Friendly Ghost

"If you want to have friends, be one."

We're not here to freak you out.
We just came to shake it down.
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, flip up your hands.
The ghosts just wanna dance!
Only want to haunt your igloo,
Give you chills, and party with you.
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, flip up your hands.
The ghosts just wanna dance!

— "Ghosts Just Wanna Dance" from Club Penguin

As You Know, ghosts are scary. Perhaps it is the thought of the soul of the dead that doesn't stay dead, perhaps it's because nonliving things aren't supposed to move on their own, or perhaps the afterlife doesn't like them. Whatever the case, we think ghosts are out to harm us, and thus they tend to be portrayed as actively hostile. Not to mention how we attribute our bad luck or strange things happening in a place to mischievous ghosts, and how ghosts have a reputation of being vengeful or liking to possess someone.

Friendly Ghosts ain't any of those. They're friendly, helpful, and will talk to anyone. They may or may not be frightening in looks, which may strain their friendly nature. This can show that ghosts are Not Always Evil.

The Trope Namer is Casper the Friendly Ghost, who is also the Trope Codifier. Can lead to an Otherworldly Communication Failure when characters fail to recognize a ghost's benign nature.

Subtrope of Our Ghosts Are Different. Compare Chummy Mummy, Friendly Neighborhood Vampire, Friendly Skeleton, Friendly Zombie, Wonderful Werewolf, Don't Fear the Reaper, Guardian Entity, Silly Spook, and Cute Ghost Girl. Contrast Ghastly Ghost.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Mavis, the original founder of Fairy Tail, aids members of her guild long after she died and became a ghost. Except she's not really a ghost.
• GeGeGe no Kitarō: Hanako, a toilet ghost, is friends with the Neko-Musume and the other youkai and doesn't harm the humans of the school she haunts. She also helps evacuate humans during the Nanashi incident.
• Ghost Sweeper Mikami: Okinu is the ghost of a Miko who was sacrificed to appease a mountain god, and she's hands down the nicest character in the series. Subverted later when it's revealed that her body still remains intact, and she's revived.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Diamond is Unbreakable: Reimi Sugimoto and her Big Friendly Dog Arnold were killed 15 years before the main story by the Big Bad Serial Killer, though Reimi is still as cheerful and perky back when she was alive (particularly with Rohan Kishibe, who she used to babysit and died protecting him from the killer). She works with the living Stand users to hunt down her killer so he won't torment Morioh ago, and she and Arnold performs the finishing blow against the spirit of Yoshikage Kira.
  • At the end of Golden Wind, Jean-Pierre Polnareff becomes this following the death of his physical body and his spirit staying in the room created by the Stand-using turtle Coco Jumbo. In the spinoff Purple Haze Feedback, it's revealed that he's become the trusted second-in-command of Friendly Neighborhood Gangster Giorno Giovanna.
• The titular character of Fujiko Fujio's Little Ghost Q-Taro is an adorable ghost who befriended the Ohara family, with much of the series revolving around Q-Taro's hilarious misadventures.
• Sayo, the Cute Ghost Girl from Negima! Magister Negi Magi. She's treated just like another student in Negi's class.
• The titular Kana of My Lovely Ghost Kana. It's hard to get much friendlier than a Cute Ghost Girl who'll happily use her supernaturally cold ghostly form to chill a can of beer in Victoria's Secret Compartment for her boyfriend if he asks nicely.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas: Zero's Journey: Zero helps characters who were mean to him first, is friendly to most characters he encounters, and often gives a loving lick to someone he considers a friend.
• Phantom Quest Corp.: In Incident File 03, Natsuki's deceased boyfriend, Narita, helps her with the museum exhibit she was working on, while also protecting her from Mr. Nagasuki's advances. His spirit doesn't depart for the afterlife, 'til after the exhibit was taken care of and he'd made certain Natsuki would be safe.
• Pokémon: The Series: In "The Tower of Terror", Ash and Pikachu encounter a friendly, if mischievous, trio of Ghost-type Pokemon in the form of a Ghastly, Haunter, and Gengar who live in the haunted tower in Lavender Town. Haunter even tags along to help Ash face Gym Leader Sabrina.
• Practically all of the ghosts in Re-Kan! are quite friendly, and most of them even more so towards Hibiki, the girl who can actually see them.
• Elaine from The Seven Deadly Sins is the Nice Girl ghost of fairy who is in a Star-Crossed Lovers type of relationship with the immortal living Bad Boy Ban.
• There's a Ghost Behind That Gal is about Hikari, an average high school girl who finds her Gyaru Girl classmate Yuina is being followed around by a spooky-looking but ultimately harmless Cute Ghost Girl who answers to "Reiko".

