually. That would. I'd watch that actually now I think about it, it's like the prequel to how Casper died.
Like. Like. Like him as an actual child into that point where, like, his uncles are there. And, like, it's not actually the ghost story. It's actually like the prequel story to how they ended up there.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: But you're right.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: But if you. I mean, the original cartoon I watched, you can watch it on. Anybody wants to watch it. It's available on YouTube. You can watch the 1945 cartoon on YouTube. It's like nine minutes long.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: I had definitely seen that as a child, too. When I saw that, I remembered it instantly.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Well, and there's. There's basic story in there of Casper doesn't want to do what they do every night. The family gets up and they go into town and they scare the crap out of people and haunt people and scare people every night. And they always see. He always wants to find a friend, but when he goes to find the friends, they're always like, oh, my God, it's a ghost. And they scream and they cry and.
And so I guess if you just take from the original cartoon, even though that doesn't explain why you have to. You morph into this new stuff. It's Casper wants to be a friendly ghost, and then the three uncles have to be. Don't want to be. They want to terrify. They want to horrify. They want to do all this stuff. And so if it's just the adaptation makes sense.
But the original story doesn't even tell you why or who they are. They are a little bit animated more. And also, like we mentioned before, it's like the three uncles and Casper all have this, like, unique look to them that don't look like their human counterparts or why is it that when the lady dies and when Bill Pullman dies, they both look like animated versions of themselves, even though Casper looks like this, like, ball?
[00:14:54] Speaker B: I have a thought to this. Casper died, like, what, like a hundred years ago almost the time. And Christina Reed had to reintroduce him to life so he could even remember any of it. But my thought was the long they're dead or they forget things, they look like people they were.
The more they're just becoming ghosts and less like.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: So their form goes away and gets. Becomes more.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: Yeah. As they forget and as they lose their identity.
So there we go. I. I figured that makes sense, though.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: It does. You know, I also know that I
[00:15:33] Speaker B: can remember anything about his life.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Part of me goes, oh, you hired Bill Pullman to be your character, and you have to make him look like Bill Pullman because you're paying him, so you have you? Can't him look like we're gonna get
[00:15:44] Speaker B: our money's worth out of this?
[00:15:45] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that was the whole thing. What would someone just say? Oh, the theory that. That Robert Downey Jr. Is not actually Dr. Doom in Doom.
Because why would you pay hundreds of millions of dollars For Robert Downey Jr. Wear a mask the entire time doing, like, why do you need to pay Robert Downer Jr $100 million to. To wear a mask anybody could be behind?
[00:16:06] Speaker B: I have a lot of theories about this. I have a lot of theories about the dark Robert Downey Jr. Dr. Doom.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: And so to me, I'm like. And also, like, they're so open about it. Like, they're so open about it. So, like, there's at some company who's been so mysterious about appearances of characters in movies that, like, why wouldn't you have made it a reveal at the movie theater instead of a reveal years prior to doing it? I know it's marketing it, too, because people are going to want to go see Robert Tanner Jr. On screen. But I just think it's like, to me, I'm like, there's got to be some sort of twist.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: It's gotten more hype probably, than any Marvel movie in the last. Well, in the whole, like, third gen of stuff.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Like, there's got to be like, Maybe he is Dr. Doom in the movie, but, like, by the smallest amount that actually Iron man is in the alternate universe and you're actually seeing him as Iron man again as. But that's.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: That's.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: That's a sidetrack. But, like, my point is, like, Bill Pullman needs.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: When did Dr. Doom come to Casper?
[00:16:55] Speaker A: Bill Pullman needs to be Bill Pullman because you're paying him to be Bill Pullman in the movie. And so you're like, got to make him look like Bill Pullman.
But speaking of that. And that's a good transition here, Paul. Good. We're excellent, you know, historic, you know, good podcasters. Here is. Appearances and cameos in this movie is fantastic because you're not white. You're not like, what, 20 minutes, maybe 15 minutes into this movie, because they get. The lady finds out she's been given this manor, and they go and it's. And then they find out it's haunted, and so they call someone to help them. And the person they call is the ghost.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: The Ghostbusters.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: And so we got Dan Aykroyd. Dan Aykroyd running out of the house scared, which is so funny because of what he's fought and Captured and done in New York City comes to me. And Casper and his uncles are what scares him out of the house.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Yep. See uncles, he get him.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: And also, like, was it one of those things? So I was interviewing or doing the panel with the Ghost Hunters, Dave Tango and Steve Gonzalez from the Ghost Hunters teams at this convention this weekend. And they were talking about how they're the TV group. Like, you know, Steve and Dave and Jason and Grant, like, they're the ones that you see on tv. But Taps, the organization, the nonprofit organization they have, is over 170 different groups over all the states in the United States. And so if you have a haunting or you believe you have a haunting in your house or something like that, you call this thing or fill a form online, and the local team comes to your home team is what they call it. And so, like, there's people from Massachusetts or there's a team in Maine, I guess, that would come to your house and do this. And so I was thinking myself, I'm like, for the Ghostbusters, I'm like, what are they? Just, like, on a budget? And they only sent Dan Akroi.
Like, well, we gotta make sure New York's okay. So, Dan, you go and we'll just stay down here. Yeah, we'll be down here hanging out. But, yeah, but that was funny. So you see that. You're like, oh, that's kind of cute. And then someone goes, I was looking online and like, does that mean that Casper the Friendly Ghost is in the Ghostbusters universe?
Is that means he's low, like, the actual, like, encompasses, like, in that. In that multiverse, that this is one. Or maybe it's a multiverse.
You know, multiverse could be real. And this is the multiverse that has.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Eventually, we'll all into Archie.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: But then there was. Yes, dude, I wanna. I want to do a whole, like, breakdown on this, on Capes and tights website about, like, how Archie is the nexus of the universe.
The red.
The red string and freaking out, like, yeah, I could just use a picture of Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny and Philly. There's like, he has that back room with all the things in it.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: Three days later, you haven't worked. What are you doing?
