Trick-or-Treat With Casper

Title: Casper Saves Halloween (aka He Ain’t Scary, He’s Our Brother)
Release: October 30, 1979
Genre: Animated Halloween Special
MPAA Rating: G
Writer: Larz Bourne & Bob Ogle
Director: Carl Urbano
Music By: Hoyt S. Curtin
Produced By: Joseph Barbera, William Hanna, Alex Lovy
Distributed By: Hanna-Barbera Productions
Run Time: 30 minutes

I love to watch Halloween specials (and Christmas specials!) every year. They’re fun, short, and usually feature some classic cartoon character who is usually trying to "save Halloween". As you can tell from it’s title: Casper Saves Halloween (or in some versions, He’s Ain’t Scary, He’s Our Brother), he does just that for a group of orphans.

This cartoon special features America’s favorite friendly ghost since 1945 and runs at the usual 30 minutes. Casper resembles the his original form from his early TV series in everything but voice. You would never guess that this cartoon special is almost 30 years old! It’s still interesting and doesn’t look dated at all!

I enjoyed kicking off the Halloween season with Casper and although some the songs were a little annoying and not very well written, the story is cute enough to sit through. It’s not The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown but I still think it’s worth a watch... especially for those Casper fans out there!

~ Casper Saves Halloween is a largely forgotten cartoon but thankfully AOL has put it up on their Halloween In2TV channel.

Links: Casper the Friendly Ghost (Wikipedia)

Imdb.com

Bcdb.com (Big Cartoon Database)

It's Time to Scream Again!

Made only a year after the original, Scream 2 managed to do what very few sequels do: be almost as good as it’s predecessor! The film is a little more polished than the first but it still has it’s tongue-in-cheek approach even if it manages to be a little more subtle. Some of the movies mentioned aren’t even scary (Killer: "What’s your favorite scary movie?" Randy: " Showgirls, absolutely frightening. What’s yours?")!

I’m glad that everyone that managed to survive in the first movie comes back in this one a little more grown up and a lot more polished. The film just wouldn’t have been as good without them! There are also several new characters that are introduced as well, some of which were in popular TV shows at the time like Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy) and Joshua Jackson (who was in the show Dawson’s Creek). If you listen closely you can catch a few tiny references to Friends as well.

Out of all the Scream movies the original is my favorite (because of Matthew Lillard of course) but Scream 2 comes pretty close! The body count is bigger, the death scenes are much more elaborate, and I still remember being how surprised I was about the killer’s identity when I first watched it.

~ For those Matthew Lillard fans, he shows up in an uncredited cameo in the Ky Dem Alpha party but it’s really quick so keep your eyes peeled!

Scream

Scream 2

Scream 3

Trailer:

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Don’t Forget the Rules!

One of my favorite scary movies is Scream, although come to think about it, the movie isn’t that scary. The only actually frightening aspect is that it could actually happen but the whole movie is done in such a tongue-cheek manner that you can’t help but enjoy. If you watch and listen closely you can see that the entire film has references to tons of scary movies including the "main killer icons" (before 1996 of course), Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers.

I think the reason why this film (and all it’s sequels) was such a success was not only the fact that it poked fun at itself but also because there were quite a few fabulous actors involved. Many of which were "teen idols" at the time and believe me, I did some idolizing all right because Skeet Ulrich and Matthew Lillard are not only talented but I had a major crush on them when Scream first came out (although I’ve since changed my mind about Ulrich, I think Lillard is still great).

Although it’s been eleven years since the first movie in the Scream trilogy came out, I think it’s still as entertaining as the day I first watched it. This one of those classic horror films that you just never see anymore but at least Mr. Ghostface is still notorious! Not only is he still being parodied in various formats, but he also continues to be worn as a Halloween costume even today.

Scream
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~ I own the VHS but I hope to upgrade to the DVD soon.