Comic Books

• Monica's Gang: Penadinho (bug-a-boo) is a pleasant ghost who inhabits a cemetery with his friends. While he does enjoy scaring people a lot (though he isn't always very good at it), he only makes mischievous pranks at worst.
• Silverblade: The ghost of Brian Vane joins the group to assist them in unravelling the supernatural events that are happening. An old friend to most of the group before he died, he continues to act that way towards them. At the end of the story, he works with Bobby Milestone on writing a book about their accumulated knowledge on the supernatural and metaphysics.
• Supergirl story Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot: Kara may be dead and forgotten, but her present status will not stop her from helping people in need.
• Suske en Wiske: Sus Antigoon is a sympathethic ghost and an ally of Suske and Wiske, because he is the ghost of Suske's dead grandfather.
• Young Justice: Secret is sweet, innocent, and friendly to everyone. She's so personable that she even makes friends with Darkseid. That friendship, however, allows Darkseid to corrupt her, at which point she becomes very, very, ''very'' unfriendly.

Fan Works

• Asylum of Doom: Maddie is the only inmate who tries to be friendly to Gaz and tries to help her escape her situation. At the end of the story, she turns out to have been one of the ghosts haunting the asylum's ruins all along.
• A Goosebumps fanfic called A Ghost Of A Friendship portrays Della Raver as this. Although she is primarily looking for a friend to join her in death, her overtures of friendship towards Brooke are because she genuinely likes her and wants to draw her out of her shell and have fun. Eventually, this friendship means so much to Brooke that she consciously agrees to die so that she and Della will be friends forever.
• In Haunted Mansion and the Hatbox Ghost, a Fan Verse based on Disney'sThe Haunted Mansion, this aspect of the original is kept and even enhanced by having Constance become a little less tough.
• From the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic video game Story of the Blanks and fanfictions based on it such as Fools And Drunks and I Guess It Doesn't Matter Any More, we have Ruby Gift and her mother Mitta.

Films — Animation

• Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers has the eponymous Boo Brothers. Expies of The Three Stooges, they're humorously incompetent comic relief, but they do still help out Shaggy and Scooby several times.
• Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School: Phantasma, or Phanty, is one of the students at the eponymous school. A quirky organist who loves to laugh, she's as amicable as the other ghouls. And her phantom father is just as amicable... just as long as he's not playing Papa Wolf.

