Casper the Friendly Ghost

Casper the Friendly Ghost is a fictional character who serves as the protagonist of the Famous Studios theatrical animated cartoon series of the same name. He is a translucent ghost who is pleasant and personable, but often criticized by his three wicked uncles, the Ghostly Trio.

The character was featured in 55 theatrical cartoons titled The Friendly Ghost from 1945 to 1959. The character has been featured in comic books published by Harvey Comics since 1952, and Harvey purchased the character outright in 1959. Casper became one of Harvey's most popular characters, headlining several comic book titles.

Following Harvey's purchase of the character, he appeared in five television series: Matty's Funday Funnies (1959–1961), The New Casper Cartoon Show (1963–1970), Casper and the Angels (1979), The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper (1996–1998) and Casper's Scare School (2009–2012). The character made his theatrical film debut in a live-action adaptation of the series by Universal Pictures: Casper (1995), to where he became the first computer-generated character to star in a film. He would later appear in four direct-to-video and made-for-TV follow-up films.

The Apollo 16 Command and Service Module was given the call sign "Casper", since its pilot Ken Mattingly thought, "there are enough serious things in this flight, so I picked a non-serious name."