[00:19:39] Speaker A: I have, like, a beard down to here. I've got crusties in my beard. I'm like, archie. It's Archie.
Archie.
So you're like, oh, that's kind of a cute cameo. And then, like, not 10 minutes later in the movie, 20 minutes later in the movie, you see Bill pullman looking in the mirror and in comes Clint Eastwood, Roddy Dangerfield, Mel Gibson. And so you're like, what the hell is going on here? And I'm like, I want to know those history of how they got these people to cameo in this movie.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Three big actors for a matter of, like, what, like 10 seconds on screen, if that.
In and out.
You think they spent money on that? Did they volunteer for it?
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Right. I wanted to look up to see.
I forgot to lift up.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: And maybe I should have reset my modem, see if that got rid of the ghost.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: I should have called Dan Aykroyd.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: They could have.
All right, so
[00:20:47] Speaker B: the sun's coming out. That's the problem. It's. It's getting to be too nice out of the Internet. I can't handle it.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: Oh, so executive producer by Steven Spielberg. So he helped arrange it.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: Oh, yo, that's right. I saw at the end of it that Spielberg was on it. That's right. And so, I mean, Steven Spielberg asked you, I'm sure you probably are, like, yeah, I'll go do it.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: They said that these weren't just. They weren't just photographs or recycled footage that Eastwood, Dangerfield, and Gibson actually appeared in the film. They actually recorded for the film, that it was Steven Spielberg helped arrange them.
Actually, Spielberg filmed a version of the mirror gag, too.
He said, partly because Eastwood agreed that he'd participate only on the condition that Spielberg was actually one of the characters as well.
But Spielberg's appearance was deliberately left out of the finished film.
And that it actually is a great example how Casper is packed with jokes specifically aimed at the adults watching it with their kids, which makes sense because, like, no kid's gonna know who Clint Eastwood is.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: I feel like the sequence with the. What the heck was the name of the big machine that his dad had created? Yeah, the.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: The thing that brings Ghost back. Right?
[00:22:09] Speaker B: Yeah, the Lazarus or whatever it was.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: Lazarus, yes.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that was like. That was so Steven Spielberg. I feel like it looked like you could almost see, like, his little spot on it. Like, it looked like a slightly more advanced scene from something you would have seen in like.
Oh, geez, I don't know.
Yeah, I'm trying to play on movies.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, like. Oh, I mean, like flubber. Like, you know, like some sort of like.
Like other Disney.
Like, it is. Honestly, it's one of those things that if you didn't. You go into this blind, you don't expect that.
Do you know what I mean?
[00:22:49] Speaker B: From, like, it turned from this, like, family Ghost movie to like almost like a little bit of like a sci fi thing. Like, like in like the weird. When she gets in the chair and it's going around on this like, roller coaster, which Liz was like, man, I want to go ride roller coaster.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: Why is there not a ride somewhere is this. Who owns this? Disney
[00:23:10] Speaker B: done.
But like, that whole. Turns the whole deal into this weird sci fi, like, new part of the movie that didn't go to the rest of it. But I mean, I guess it made sense for the plot line to go that direction.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: It also had one.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: If not, you're gonna go with it.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: It only had one dose of the, The, The. The. The sheen liquid to do it too.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Also very convenient, by the way.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: Was it. Was that what it was?
[00:23:40] Speaker B: How did the other two go? Because there was like the two almost empty ones and one full one where we tested.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: Could. Could Christina reach. You've, like, taken it and like gone to some sort of science. Scientists have been like, hey, can you try to replicate what's in this bottle and then have ton of it left? Like, maybe that's. I don't know. But. But also, like, I couldn't remember now that not thinking about watching it. It was like, what was the reason why Casper couldn't do it on his own? This is because he could. He couldn't pull the lever at the same time. Couldn't.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: He couldn't seem to pull the lever at the same time or something because
[00:24:10] Speaker A: he had to be in the machine while pulling the lever. Okay. And then obviously his uncles were.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: His uncles weren't going to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they didn't seem to have any interest in resurrecting themselves.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: No. Because they're. They wanted to be ghosts. They wanted to terrify. They want to be that people. Catherine doesn't. They also were, I'm guessing, older when they died. And so Catherine obviously didn't live long enough to like, have a whole life where the uncles obviously died later in life. But. Yeah, it's this thing.
Question for you, Paul. Who went shopping for the food?
[00:24:43] Speaker B: You know, I. It's weird you say so they had
[00:24:46] Speaker A: food when Bill Pullman and Christina Richie
[00:24:47] Speaker B: showed up, his big breakfast up and then he feeds all the, like the candy junk food, cake and crap. Little Debbies and stuff, it looked like, to the uncles. Yeah. Where did all that come from? I thought.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: I mean, they did travel. They can travel in the electricity. Right. They traveled on the phone, the power lines. So they go. Right.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Right. When they went to get the television at the Hotel Casper. Like move the TV around.
Yeah. So apparently there is a like little shop in Maine that's just making money off of cash for showing up or
[00:25:20] Speaker A: not or they're stealing stuff from them. But I thought was like yeah, you
[00:25:23] Speaker B: could just go in after hours and just help himself.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: This wasn't that the manner had been
[00:25:27] Speaker B: empty that though he's leaving money on the table so we don't know where he's making the money from. But you don't want over he they
[00:25:34] Speaker A: obviously the man has been empty long enough for years. So there hasn't been food in there. No one's been living there. So it's not like they're eating the food.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Someone else shopping, Everything, everything spiderwood on it.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: But like and so like it's not like when Bill Pullman and Christina Ricci showed up.
They the food. They're eating the food that they bought. They've obviously been doing this for a long time because he mentioned I like the slop on the floor. Leave it, don't clean it up. So they obviously do. So I think of myself like we just suspend belief that they just have all this extra food for ghosts that don't actually need it. They just like making messes I guess I don't like.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: Yeah they like the routine of it. It's like a man doesn't need to eat but he likes it. It's his normal.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: Well I mean to me I was like what do I do? I don't know why it would have struck a little.