Films — Live-Action

• The Hong Kong comedy film, 9 Girls and a Ghost, have the protagonist befriending a friendly ghost named Marco (played by the 'handsome Edison Chen) who helps her out by assisting her in cheating at tests and at a volleyball game, in exchange for her finding out the truth behind his demise so he can pass on peacefully. Marco's Invisible to Normals, too, unless he voluntarily reveals himself to the people he wants to be visible to.
• Beetlejuice plays with the trope. The recently deceased couple are quite nice and friendly and only act spookily and scarily to get the weirdo yuppie family to leave. In the end, once Beetlejuice is defeated, the family and ghosts all get along happily with several other ghosts joining in.
• Nie Tsiu-Chien from A Chinese Ghost Story is a benevolent ghost girl who's enslaved by a powerful Tree Demon, the real antagonist of the picture. When a scholar, Ning, unexpectedly befriends her, she does everything she can to prevent the Tree Demon from devouring him, and later on Ning ends up falling for Nie and teams up with a powerful Warrior Monk to defeat the Tree Demon and rescue Nie.
• The Dead Lands: The ghost of Hongi's grandmother continues to aid him after her murder.
• The wuxia-horror fantasy, The Enchantress has the ghost of Shui-Ling, a young maiden who was born as a ghost because her mother died while pregnant with her. She later fell in love with a human warrior after he saved her from bandits (oblivious to the fact that she's a ghost) and tries to convince her mother to accept him, despite her mother's Fantastic Racism towards humans.
• The Frighteners: The ghosts who hang out with Frank Bannister are friendly. They even help him with his fake ghost eliminating service and give their ... er, afterlives to protect him from the unfriendly ghosts who haunt the town.
• Murdoch Glourie in the film The Ghost Goes West is a benign ghost, unless you're a McLaggen descendant.
• In Ghostbusters (1984), Ray dreams about meeting a friendly yet seductive ghost of a woman.
• Khushi in Golmaal Again. She was the childhood friend of the main characters who is revealed to be Dead All Along, but is still nice and friendly to the group. She was killed by her boyfriend when she witnessed him murder someone and he wanted to destroy the orphanage to build a construction site. The group decides to stop him and get justice for their friend.
• Hong Kong's Happy Ghost film series in the '80s is about a scholar from the Ming dynasty who was Driven to Suicide, but somehow reawakens in the '80s thanks to a band of teen girls. It's a comedy mainly about the scholar being a Fish out of Temporal Water, who tries to be supportive to his new friends despite the more modern situations they're embroiled in, including a Teen Pregnancy that helps the ghost to be reborn in present day.
• High Spirits. Wacky comedy where the ghosts aren't just friendly, but amorous.
• Just Like Heaven. Played with. The girl ghost in this movie is kinda cutesy adversarial with the guy, but it's a Rom Com, so she ends up having been only mostly dead, and stops being a ghost shortly after they fall in love.
• Melissa Ann Montgomery and her mother in Lady in White. Melissa doesn't look spookily.
• Poltergay: The five ghosts are spirits of gay disco party animals who got trapped in the house where their living selves perished in 1979. They can be quite mischievous, but at some point they realize how their wacky antics have damaged the life of the protagonist, and they set out to help him win his wife's heart back and befriend him.
• The staircase ghost from Poltergeist as well as the other ghosts who break glass, bend utensils like forks and spoons and stack chairs.
• This was a major plot point in The Sixth Sense. Cole realizes that the ghosts aren't so menacing once he lends them his ear.
• The ghosts in Thir13en Ghosts are pretty hostile (with one notable exception), but they were specifically chosen for their violent lives and deaths. Dennis, the team psychic, informs the protagonist that most ghosts "can't hurt us, they don't want to hurt us". Even the mad, violent ghosts of the Black Zodiac just wander away and leave the protagonists alone once their prison is opened and their tormenter is dealt with.
• After Cary Grant and Constance Bennett are killed in a car wreck in Topper, they become Manic Pixie Dream Ghosts who dedicate themselves to livening up their old friend Cosmo Topper's previously stuffy existence.

