THERE'S GOOD BOOS TO-NIGHT - "Featuring Casper The Friendly Ghost" (1947)

Tonight's Witchy Wednesday Countdown to Halloween featurette is the 1947 Casper The Friendly Ghost cartoon "There's Good Boos To-Night!"

Casper looked a little like the Pillsbury Doughboy in his early cartoons.

Casper's hanging out in the cemetery wondering how he can make some friends.

It looks easy enough to make friends in the book that he's reading.

The sun goes down and all the rest of the ghosts go out for their nightly scare, but Casper stays back by himself.

Casper decides to go out and try and make some friends, but the result is always the same.

First the little calf got scared and then when Mom came to the rescue, she gets even more scared.

Even the smelly little skunk gets the stink scared out of him!

Finally Casper runs into somebody who is not scared of him, and he is overjoyed.

Casper names the little fox Ferdie, and they become best pals.

Here's where the story gets real scary, and I'm not even sure if it's suitable for children of any age.

There's a hunter and his fierce dogs in hot pursuit of little Ferdie, who tries to run and hide!!

When Casper shows up, the dogs turn white with fear.

The hunter and his horse also both get the Hell scared out of them, and retreat as fast as they can.

As a story for kids, I have a real problem at this point!

Casper finds Ferdie dead, I guess he got mauled.

Now even though this story has a happy ending, the kids don't know that until they've sat through this sad and tearful scene of Casper burying Ferdie.

It just doesn't seem right to play with little kid's emotions like that, but this was 1947, nobody really thought about it that way.

But there is a happy ending, because now Ferdie is a ghost and he and Casper can live happily together for all eternity and I guess that is good boos!