It would have struck a little bit more funny, a little bit more hook esque is if you just like had them believe they were like make their own like fake ghost looking food that they ate to me with I don't know. To me it was like it was a weird, weird interaction.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: They could have started sending a grocery list with them. Maybe the food gets delivered. That's part of the like Walmart.
We know what happened to Casper dad when he died. Where the house went and she left it by. Rich guy like owns all this stuff and he donates everything to every single thing.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: This is the beginning of Walmart plus or like Hannaford to go delivery Instacart back in 1995 they actually had someone delivering the food to the front door. And it's like done by like a weird like they talk on the phone. They could seem like, oh just leave it on the front door. Like McAllister did on home Alone.
[00:27:20] Speaker B: Yeah,
[00:27:23] Speaker A: who knows?
[00:27:25] Speaker B: The guy goes up there and he's always a little scared as he Drops a bag of baked goods and crap off and then runs down the stairs.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: So here we go.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: We figured out plot hole and we got this salt again.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: It's a ton of plot holes in this. Let's be honest. Like, there's no. Like, I talk to creators and I always talk to creators that have, like, create their own stuff, right. And I always, I kind of think to women sometimes I ask them, do you set this like specific set of rules that your characters can and cannot do? So if there's a ghost story, is there like a set of rules that these ghosts follow? Because there doesn't seem like there is like a set of rules that ghosts follow. Like, each individual interpretation of people's ghosts do different things. Like if we watch the show Ghosts on tv, it's a phenomenal show. I love the show. But they have like, each ghost has their own ghost power. And so like one of them like gets can touch things, but like only very lightly. Like they can touch. Like it takes like an hour to type something on the computer.
One person can, like, the funny one is the guy like doesn't have a power, but if someone walks through him, it smells like a fart. It's like, it's like there's things that are like rules that are set. And I'm thinking to myself, Casper and his uncles don't have. There's no rules because sometimes you can walk through them, sometimes they can. Sometimes they can hold on the levers, sometimes they can't. Food goes through them, but they can pull open a door. Like, it's like there's no rule, steadfast rules of what ghosts can and cannot do it.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: There's not a lot of thought process in this. For some reason they only have like the three fingers and the thumb, like usually make fun of. They're like, oh, I wish I still had my pinky. Yes.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: So, finger, do you.
Would you stay in the Whipstaff Manor if like you were Bill Pullman and Christina Ricci?
[00:29:18] Speaker B: Oddly so, because, like I have.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: My brother in law and sister law just bought a house that was like not taken care of very well. And I don't want to stay there, let alone a manor with cobwebs and things like that.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: Spiders on everything is enough to keep me out of it. I'm like, I'm out. I don't know where these spiders all are and where they've all gone, but I'm kind of all set with that. And they're probably like, yeah, yeah. And then like, let's face it, like, the. The three uncles definitely seem to be more interested in murdering you as they're like chasing them around with swords and stuff. So, yeah, I don't think I'm going to sleep there when these three ghosts can potentially just kill me while I'm asleep. So, yeah, I think I'm probably going to go to like an Airbnb and then I'll come back to deal with the ghosts on my own time.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: I don't think I'm all set. Yeah, I'm not staying there. I do love the fact they follow
[00:30:14] Speaker B: you around anyways if they want. So you still have that they're not really attached to the house.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: Yes, yes, I. I do still have that.
My favorite part is. Is the tongue in cheek part of, like that. That Bill Coleman Pullman's character is not like a medium or some sort of a ghostbuster or something. He's a therapist for ghosts, which is funny, but obviously when he physically meets Casper for the first time, you can tell that he's actually never talked to a ghost.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Oh, he freaked right out. Like, you know, like, there's almost like an idea because the old lady was like, oh, my Billy died and blah, blah, blah. Like, did you kind of rip this old lady off?
[00:30:53] Speaker A: No, I. Here's my theory on that one. So here's the theory.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: And then when he shows up there, he's terrified. So, like, you've never seen a ghost before?
I mean, maybe. I guess he didn't rip her off if he made her feel better thinking that her.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: Well, that's. That's my theory. So. So I didn't think about this much until after this panel with the ghost hunters, which is really funny how this. The timing works on. This is their job. They sold their show. They had offered a show three times by three different networks.
Discovery originally. So it was on Sci Fi. Discovery originally said, cool, there'll be a ghost every episode. People will love it. Doors will get kicked in. It'll be amazing. And he said, no, we're going to sell you this show. That there's a potential that there we could do this show for many, many years and never find a ghost.
That's the whole point. The point isn't to find the ghost. The point is to prove or disprove what is happening at the south that someone might think is haunted or think something bad's happening. But it could potentially be X, Y and Z.
And so my theory is, is that their whole job as the ghost hunters, the Taps teams and things like that is to make the People who own the building satisfied and happy and wonderful that what's going on. So whether or not you're like, you know what it is, you didn't realize it, but there's actually something in the wall that every time a big windstorm happens, it taps on your wall. And that's what it is. And that's not saying it's ghosted, haunted. It's basically saying, I'm going to solve your problem for you.
And they went into one place and they're like, the chandelier moves willy nilly. And they went up in the ceiling and realized that the chandelier was off its pulley. And they fixed the pulley. And he's like, hey, we fixed your ghost. And so like, that's my theory on this guy. He didn't swindle her or trick her into it. He was like, my goal was to make her happy.
And in talking and speaking out loud to. Not an actual apparition, but just speaking out loud, she felt happier and she felt nicer and she could move on for their life.
[00:32:49] Speaker B: Had this, like, hopes of finding his dead wife.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Yes. Which is also.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: He needs a therapist actually find a ghost. But it was funny because when he finds a ghost. Yeah. He like, almost like pisses his pants.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: And isn't that proof though? Like, that, like, if he's like, literally just.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: I don't know. How do you respond to Casper? Are you really afraid of this? I mean, I guess it's a ghost, right?