Trailer:


Behind the Scenes:


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A Tail of the American Dream

Don Bluth’s fourth animated feature film, An American Tale came out in 1986 and it wasn’t until this movie that he became a known name. I had actually never even seen An American Tale until recently but I had seen An American Tale: Fievel Goes West quite a few times. It feels almost blasphemous to say this but I liked the sequel more than the original, even though Don Bluth (who is my favorite director) was not involved in making it. That’s not to say that this isn’t a great animated classic, because it is but I think there were just too many people involved in making the final decisions on the actual film.

One of the reasons why this film did work though and why it captured the interest and hearts of all that saw it, other that the fact Don Bluth directed it of course, was that Mr. Bluth had one of his best voice actors Dom DeLuise, on board as the voice of Tiger the cat. It is a role that he has reprised in every sequel to An American Tale, and that’s including the TV cartoon Fievel’s American Tales.

I’ve always thought it was kind of cool that this actually was the first animated film to ever beat out a Disney animated movie (The Great Mouse Detective) in theaters. The next Bluth movie was The Land Before Time and it managed to surpass another Disney animated movie as well(Oliver & Company). Which of course made the Disney company realize that they actually had competition and caused them to work harder on their films, resulting in Disney’s The Little Mermaid and several more wonderful films. So in a roundabout way, Don Bluth is partly responsible for some of my favorite animated movies and this gives me even more reason to love him.

The American Tale Sequels:
An American Tale, An American Tale: Fievel Goes West, An American Tale: The Treasure of Manhattan Island, & An American Tale: The Mystery of the Night Monster

~Official Site

Trailer:

Somewhere Out There Music Video:

Movie Clip-Never Say Never:

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Who Could Plot a Murder Better Than a Mystery Writer?

At Annie Laurance’s Death on Demand bookstore on Broward’s Rock Island, South Carolina, murder most foul suddenly isn’t confined to the well-stocked shelves. Author Elliot Morgan’s abrupt demise during a weekly gathering of famous mystery writers called the Sunday Night Regulars is proof positive that a bloody sword is sometimes mightier than a brilliant pen.

With Annie in the unenviable position of primary police suspect, the pretty young mystery maven and her wealthy paramour, Max Darling, embark on an investigation into a classic locked-room mystery with high stakes. For failing to unmask a brutal and ingenious killer could mean prison for Ms. Laurance. While success would mean her death.


This was the first book that I ever had read by Carolyn Hart. I discovered her books through a friend and although she has two different series I decided to go with the one centered around a mystery book store called Death on Demand, which is also the title of the very first book in the series and the name of the series itself as well.

Although I liked the story, the characters, and the mystery, there was just one teeny, tiny little thing about this; and I’m guessing every book in the series, that irritated me to no end. Since it is a mystery only book store it does make sense though. On almost every single page at least one mystery author and/or their books were mentioned. I’ve only started reading straight mysteries (I’ve read them in mixed genre before) in the past couple of years so a large majority of the people mentioned I have no clue who they are!

I did appreciate the author suppling sketches of the island and the floor plan of the bookstore to help the reader with the mystery but although I did enjoy having more than a vague picture it’s not what ultimately gave away the murderer. I’m not going to say how I figured it out but I will say it wasn’t the same reason that either of our fine "detectives" gave!

Death On Demand Series
1. Death on Demand (1987)
2. Design for Murder (1987)
3. Something Wicked (1988)
4. Honeymoon With Murder (1988)
5. A Little Class on Murder (1989)
6. Deadly Valentine (1990)
7. The Christie Caper (1991)
8. Southern Ghost (1992)
9. Mint Julep Murder (1995)
10. Yankee Doodle Dead (1998)
11. White Elephant Dead (1999)
12. Sugarplum Dead (2000)
13. April Fool Dead (2002)
14. Engaged to Die (2003)
15. Murder Walks the Plank (2004)
16. Death of the Party (2005)
17. Dead Days of Summer (2006)
18. Death Walked in (2008)
19. Dare to Die (2009)
20. Laughed 'til He Died (2010)
21. Dead by Midnight (2011)