Does anyone above the age of infancy actually enjoy Casper the Friendly Ghost? His cartoons are badly drawn and poorly animated, the "jokes" are unfunny, and nearly all of his cartoons feature the same plot line recycled endlessly ... a plot line that later was devastatingly (and hilariously) deconstructed in a classic episode of "Cheers".
(A correspondent has pointed out to me that the Casper toons of the '40s and '50s are better animated than 90% of the cartoons produced today, in the early 21st century. True, but those same Caspers -- made in the golden age of Hollywood studio animation -- are execrably animated when compared to cartoons produced in the same period at Warners, UPA and so forth ... and, I repeat, all those Caspers had the same plot.)
"Boo Moon" is the single glorious exception to the flood of treacle in Casper's filmography. Made during the 3-D movie craze, "Boo Moon" is the only Casper toon in 3-D, with a much higher production budget (and vastly better animation) than usual for Paramount's animation studio. Best of all, it has an intelligent plot line that's radically different from Casper's usual self-pity routine ... and, for possibly the only time in the entire Casper series, some action that (for little children, at least) is genuinely scary ... but with a happy ending, of course.
The story begins in a typical American city, where Casper is wallowing in his usual "nobody loves me" routine ... until he notices a sidewalk pitchman with a telescope, offering views of the moon. Now it dawns on Casper that, if he goes to the moon, he might make some friends. Being a ghost, he simply floats into the air and levitates moonwards. There's some excellent 3-D animation here, of the moon in outer space from Casper's P.O.V., gradually coming into extreme close-up and sharp focus. Nicely done!
Unlike our real moon, this toon moon is inhabited by little tiny people who look like Lilliputians, and they make friends with Casper instantly. If normal-sized people are afraid of Casper, why would little tiny people (who are easier to stomp) be so quick to trust him? Anyway, Casper is an instant success with his little friends, until a Lilliputian sentry shouts that the Tree Men are attacking.
This is the part that might scare little kids. Gigantic walking trees with leering faces come striding across the lunar landscape: this is creepy enough in flat 2-D format, but it's truly unnerving (and very well animated) in 3-D here. Meanwhile, the soundtrack is playing some really impressive "here come the monsters" music that I've never heard anywhere else: it doesn't seem to be Paramount stock music, and it might actually have been written for this cartoon. Anyway, this has got to be the best sequence in the entire history of Paramount's animation studio.
Needless to say, Casper uses his ghostly abilities to chase away the Tree Men in a (mostly) non-violent way. But of course the next Casper cartoon has him back on Earth again. Why didn't Casper stay on the moon ... where the moon people like him, and they need his help to keep away the Tree Men? I guess he'd rather stay on Earth and watch people go "A guh-guh-ghost!"