'By the Old Mill Scream' is an example of a decent, sweet cartoon, but falls short of being exceptional, being very standard Casper territory. Just to say also that there is nothing weird about liking Casper cartoons as a modern young adult, while a lot of them are not great there is still a good deal to enjoy about a vast majority of them.
Famous Studios' cartoons are not for all tastes, but my opinion is that their early stuff and some of the early 50s output are good. While they were very formulaic they were always well animated and voiced with some funny parts, some poignancy and decent characters and their regular composer Winston Sharples could always be relied on to write a great and often outstanding score.
Admittedly though, by the mid-50s through to the late-60s Famous Studios' cartoons did get repetitive. While Sharples' music still shone and the voice actors did their best the animation suffered due to lower budgets and tighter deadlines, the humour became more tired and slow in timing than sharp and funny, the stories became increasingly predictable and rehashed and some characters started losing their initial spark, this is particularly true of most of the later Herman and Katnip cartoons.
This does look like a copying and pasting of some of my previous reviews for the Casper the Friendly cartoons, but this is largely due to that they mostly have the same strengths and the same faults. 'By the Old Mill Scream' is a good example of a gentle and cute cartoon that is decent but not much more than that.
Story-wise, while very sweet and touching often, it is repetitive and standard (the ghosts wanting to scare while Casper finds a friend, people or animals being afraid and running away from him, making a friend and then saving them from a life or death situation), if you have seen any Casper cartoon it won't take long seeing more that you're watching basically the same story or structure but with variations. The dialogue also falls on the wrong side of twee and the writing in the Casper cartoons is very more of the same in feel and the lines themselves.
Animation has also been better, not awful certainly but it's not as audacious or as lively as before. Some nice varied and imaginative reactions and some meticulously detailed backgrounds but the colours are not as vibrant, some of it is pretty flat and muted looking, and the drawing is sometimes either blocky or rough (an example of the latter being the opening frame).
Winston Sharples' music score here is typically merry and whimsical, it's beautifully orchestrated, energetic, has much nuanced pathos and adds so much to the mood. His music has always been one of the best assets of the Famous Studios cartoons and it's not an exception here. In fact, the way it's orchestrated and fits with the action so well it is what makes 'By the Old Mill Scream'.
The friendship between Casper and the cute without being sugary sweet beaver is adorable and poignant, and the climax has the right amount of intensity and urgency though also pretty repetitive of most climaxes of Casper cartoons, very predictable of what the outcome was going to be.
Overall, cute but unexceptional and while pleasant we've just seen it too much before and it was starting to get tired by this point. 6/10 Bethany Cox
Famous Studios' cartoons are not for all tastes, but my opinion is that their early stuff and some of the early 50s output are good. While they were very formulaic they were always well animated and voiced with some funny parts, some poignancy and decent characters and their regular composer Winston Sharples could always be relied on to write a great and often outstanding score.
Admittedly though, by the mid-50s through to the late-60s Famous Studios' cartoons did get repetitive. While Sharples' music still shone and the voice actors did their best the animation suffered due to lower budgets and tighter deadlines, the humour became more tired and slow in timing than sharp and funny, the stories became increasingly predictable and rehashed and some characters started losing their initial spark, this is particularly true of most of the later Herman and Katnip cartoons.
This does look like a copying and pasting of some of my previous reviews for the Casper the Friendly cartoons, but this is largely due to that they mostly have the same strengths and the same faults. 'By the Old Mill Scream' is a good example of a gentle and cute cartoon that is decent but not much more than that.
Story-wise, while very sweet and touching often, it is repetitive and standard (the ghosts wanting to scare while Casper finds a friend, people or animals being afraid and running away from him, making a friend and then saving them from a life or death situation), if you have seen any Casper cartoon it won't take long seeing more that you're watching basically the same story or structure but with variations. The dialogue also falls on the wrong side of twee and the writing in the Casper cartoons is very more of the same in feel and the lines themselves.
Animation has also been better, not awful certainly but it's not as audacious or as lively as before. Some nice varied and imaginative reactions and some meticulously detailed backgrounds but the colours are not as vibrant, some of it is pretty flat and muted looking, and the drawing is sometimes either blocky or rough (an example of the latter being the opening frame).
Winston Sharples' music score here is typically merry and whimsical, it's beautifully orchestrated, energetic, has much nuanced pathos and adds so much to the mood. His music has always been one of the best assets of the Famous Studios cartoons and it's not an exception here. In fact, the way it's orchestrated and fits with the action so well it is what makes 'By the Old Mill Scream'.
The friendship between Casper and the cute without being sugary sweet beaver is adorable and poignant, and the climax has the right amount of intensity and urgency though also pretty repetitive of most climaxes of Casper cartoons, very predictable of what the outcome was going to be.
Overall, cute but unexceptional and while pleasant we've just seen it too much before and it was starting to get tired by this point. 6/10 Bethany Cox
