"Casper, the Friendly Ghost, the friendliest ghost you know". It has been a long time since Casper has been on TV. Harveytoons was the producer of this classic cartoon, and they should consider bringing the sweetest ghost in the world back to TV.

Casper's first movie cartoon appearance was in 1945, he became a Friendly Ghost because he grew tired of scaring people and chose to make friends. A noble idea, if I ever heard one.

During the late 50's & early 60's, many Casper toys were produced, to capitalize on the popularity, of the friendliest DEAD SOUL to ever entertain a group of TV viewing children. One of those toys was the Casper (Ge-Tar) guitar. Below is a comic book ad from 1961, which is trying to convince the young comic book reader that they can't live without one of these toys. Psychological warfare, convince the child they NEED the toy and the kid will PLEAD with their parents. Advertising is diabolical.



Mattel was the sponsor of the 1959 TV program Matty's Funday Funnies, which was a program produced by Harvey Comics, to provide an outlet for Casper, Little Audry and Baby Huey cartoons, which were owned by Harvey Comics. The show's title character was a little boy, by the full name of Matty Mattel, which was created to tie all of the different cartoons together, and to essentially be the emcee.

Mattel was the world's largest toy manufacturer, it produced toys that kids wanted and truly loved. Even today, the high quality toys are desired by collectors everywhere. If it says Mattel, it is a valuable collectible. There tagline was, "If it says Mattel, you know it's SWELL." Below is a photograph of one of those Casper guitars, which is being sold at an online auction, with a BUY IT NOW price of $110. It is definitely worth the price.

By the way, I'm not connected with the auction, in any way. I have asked for permission from the owner of the guitar, to publish the guitar photo, and I am placing a link to their auction. If you wish to purchase the item, click on the photo, which will take you to the auction page.

CASPER 1959 GE-TAR (guitar) AUCTION


I also have another comic book ad for a classic toy. Gunderful Company produced a line of hand puppets, and the cutest puppet of the group was Casper the Friendly Ghost. It was a simple toy which produced many happy memories, for many children.











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