Casper Genie (1954)
Article 5760 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-5-2020
Directed by Seymour Kneitel
Featuring the voices of Jack Mercer, Mae Questal, Sid Raymond
Country: USA
What it is: Casper cartoon

Casper’s search for a friend leads him to pretend to be a genie in order to get close to a young boy reading the story of Aladdin. But a burglar steals the boy’s lamp…

While watching this cartoon, it struck me that there’s a certain similarity between Casper and Pepe Le Pew; the appearance of either character is guaranteed to clear the area of people. The difference between the two characters is that Pepe remains narcissistically oblivious to his offensive qualities whereas Casper is all too aware of them. which is why Pepe is played for humor and Casper is played for pathos. In this cartoon, Casper’s compromise made for the hope of friendship seems a bit on the unhealthy side; you know there’s no way he’s going to be able to keep up this ruse and what it entails, but the cartoon throws in the burglar to move the plot in another direction, so they are spared from having to address this compromise directly. At any rate, it does sort of explain why Casper is always losing his old friends