Casper

Carrigan Crittenden (Cathy Moriarty), a selfish and cruel woman, is furious to learn from her late father's lawyer Mr. Rugg (Ben Stein) that she has only inherited an old house, Whipstaff Manor, in her father's will. Infuriated, she tosses the will and deed to Whipstaff into a fireplace but it is rescued by her attorney and close associate Dibs (Eric Idle). Dibs discovers one of the will's pages has an inscription on it describing treasure hidden in the manor. Carrigan and Dibs visit the old manor, but find it is haunted by four ghosts, Casper (voice of Malachi Pearson), a friendly but lonely young ghost and his three obnoxious uncles, the Ghostly Trio: Stretch (voice of Joe Nipote), Stinke (voice of Joe Alaskey) & Fatso (voice of Brad Garrett). The two try to remove the ghosts through three various ways:

• First, Carrigan and Dibs try using Father Guido Sarducci (Don Novello) to attempt an exorcism. It doesn't go well as he leaves the house with his head on backwards.
• Then, they call in Ghostbuster Dr. Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) to bust them. They end up scaring him away as he quotes to Carrigan and Dibs "Who You Gonna Call? Someone Else" upon his departure.
• They also try to have a demolition crew destroy the building. The Ghostly Trio drives them away.

Casper, who longs for a friend, watches a news report about a therapist to the dead, Dr. James Harvey (Bill Pullman). His daughter, Kat (Christina Ricci), is seen on television and Casper instantly falls in love with her. Casper manages to play the news report to Carrigan who decides to contact Dr. Harvey.

Dr. Harvey and Kat travel to Friendship, Maine where the manor is located. Kat and her father have been travelling around the country for years, Dr. Harvey in search for his his deceased wife Amelia as a ghost. Carrigan and Dibs meet them at the manor, Carrigan asking Dr. Harvey to remove the ghosts as quickly as possible. However, things are complicated when Kat and her father meet the ghosts face-to-face; Casper attempts to befriend them while the Ghostly Trio cause mayhem for Dr. Harvey, causing them to confront him to break out.

The next day, Casper and Kat become friends properly. Kat goes to her high school for her first day, meeting Vic DePhillippi and his pompous girlfriend Amber Whitmire, one of the self-proclaimed coolest girls in the school, and the most boring in her class. When Kat reveals to her new classmates that she lives in Whipstaff, her classmates, who have all heard of it, decide to have their upcoming Halloween dance there. Back at the manor, Dr. Harvey reveals his goals to the Ghostly Trio who take a liking to him.

Kat finds Casper's old toy room in the attic and Casper remembers his past life in Belle Époque, including how he died from a fatal illness. His father attempted to revive him by building a machine called Lazarus. Casper remembers its location and takes Kat to it via a secret passage leading to an underground laboratory. Carrigan and Dibs follow, learning that a special formula, with which there is only enough for one person, is used by the machine. They steal it and realize they could use it to rob banks, the process involving them dying, stealing the money as ghosts and then returning to life using Lazarus. The two try to kill each other but it ends with Carrigan falling down a cliff and shes dies and she returns as a ghost. Carrigan steals the treasure chest from the manor's vault and orders Dibs to revive her, but he refuses and she throws him out of the window. Casper and Kathleen trick Carrigan into claiming she has no unfinished business, causing her to pass onto the afterlife against her will. With Carrigan and Dibs now gone, Casper reveals that his treasure wouldn't have been valuable to Carrigan anyway, because it turns out to be a baseball autographed by Casper's favorite Brooklyn Dodgers player, Duke Snider.

Just as Casper is about to use the machine to revive himself, Dr. Harvey shows up as a ghost, having died during a "happy hour" with the Ghostly Trio. Realizing that Kat needs her father alive, Casper uses the Lazarus machine to revive him, giving up his own chance of returning to life. The Halloween party begins and Kat ends up being the only person without a partner. A boy (played by Devon Sawa) appears before her and they dance. He reveals himself to be Casper, having been visited by the angel of Amelia Harvey (Amy Brenneman) and revived temporarily as a reward for saving her husband's life. Casper and Kat kiss just as Casper turns back into a ghost at the final stroke of 10, scaring all the Halloween Party guests away. However, he doesn't mind, and neither does Kathleen. The Ghostly Trio then start playing a rock and roll version of Casper the Friendly Ghost and Kat, Casper and Dr. Harvey dance around the hall.

• A scene was filmed with Zelda Rubinstein reprising her role from Poltergeist (1982) (shooting out of a chimney and shouting "Go toward the light!") but was not included in the final cut.
• Items from the set are on display at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.
• This was the first film with a computer-animated title character.
• The last name of the Christina Ricci's and Bill Pullman's characters is "Harvey". Harvey Comics is the long time publisher of Casper the Friendly Ghost.
• In the breakfast scene, Casper's uncles enter the kitchen twirling like helicopters while Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" plays in the background, and Stretch later says "I love the smell of fleshies in the morning!" All this is a direct reference to Apocalypse Now (1979).
• A musical scene, deemed too expensive by the film's producers, was scripted and filmed, entitled "Lucky Enough to Be A Ghost" in which the three ghosts sing about their many mental problems during a session with Dr. Harvey, but the animation would have cost a few million dollars.
• The scene in which Casper is watching television, Fred Rogers of PBS series Mister Roger's Neighborhood had a small cameo. Casper then turns to a channel showing an actual clip of a 1950s Casper cartoon, "Once Upon a Rhyme". The clip shows the Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe screaming "g-g-g-ghost!" with chattering false teeth. An angry Casper immediately changes to another channel.
• Casper also starred in a Pepsi commercial that can be seen on the original VHS release. In this commercial, Casper attempts to take a can of Pepsi through the side of a refrigerator. He then looks inside the refrigerator and realizes that the can could not go through the fridge like he can prompting him to say "Aw, man" in a depressed tone of voice. The Pepsi red and blue logo fades in above a slogan stating "Nothing Else Is A Pepsi".
• In the scene where Dr. Harvey washes his face, his face changes into four different people who make uncredited cameos. First, he becomes Clint Eastwood, then into Rodney Dangerfield, next into Mel Gibson, and finally into the Crypt Keeper.
• The first song played in the party at Kathleen's house is "Same Song" by Digital Underground. That song was featured on the soundtrack to the 1991 movie Nothing But Trouble. Dan Aykroyd who made a cameo appearance earlier in the film, starred in the movie, along with writing and directing.
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