But it's Casper kind of like, are you afraid of Slimer?
Like, he's just.
[00:33:16] Speaker A: Well, no, that's the problem I have with. They had to do it for this movie. This was a darker version of this movie. He would look. Casper would look friendly because he wants to be friendly. And the other ghosts would look more like the ghost they did where they scared. Even like that one time. They're like, ra. And they scared.
Yeah.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Coming out of me.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: That they're not actually terrifying in the fact that they're terrifying looking. They're terrifying because they're ghosts and they do mischief, mischievous things. Like they're not.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: They actually exist.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Yes. But like, I don't know.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: It's weird principal idea that he never really thought he was gonna find a ghost and then, oh, crap, he finds one.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: Which is actually kind of funny because I just had this discussion with Taylor about how I was reading a book and in the book they were saying that historically, way back in the day when ghosts were really first talked about, like that they existed, that these appearances of People actually showed up in the actual people. Like, all of a sudden, I know where you came home and that dude knocked in your front door and he said something to you. And then you called the company and said, hey, can you please? I want to know that guy's name. And they're like, that guy doesn't exist anymore. He died 10 years ago. Like, they were physically like, you talk to him. They could pick up things and all that. Like, the. The appearances of ghosts weren't the ghostly apparitions that you see in Hollywood nowadays. And that what happened was back in the day when they were doing plays and things like that, they found out the best way to interpret a ghost was a sheet and flowing and doing all these things. And it became this, like, variation from what the original talks about ghosts were to what we see now as apparitions and that, like, if a ghost actually was real and appeared in your house, it would just appear in your house as a natural human being. You could touch them, you could do whatever you want to it. It's not the apparition. So to me, I'm like, I would be scared of that apparition because it's like, what the is that?
But I don't know if I'd be scared. If it existed in the way that it should exist. Where Casper just showed up in my house, that'd be more terrifying to me because, like, what the hell is this person doing in my house? Where'd he come from?
[00:35:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Honestly, that's much scarier. That. Honestly, I think would be considerably scarier than a floating blob with a happy face and bright blue eyes. Like, he seems fine.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: Oh, so maybe that's what it is. He's also trying to be the most friendly looking because obviously they can morph into different things. They can add things and they try to also be the most friendly looking. And that's the soft edges and caring and stuff like that. That if you looked like. But when Bill Pullman what's her face die? And they look like their own people, that actually more terrifying to me that they actually look like.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: That's more saying, I think, than. Than what you get out of Casper.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: It's a.
It would be weird. It would be scary because it's paranormal. It's the whole idea about what paranormal is. It's paranormal as the unexplained. And you can't explain. It's hard to explain. Like, it would be scary in that aspect of it also. I don't know. I would originally, I'd be Running to the news because I'd be like, holy, look at this, guys. Like, I just found a ghost. Like, you need to. Like, this is not like. And they're not all scary. Casper's really friendly, you know, so. Yeah, I don't know. I would be scared in the sense of, like, especially if you're in that spot. If you're in your house or my house. We're older houses, but not like that house.
I'd be less scared here because I'm like, oh, it's not as. But would you have the frightening surroundings?
[00:36:31] Speaker B: Yeah. When you're in this other place, this creepy old house. Well, that'd be the other thing. Like, so she's getting. She's trying to find treasure. She's all about wealth. She's this horrible person. Like, wouldn't you just be selling tickets to come see the ghosts and poke? It'd be like turning like Jurassic Park.
Like, she'd have this whole thing of, like, come to the ghost would be like, oh, my God, lady. Like, get the hell away from me.
Like, it'd be in there. Like, he'd be pulling fats on the belly. And like, well.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: Well, you can tell she wants the quick buck.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: That money maker.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: She wants the quick buck. Like, she was hoping to get a million dollars from her dad.
Instead she got this man. Or now she had to do something with. And the best thing for her to do is quickly move on, like, get it going. Like, she wanted the quick dollar. And then that's when she was like, o. And so now she's like. And that's what she's just to destroy the place. After a while, she's like, I'm just gonna tear it down because you go stone haunted. And then while I've seen enough movies where, like, ghosts haunt the grounds of a. Like, you don't. Obviously you do your research because like poltergeist. We. Poltergeist is based off of the fact that they, like, dug up a graveyard and moved the graveyard. The spirit stayed behind and haunted the house. Like, it's digging up the.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: The.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: The house is not always going to do. No, it's not going to work.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: But let's see if haunt the rubble. Well, it will.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: It's also like the funny thing when you watch a movie like this, which is obviously a kids movie. Again, we mentioned it's darker, but, like, how things fall into place in her. In. In front of someone's eyes at the perfect time. Like, the whole idea. She was like, watching TV at the right time. When this News article, news station came on and said something about these characters. These guys will come. This. This guy is a therapist for ghosts, and he'll come.
[00:38:02] Speaker B: And so I think Casper controlled that because Casper was watching.
Because then he. She goes to the. And gets the moves the TV around the room chasing her to finally get her attention.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: So that makes sense. But like, it was still so funny. It's like a. Things happens for a certain point. There's a certain reason.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Like bored flipping through channels.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: Do you also think that she wasn't
[00:38:22] Speaker B: filling that house all this time anyways?
[00:38:24] Speaker A: Well, how is it all working still? Like, do you know what I mean? Like, no one's been there, obviously, in many, many, many, many, many moons. And. And they.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: That's like he died predating color television. Where the hell does TV come from?
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Well, I guess also she did. She did fix a fuse, right? Cat?
[00:38:44] Speaker B: Yeah, so Cat fixed a fuse, which
[00:38:46] Speaker A: is funny because she's like, oh yeah. Telling him, like, how much smarter she is about things like this than her dad. Like, her dad is not the smartest guy in the world.
