Casper the Friendly Ghost has been entertaining generations for decades with his sweet nature and positive ways. A friend of red-capped Wendy the Witch and tiny devil Lil’ Hot Stuff, Casper has always been a goody-goody in the face of … if not total evil, then basic naughtiness. But there’s something that’s rather creepy about him, if you think about it hard enough — he’s the ghost of a dead child, who died a very young death within his world. For his parents in at least one version of his story, that proves to be an all-too-serious, all-too-real event. 

It might be taking the plot too seriously — even “The Simpsons” made fun of such theories back in the 1990s — but it’s still true. Under all of that cheer and beneath all of that joy, Casper’s story is a tragic tale that makes a big impression on the viewer and makes them wonder about the limits of their mortality in their very own way. But more importantly — how did he die? And who is Casper in the first place? Here’s everything we know about the friendly ghosts’ history. 

Casper the Friendly Ghost sprang to life as a character in Famous Studios’ Noveltoons world in 1945 after being the subject of an unsold picture book concept. His shorts eventually became Paramount productions and continued at a regular pace as he moved to the Harvey Comics world in 1949. Casper is a rare thing in the comic book world — a ghost with no ill intentions, who wants to make friends instead of scaring the pants off the living. His uncles — the Ghostly Trio, or Stretch, Fatso, and Stinkie  – stand in opposition to Casper’s mission. 

Most of his comic books and shorts tend to follow the same pattern and find Casper trying to make friends, only to scare them away. At the end of each adventure, Casper manages to make friends with a fellow misfit. This is generally the plot structure that supports Casper through several animated series and specials, a bunch of comic books, and even a live-action movie franchise. However, only the hit 1995 big-screen version of “Casper” ever bothered to give his death a linear backstory.

In the big-screen version of “Casper,” the little boy (Malachi Pearson) initially doesn’t have any memory of how he died. His new human friend, Kat Harvey (Christina Ricci., who is very critical about her performance in the film) takes him to his mansion’s playroom to restore his memory. That’s where he recalls that he died of pneumonia when he was only 12 years old. He was so happy about the new sled that his father gave him that he spent hours out in the snow until he got a cold that turned pneumatic. He’s also given a last name for the first time — McFadden.

What’s fascinating about his death in the movie is that it’s the first time any cause of death has ever been assigned to Casper; in the Harvey Comics world that gave birth to him, Casper is simply born a ghost from ghost parents. Other comics have hinted that he was once a living child, but never given him a definitive reason for his death. But this sad piece of lore has an even more tragic impact on those who loved Casper during his lifetime.

Anyone who dies young will leave behind a huge void in the life of their parents, and Casper is no exception to that rule. In “Casper,” we learn that Casper’s death so unhinges his father that he is declared legally insane. His father spends his own life trying to create the Lazarus Machine — which allegedly brings the dead back to life. This dark obsession with death and resurrection might be something only an adult would notice while watching “Casper.”

This would be sad enough, but it soon becomes the central objective of Catherine “Carrigan” Crittenden (Cathy Moriarty) and Paul “Dibs” Plutzker (Eric Idle), the wannabe heir of Whipstaff Manor and her attorney, respectively. They are ultimately scared away from their quarry, with Carrigan being sent off to the afterlife instead of being resurrected. In the end, the machine is used to restore Kat’s father, James Harvey (Bill Pullman) to life after he’s accidentally killed during a bender with Casper’s three uncles. Since it can only be used once, Casper has offered up his last chance at returning to the realm of the living. Ultimately, Kat and James end up coming to grips with the death of Kat’s mother — without either of them having to cross over.

That, of course, doesn’t make Casper’s death any less tragic — nor does it resolve the sad way his father died. But at least this time out, the tragedy of Casper’s death is redeemed by joy and renewal.