Not only that, but also one of the best Casper cartoons overall. Personally don't agree that the Casper cartoons are poorly animated (the early cartoons have some very good animation to me), but a vast majority of them are very repetitive and like recycled rehashes and get overly twee with dialogue that can get annoying and forgettable.
Reiterating what has been said by me quite a few times, Famous Studios' cartoons are not for all tastes, but my opinion is that their early stuff and some of the early 50s output are good. While they were very formulaic they were always well animated and voiced with some funny parts, some poignancy and decent characters and their regular composer Winston Sharples could always be relied on to write a great and often outstanding score.
Admittedly though, by the mid-50s through to the late-60s Famous Studios' cartoons did get repetitive. While Sharples' music still shone and the voice actors did their best the animation suffered due to lower budgets and tighter deadlines, the humour became more tired and slow in timing than sharp and funny, the stories became increasingly predictable and rehashed and some characters started losing their initial spark, this is particularly true of most of the later Herman and Katnip cartoons.
For a Casper cartoon, 'Boo Moon' stands out among the rest of them. The plot-line is by far the most unique, being one rarity of not containing the same story over and over, while the writing makes for one of the least sentimental and twee Casper cartoons. Of all the Casper cartoons too, 'Boo Moon' is a contender for the most imaginative visually and story-wise. The animation is stunning, the scenes in outer space contain not just the best-looking animation in a Casper cartoon but also in the whole Famous Studios/Noveltoons oeuvre. Being the only Casper cartoon in 3D, it definitely stands out among the rest of the Casper cartoons and Famous Studios in general.
Winston Sharples' music score here is typically merry and whimsical, it's beautifully orchestrated, energetic and adds so much to the mood, his music has always been one of the best assets of the Famous Studios cartoons and it's not an exception here. There are even some nice haunting parts too, like the scene with the trees. In fact how it's composed and how it meshes so well with everything going on in the animation, story and action contributes to it being one of the best things about the cartoon.
The Lilliputians are very charming characters and their friendship with Casper sweet, though it is not completely buyable how they trusted Casper so quickly. The scene with the trees leaves me in awe at how frightening (easily the most intense scene of any Casper cartoon since the climax of 'There's Good Boos Tonight) and almost surreal it is, it may scare younger ones but that scene always transfixed me as a child.
My only minor complaint, other than Casper being trusted perhaps too quickly, is the Casper self-pity scene which is cloying and anybody fed up of the same plot and dialogue in every Casper cartoon may feel tempted to think "here we go again" and shut it off. Doing that would be a shame because the rest of 'Boo Moon' is a very different and imaginative cartoon that was a very pleasant surprise.
Anybody who dislikes repetition, recycling and dialogue falling on the wrong side of twee and cloying repeating itself in almost every cartoon will also find 'Boo Moon' a pleasant surprise, as evidenced in a previous review. 9/10 Bethany Cox