Tomorrow we'll get a bunch of 20amps to make. You did. It's like one of those things that, like, your dad definitely wouldn't be able to survive without her daughter. His daughter, like his dad. There's no way that his dad, his daughter actually takes care of them in life. But yeah, like, the. The fact that the mom dies and the daughter actually had to be the mom instead of. Instead of him being the dad is also sad and dark. And it's like, think about. There's death. Like, obviously it's a ghost story, but, like, there's just death everywhere. And I just think to myself, like, if someone is not so great with
[00:39:19] Speaker B: mom and she afraid of like, forgetting her, and he can't move past his wife's death and like, the whole thing was just really.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: But I guess in the end, is it. Is it.
Is it about being able to be okay with it and move on? I guess that's the moral of the story, right? Is the idea that maybe because like,
[00:39:38] Speaker B: Casper's thing was he got stuck on Earth because he felt bad for his dad being left alone and wanted his dad not to SAP. And then obviously his dad then just moved on because he's not around.
So that's all. It's kind of sad. It's almost like when he stayed on Earth to try to stay for dad's sake, and then his dead died, his
[00:40:04] Speaker A: dad just forgot about him. Oh, crap. My son's still at the house he went. His dad. His dad went out for milk and never came back.
Oh, there's so many more jokes. I could go there, Paul, and I'm not gonna. Not gonna go there.
So I guess we're gonna. We're gonna finish up here. Not within a couple minutes here, but quality wise, Paul, like, if you look back and make. This is a 1995 children's movie, right? Children's spooky movie or young adult like that. One of the questions we always. We've said about movies from 30 years ago and beyond and, and with special effects and CGI and things like that. If you were to make it today, would it be better? Would it be improved?
I will go back and say
[00:40:52] Speaker B: I think it was better done then than if we did it now.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: Yes. 100. Because I feel like you'd have.
[00:40:57] Speaker B: I think we would lean too far into all of it. And like, I, I think this stands up very well for being what it is.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: It has that who Framed Roger Rabbit ability to cross mediums.
Well, like, there's no. I don't have a single issue with CGI animation.
I should say animation, because that's basically what it was back then. But animation and real life characters. I think there's a couple of instances where like, Christina Ricci is looking and it's not fully matched up in a sense that like, you could tell she's looking at nothing or like someone beyond the camera trying to put the character in the right spot. So when she's talking, just nothing.
I give her credit for that because the acting's pretty good for like, Bill Pullman and Christina Ricci's acting.
I think the two evil people are kind of weird and like, you know, maybe purposely off putting an unsettling.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: But like, no cartoon villains. They're like you're bully goal bad guys. Like, they're just whatever.
And then I think that's kind of. Those are great just in their point.
[00:42:04] Speaker A: Like, there's no. I would never, like, you could say to me if you 4K'd it up, you know, I mean, like, you made it in 4K so like, it looks better on your TV than it is in 1995. You wouldn't have been able to tell me that this was made outside of like, dated references or dated clothing or dated things like that this movie was actually made like the, the animation in this movie is good enough that you're like, this doesn't. It holds up. There's no way in hell that you could say this doesn't hold up. Because it's not perfect, but it's almost supposed to be. Not supposed to be not perfect, if that makes any sense.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: Right, right. Yeah. Any of its flaws are realistically kind of supposed to be there because it's supposed to be a little tongue in cheek and a little goofy and like, I think it, I think it really is one of the best movies that we've watched for holding up for its time of what it's supposed to look like.
[00:42:50] Speaker A: And now it makes you want to watch who frame Roger Rabbit? Because they're on. I think they're also. Those are talks of them like someone got the rights back in there. Like they're talking about doing something with it. I feel like there's like a buzz around the Internet about something happening because the rights were like the guy who owned, the guy who created that was.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: That was one of those things that was like hugely successful.
[00:43:05] Speaker A: It was groundbreaking too.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: Nothing came of it.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: Well, I think it's something to do with rights, Paul. I think it has to do with rights because I think what I, what I remember the buzz and like don't hold me about for this, hold this to me or whatever, but that someone said something about that it was actually called.
It's not called who Framed Roger Rabbit originally.
The book is called something else based on a book and the book who censored Roger Rabbit's name of the book and that the guy who wrote the book sold the rights to obviously make the movie. The movie was successful. Da da da da. But that like the guy who wrote the book now has the rights back or something along those lines or has the ability to use it.
[00:43:44] Speaker B: And so like one, one time only
[00:43:46] Speaker A: thing, it was like this thing and then probably went from hands to hands to hands and things went into developmental hell and just never actually got made. And it sounded. That's what I thought I heard it was a rumor of that. But like that was groundbreaking. And the idea mixed with me too. Mixed medium is like it's so hard to do but also if it's done right and I feel like ghosts like this is. Is easy to do but easier to do because all you're doing is animating cells and then laying it over it making them sure that they're like see through and things like that. And like it's, it's. It seemed cool and I think that would I watch a new take on it probably, but I feel like they had like Pixar ish it, you know, I mean like the ghost would look like Pixar characters.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it would get lost over.
Over what we had then. Or they'd be like nitpicking it. They'd be nitpicking it to look too good. You know what I mean? Like, this is some of the. The I think love for this is the fact they sort of do look like cartoons, like, which is what it all was original in the first place. Now it would probably look too clean and too bright and you'd be like, oh, listen, you have five figures.
[00:44:53] Speaker A: The uncles look different. Like the uncles look for this movie are like made for this movie. You could tell. Like the uncles are definitely like characterizations of things. But Casper as a whole, if you look back to Casper in that 1945 short film isn't that much different. Casper over the years has not. They have not changed Casper that much. In. In.
[00:45:17] Speaker B: He looks a lot like the original. Like comic books.
Like all of it goes together very well. The big bulbous head and like realistically the other ones, if you even go back to the original 1945 film where the other ghosts have the like sort of pointier heads and all this, they
[00:45:35] Speaker A: look like kkk, let's be honest.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they look like sheets and. And Casper's. Casper's trying to look friendly. Like he looks more like a little kid and goes along with all of it and he sort of like walked. They're all flying and floating and doing all this stuff and he more just walks where he's going like.
