The last time Casper had a show on television before the success of his liveaction movie was in this 1979 Hanna Barbera creation. Set in the year 2179 (I guess the quest for friends is timeless) this program finds Casper afloat in outer space under the watchful but wandering eye of his newest ghostly mentor, a big furry spectre named Hairy Scary. One day Casper and Hairy inadvertantly aid galactic policewomen Mini and Maxi (known as "The Angels" around the police station) in collaring a crook and they become the Angels' unofficial partners. With the ocassional help from rival officers Nerdly and Fungo, Casper and his friends spend 26 11-minute epsiodes spooking up law enforcement in an oddly 70's-influenced future setting.
Being born in 1974 I knew this cartoon well as a child, though it only made it one season. I liked (and *still* like) Hairy Scary, and Mini, despite her squeaky voice, is kind of a cool chick, but Casper is annoyingly saccharine as usual here, and Maxi is an (*expletive deleted*). Here - I can outline the plot of *every* single episode: Hairy gets in the girls' way while they're trying to catch a crook and Maxi loses her temper at him while Mini and Casper try to keep peace. Hairy gets steamed and goes off to sulk and spots the same criminal doing something dastardly and goes back and tries to warn the girls but Maxi won't listen. Then Casper advises him on how to catch the crook and Hairy does by scaring them; the girls congradulate Casper and Casper tries to remind them that it was Hairy who really did it. Most episodes the girls ignore him but ocassionally Maxi is forced to awkwardly admit that Hairy was useful "this once". Somebody makes a stupid joke and everyone laughs. The End.
No, I'm serious, that's pretty much how they all go. Maxi is mean to Hairy all the time, and I think she's horrid. Mini might be a nitwit but at least she's a nice person. Nerdly and Fungo have a sort of 70's-ish boyish charm but are mostly annoying, so really Hairy and Mini are the only characters in this show I really like. Oh well.
An interesting fact: the show originally had a laugh-track (as many HB cartoons at that time did). There were three volumes of VHS tapes released of this show in the 80's and they contain the laugh-track. In 1995, two new tapes (Stars and Frights and The Boo-Zoo) were released to ride the coattails of the Casper movie. The episodes on these tapes have had their laugh-tracks stripped, obviously because it simply wouldn't fly with kids then. God, losing the laugh-track makes the show so much better. Ugh.
If you're looking for copies of these episodes, email me.