So yeah, I feel like this movie did a great job for realistically living up to its original like origin and overall, like I don't know if it would be as good remake now.
[00:46:11] Speaker A: Well, so here's the problem with it actually nowadays is that one of the things that did so well for me and wanting to watch this movie is the mixed medium that the animation on top of a real life acting is that in 2013, I guess I'm on the world famous Wikipedia that 2013 DreamWorks Animation was working on a reboot of a computer animated film of the thing which would be that like all the characters would be animated as well as the ghosts. And I think that loses some of that appeal to me is that one of the things that made it so special is that you could have made a feature film 1995, you easily could have made a feature film that's animated and sold $200 million. Still, there's no way that people wouldn't have seen this movie. However, that's what I think made it so special. And that's why it's things set up time is that the animation mixed with real life acting makes it special. Makes it one of those things that like I would continue watching this movie here and there I'm not gonna watch every year. But like, it's one of those ones I would love to see. But I'd also love to see like, I don't know, the sequel being like a Christmas movie would be funny too. Like having it be like a spooky Christmas movie would be kind of cool.
[00:47:11] Speaker B: I saw there was like a short Casper Christmas special after this. Yeah, that now kind of like western one. Watch that.
[00:47:19] Speaker A: Well, I think. Because think about it now. I think about it after talk this
[00:47:22] Speaker B: long or direct to vhs, whatever I guess were like awful. Like they were.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: They were horrible. There's actually one that's like really bad. Like there's one that's like.
Well, I guess there is a. Yeah. Wendy. And it has.
Kathy Morardi is in it again.
The lady.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: The.
[00:47:39] Speaker A: The.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: The.
[00:47:39] Speaker A: The.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: The.
[00:47:40] Speaker A: The. The lady that. The villain, Hilary Duff is the.
Is the Wendy one. Catherine meets Wendy.
Where was the other one? It was spirited beginning.
That one starred Steven Gutenberg, Lori Laughlin. Oh, Roger Dangerfield appeared in that one again too.
Bill Farmer, James Charlotte.
He must have done a voice right.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: I feel like you should do frame.
Love that movie. When I was younger and I haven't watched that movie.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: I want to know. I want to watch these spirit.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: These.
[00:48:14] Speaker A: These directed movies.
Yeah, I would want to see.
[00:48:22] Speaker B: It was on vhs.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: I want to see.
I would like now that I think about it, after talking for this long, I want to see more. I want to see a continuation. Not a reboot, a continuation, but obviously just them fixing up the manor and living in the manor and having the ghosts. Casper be there. There's no saving Castle. There's no trying to bring it back. There's none of that stuff. And maybe at the end they find the formula. At the very end of the movie. He gets his life. He gets to be a kid again and. And he gets to be like resurrected at some point like that. But like throughout the entire movie was
[00:48:57] Speaker B: just them changing a figure out the formula. What was it? Where did it come from?
[00:49:02] Speaker A: And even that like they have like maybe a portion of like it's cut off. It's cut off and the other piece is somewhere. And as they're renovating the house, they find it or something along those lines. Like to me it was like, what about just living in a house with a friendly ghost that could help you do things that normal people can't do. Do you. I mean, like, in that story, I would watch that. Like them just a little.
[00:49:21] Speaker B: Do a. Working on, like, I don't know, curing uncles of whatever them on earth with the fact they're through more kind of
[00:49:30] Speaker A: like Jack, he could have a reality TV show where it's like him actually doing a. Like a ghost TV show where people come on the show and he does, like, so. So it could work. I just.
[00:49:38] Speaker B: I don't.
[00:49:38] Speaker A: I guess I've never seen this. The director. Director, movie director, vhs.
So I don't know where they go with it.
[00:49:44] Speaker B: But, like, I want to reboot this Casper, but the Beetlejuice, Beetle Juice.
[00:49:50] Speaker A: Yes.
Later on in life. Like, just what's going on? Like, I don't know. Because Casper obviously never get. Doesn't get old, so. Cat, you could make Casper movies forever because Casper is the ghost, so he stays the same age. And nowadays with voice actors, you could have someone make the voice. Nowadays it sounds the same. Like someone can reinterpret it His. His voice then.
But yeah, it's a.
I don't know. It was fun. It was fun. And that's what I think we've talked about with book club recently and the argument of sometimes things are just made to be fun.
And I think that this movie has heartwarming. It's dark, but it has a heartwarming ending. It has a heartwarming process of, like, why it exists. Like, what the plot line makes sense. There's holes, but it makes sense on what they want to do. And I said, Bill Pullman's great. I loved it. Christina Ricci did a great job.
I think the being Maine was awesome. I love that aspect of it. To me, again, didn't have to be in Maine, but again, it is. We can call it. Call it our. Our thing. And I don't know, are there people who are die hard Casper fans, this movie? Fans who, like, come to me and take pictures in front of the friendship sign? Do you think that. Do you think. Do you think that's part of it?
[00:51:04] Speaker B: Or I just got to be. At least you, like, bare minimum.
Yeah, I don't know. I remember. So I specifically remember the line that I thought was so funny when I was a kid is when Christina Ricci goes into Casper's room and lays down in his bed and he's like, there's a. Yes, a girl in a bed.
[00:51:29] Speaker A: I didn't mention either. The. The darkness, but the creepiness of the fact that he says like 17 times in this movie. Can I Keep you.
[00:51:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. That's a little like.
And he says it when he. When he's human. So that. That's when she knows it's Casper. But yeah, that's a little freaky.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: I did like the fact that he's like girls in my bed. Oh my gosh. And that's again, comedy for the parents probably because the kids are like, so.
So why. What's gonna happen?
I want to see desert. I mean there's.
When's the last time they made a comic?
Just nine looks like.
Where's the comics?
[00:52:06] Speaker B: I. I haven't seen one in a long time. Not. Not even like, like an omnibus or like those new like, like compact mini books that they've been coming out with with stuff. I haven't seen any Casper. I don't think for as long as I've been open. The only thing we have with Casper that ever goes through is the vintage stuff.
[00:52:21] Speaker A: It was. It looks like 2010 was the last time I had a Casper comic.
But I can obviously see them. Like, there's no real reason. Is there a poll for someone wanting cast for the fun? I think they came up with a sequel or a reboot.
They were 100 studios.
[00:52:40] Speaker B: Yeah. There have to be something to refire it to. Realistically, I can see what the popularity of these.
Of the hardcover omnis or of these little compact ones putting together some vintage Casper and. And.
[00:52:53] Speaker A: But again, I think you have to have.
[00:52:55] Speaker B: Because they're all. They're all wholesome and innocent. But that would be the catch. You got to go through and be like, all right, what's in this? That maybe doesn't post so well from the 40s now.
[00:53:03] Speaker A: The KKK uncles.
But no, it's. It's. But also like we know the world we live in nowadays. You have to. Something has to be on the screen to sell the thing. And I think if it's not on the screen, it's not gonna sell everything.
Kids aren't the contentious. No one's going into your comic book store and be like, oh, a friendly ghost.
It's more likely that a 10 year old's going to your store being like, does it kill someone? Do they have guns?
[00:53:27] Speaker B: 100. Yeah. Yeah. The amount of five nights in Freddy books that get lugged out of here. And I'm always like, those are kind of freaky. Like I, I mean we grew up with goosebumps, but I haven't dove super deep into five nights and Freddy's. But the general premises of. Is pretty damn freaky.
[00:53:42] Speaker A: And I don't think there's any like, moral story to it. At least Goosebumps had this like, moral story. Like, you shouldn't.
[00:53:47] Speaker B: Yeah, there's always something to Goosebumps. They're always like the Tales from the Crypt animated Series was a little something. Be nice to animals, you know, don't. Don't prank people, whatever. And yeah, the fight is free ones don't smell me.
[00:53:58] Speaker A: They're not.
[00:53:59] Speaker B: They're just like nosy, like grabbies and lucky. I'm out of here.
[00:54:02] Speaker A: I'm like, okay, I don't think we'll have a cast for the Friendly Ghost anytime soon. I now want to think about it and think about this cover. Like, did anybody do any like, for like Beneath the Trees or. Or Feral or Stray Dogs? Was there ever a Casper?
[00:54:18] Speaker B: All these homage books. You'd have a nice.
[00:54:19] Speaker A: I have to see if they can find. But that would be cool. But yeah, Casper the Friendly Ghost, to be honest with you. And again, this is not in relation to other movies because you can't like be like, put this up against turtles or put this up against the other movie that without the plot. I mean, I'm like three and a half, four stars for this. But I. It's weird. Like it's, it's. It's based on what.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: If you look at the between movie,
[00:54:44] Speaker A: at what it is, it's a three, three, three and a half, four star. Like I said, three and a half stars.
[00:54:50] Speaker B: I, I would go between three and three and a half. Yeah, it's a fun enough movie.
It's cute. It's a. It's not a horrible waste of your, like, whatever. This movie is like an hour and a half or whatever. It's not very long.
[00:55:02] Speaker A: 100% rewatchable.
[00:55:03] Speaker B: Actually. I watched it last night was. He missed first watching two settings and he didn't first have watched the whole. Was interested to see what going on. And it was because she asked what he missed. There was no what's going on here? She's just like, okay, there, ghost, there's a house. Yeah, whatever.
[00:55:23] Speaker A: She's just on board with it, going along with it. Yeah.
[00:55:27] Speaker B: It's like Katie had fun with it. And I mean, you know, Katie's 10. She's pretty much the target audience for this movie at its time.
[00:55:34] Speaker A: If it catches your attention and you watch it and there wasn't anything glaring. There wasn't like, oh, did you see that skip on the screen? Like the whole ghosts look unrealistic. And it was like the movie was like the whole movie. I'M watching and I'm like, this is entertaining. There's definite plot holes. But there's got to be plot holes in the movie. A movie like this, there's no reason not to have problems. It's like they're trying to make award winning movie here. And I'm like watching it going, no, this was fun. And I'd watch this again. I mean, when nobody's a little older, we'll watch it. I almost watched it with him this time. I just didn't have time. But like I. He'd enjoy it, I think. I think he'd have fun.
[00:56:04] Speaker B: Probably would have. He probably would have gone through it and liked it. Yeah.
[00:56:07] Speaker A: I think at some point I don't want to have the problem with him being afraid of ghosts at night. But like that's, that's why I'm like, oh, maybe I'll wait a little bit longer because I'm the one that has to deal with him waking up in the middle night with a nightmare. So forget him. Like whatever. I'm the one that has to deal with it.
[00:56:24] Speaker B: That's the long news one.
[00:56:26] Speaker A: He watches like freaking Minecraft movie. And like that movie has like biting demons and stuff like that.
[00:56:33] Speaker B: And it's like weird stuff.
Those pigs are, those pigs in that Minecraft movie are pretty freaky.
[00:56:39] Speaker A: Riley's like, I'm like, no. Can you watch something else right now?
[00:56:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You're gonna put ham down on the table. She's gonna run out of the room.
This is less freaky, I think, than Minecraft.
[00:56:53] Speaker A: Like I said, maybe next. Like I said, he's five and we're at Halloween now. He's got stuff to do. But maybe next Halloween we'll sit down.
[00:57:01] Speaker B: You know, it's your, your Chris movies. You're gonna have like a family sort of goofy movies to watch during Halloween season. A great one.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: That and Scooby Doo, Charlie Brown, the Great Pumpkin Patch, whatever.
[00:57:15] Speaker B: Yeah, Charlie Brown. Yeah.
[00:57:17] Speaker A: Yeah. But that's.
[00:57:19] Speaker B: And then killer clowns from outer space. Yep.
[00:57:21] Speaker A: That's, that's, that's the evolution. Right. Goes right to that. And then terrifier.
[00:57:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And then straight to terrifier. Yeah.
[00:57:29] Speaker A: The funny thing is I don't even know if terrifier would scare a five year old. Because they didn't. I would have. Any idea what's going on?
[00:57:35] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, probably not. Maybe. I mean, art, Art the clown's pretty freaky looking.
It'll just be one of the things she's on. She's on the background. They don't even care.
[00:57:48] Speaker A: Are we gonna watch that at some point? Terrifier and have Liz watch it too.
[00:57:56] Speaker B: Liz is like, not super huge for the horror movies. Like.
[00:57:59] Speaker A: No, I know that.
[00:58:00] Speaker B: Start to do more of them.
Yeah, we. And we try to get one in.
I also. I don't know. I. I love, like, the Shining. I really love Misery.
[00:58:08] Speaker A: Definitely some of the suspenseful horror and unsettling suspenseful horror.
[00:58:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Then the blood and guts horror is not really my jam. Yep.
Psycho. Every year I'm always like, all right, let's watch Psycho.
[00:58:21] Speaker A: Seiko's really good. And honestly is really worth watching. I can give you a couple. The one I'm gonna watch this year that I had never seen, which I really should see, is the Wicker man from. From the 1970s.
[00:58:29] Speaker B: That.
[00:58:29] Speaker A: That's supposed to be really good.
[00:58:30] Speaker B: Some of those older ones are like. Those are probably kind of freaky.
[00:58:34] Speaker A: There's a couple. I should say less over a couple. Like, there's ones that are not scary, but more like uneasy and.
[00:58:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:40] Speaker A: Suspense. Suspense and tension field. Like, that's the. That's the. That's the horror of it all. Not. Not the. I just chop someone's head off. It's more like the sense of dread and uneasiness that. That, like, just like.
[00:58:52] Speaker B: Well, that's just the sweetest that the last.
You know, it was one think about, like American Psycho. We watched that and that was all blood and guts and whatever. But that was like.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's horror, but it's like. It's like one of those. Like, it's not like, I guess a terrifier or.
[00:59:10] Speaker B: Or.
[00:59:10] Speaker A: Or any of those, like, win the poo, blood and honey, like, where it's like just there for gore factor and not there for. For what it is. But yeah,
[00:59:23] Speaker B: These serial killer ones with the pull and you're like, wow, it's messed up. This actually happened.
[00:59:29] Speaker A: It's. Yeah, exactly. But three and a half stars. Three, three and a half stars right there. Somewhere in there. And Casper the Friendly Ghost. You can stream it at a lot of the places. I don't know where Amazon had it.
[00:59:40] Speaker B: We watched it on Disney plus.
[00:59:42] Speaker A: Yeah, Disney plus has it and so Fox. It's a Fox film, but it was when Disney bought Fox and now it's on Disney plus things like that.
And then if you want preface it by going online, just. I have it on link in our website on the post for this. This episode. But there's a link for the original short film, which is available on YouTube. I don't know if it's legally allowed
[01:00:02] Speaker B: to be, but it is.
[01:00:04] Speaker A: But it's a nine, eight nine minute film and it, it the beginning, you can, you can see where they draw drew from.
The story is not the same. He's actually on the road trying to find a friend in that movie. But you tell where they went from, how he doesn't want to do the same thing his uncles do and that he wants to be friends with people and that they don't want to be friends with him because he's a ghost. And so that's the premise of what Cast of the Friendly Ghost is. Is that it's hard to be a ghost and be friends with people because people are scared of you, inevitably and naturally, because that's what it is. But Galactic Comics is@g Galactic comics.com or comics and collectibles.com and they're on Hammond street in Bangor, Maine, if you're in the Bangor, Maine area.
But yeah, Paul, you'll be back to do Nightmare Before Christma next movie review.
So there we go.
Yeah, I think that'd be great. There was a debate between that and Elf, but I, I think that there's a lot more to talk about with. With Nightmare Before Christmas. Plus, if you've ever actually watched the whole movie, it's nice to that you watch the whole movie. Now we get to do that. Like, alpha be cool. Next year, I think I read a book about Elf, and so I was like, oh, I want to talk about it. But I'm like, it's not like it's another one of those book club books where we'd be like, that was awesome. And then we just, like, sign off the thing.
[01:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:01:20] Speaker A: Like, it would be like, oh, we all liked it.
[01:01:21] Speaker B: Okay, well, that was five minutes.
[01:01:23] Speaker A: It's like we did A Christmas Story. We'd be like, cool. That was five minutes long. And then we're done.
It's like, if we don't. It's like, I want to do Spaceballs before Spaceballs 2 comes out. But, like, how are we gonna. I guess we'll just talk about all the jokes that are in it and how funny it is.
[01:01:36] Speaker B: You can actually meet the entire movie.
[01:01:40] Speaker A: I was like, I was like, I don't know, man. Like, to me, I'm like, it's one of those book club meetings where we have like, everybody liked it. Cool. Let's just drink beer and hang out.
What do we have to talk about?
[01:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that was what we. That's what we did the last book club. And I think it's a nice piece to now and book club with is always what comics are you reading now or excited about reading and then they can what's coming out just got you interested? Yeah. Yep.
[01:02:05] Speaker A: Yeah we'll just all over what Kyle's reading because that just pissed him off so.
Paul, it's always great. Even though we had the ghost machine, it turned out fairly well. There's a couple skips there but I think we'll be fine. And but until next time, keep it up. Keep selling some comics and. And games and toys and and cards and stuff like that and we'll keep talking about movies. Yeah. All that stuff.
[01:02:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:31] Speaker A: We'll see you soon. And we're coming up also coming up on comics of the year so start getting those ready too. Like we're not that far away.
[01:02:36] Speaker B: I know, right? It's already.
It's that time of the year. I better start hunkering down and reading.
[01:02:42] Speaker A: So we'll. We'll discuss that at the end of the year but yeah. Until next time. Paul, thanks for joining us.
[01:02:47] Speaker B: Peace out.
[01:02:58] Speaker A: It.