Literature

• Bruce Coville's Book of...:
  • Bruce Coville's Book of Ghosts:
    • The mother-and-daughter protagonists of Ghost Walk (who just want to tell their husband and father, respectively, that they don't blame him for their deaths and it's okay for him to move on).
    • Mr. Charlie Sonneman in For Love of Him, who gives Harrison some good advice and is only revealed in the last paragraph to have died the previous summer.
    • Ghost Stories features Mr. Ichabod Hanson, who's rather jovial and just wants to tell the stories of all the adventures he went through in his life.
    • The titular character of The Ghost in the Summer Kitchen. She teaches her visitor how to cook, and leaves the girl her recipes when it's time for the ghost to move on.
  • Bruce Coville's Book of Nightmares II: Blackwater Dreams has its protagonist Aaron suspect that his friend Donnie, who'd died a year ago, is out for revenge. When he finally confronts Donnie's ghost, it turns out he was wrong — Donnie just wants Aaron to forgive himself for not being able to save Donnie from drowning, and to show him what he's found since he died.
• Carnival in a Fix: The ghosts who work in the Haunted House are all quite friendly, only scaring people because it's their job. The most prominent one is See-Through George, who holds a stuffed penguin for most of the book.
• Sheyenne of Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. is Chambeaux & Dyer's office manager and gets along great with nearly everyone she encounters (exceptions were an ill-behaved fellow ghost she chewed out for his antics and her jerkass brother).
• Aunt Dimity from the book series of the same name is another ghost who kindly looks out for the surviving niece who inherits her home.
• In the Deptford Mouselets book Fleabee's Fortune, the ghost of a Token Pacifist Rat named 'Orace Baldmony appears to Fleabee to give her hope that she doesn't have to become an evil rat and serve Jupiter.
• Bianca Oliver becomes this after her death in the third book in the Evernight series becoming a wraith. She still cares about the friends and boyfriend she had when alive and is genuinely friendly and helpful to others.
• Forest Kingdom: Book 2 (Blood and Honor) features ghost boy "Wee Geordie", who calls Jordan for help in order to save the castle steward, and the ghost of a bloodhound that also helps out.
• A Played With example. The ghost in Ghost Story is friendly to his friends from life. Harry Dresden himself is the ghost in question here.
• In the Goosebumps book "The Ghost Next Door", the main character suspects that her neighbor is a ghost, due to the fact that he's lived next door for a while and yet she and her family don't remember anybody moving into that house, the fact that they've both been going to the same school for a while and are in the same grade yet neither knows any of the others friends and the fact that the neighbor seems to keep randomly disappearing. While he does cause trouble when he's around his friends (who coerce him into causing trouble), he is a generally good kid. But at the end, it turns out that he's not a ghost, but the main character is, having been unaware that she and her family had been dead for awhile, and they are rather friendly for ghosts.
• Greywalker, Harper Blaine's close friends Ben and Mara Danzinger live with a ghost Albert, who they believe to be a harmless former boarder from the '20s who died of bad hooch. Turns out Albert is actually a Type 2 Ghastly Ghost, he was a Mob accountant who was executed gangland-style and is a sociopath who's grown more malevolent and now trying to corrupt the Danzinger's young son.
• The Gus series of children's books played with this. The series told the story of a family haunted by an extremely friendly and helpful ghost named Gus. In the first book, Gus Was a Friendly Ghost, the family goes away on vacation and Gus takes in a small mouse who's caught out in the rain. Things are fine and dandy until the mouse proves to be a nuisance, and Gus very quickly takes a Beware the Nice Ones turn on his errant houseguest. Even friendly ghosts have their limits, apparently.
• Harry Potter:
  • Nearly Headless Nick is polite, nice, and likes to tell stories of the past. Notably, he doesn't hesitate to show why he's "nearly headless" when he's asked and he treats it well.
  • Also Hufflepuff's ghost, the Fat Friar. Ravenclaw's ghost, the Grey Lady, is a bit standoffish but can also be helpful. In contrast, Slytherin has the Bloody Baron, who is at least rumored to be dangerous, but it's not entirely clear how true that is. We do find out that he killed the Grey Lady, but killed himself in grief and became The Atoner in the afterlife.
  • Moaning Myrtle is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold version.
• Oreg in the Hurog duology. Despite being a slave to the head of the family, he has some freedom in being nice or mean to other members of the family. He seems to have Big Brother Instinct towards the daughter of the family, and makes life difficult for relatives who mistreat her.
• Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi has A-Qing, a somewhat Vengeful Ghost who stuck around to protect unsuspecting visitors from the Serial Killer who murdered her, her Parental Substitute, and his best friend, and to make sure he was brought to justice. While she's rather unsettling in appearance (especially when she reveals the Tongue Trauma that prevents her from verbal communication), she uses her ghostly knocking to scare people out of the Ghost City where the killer resides, and later uses it to aid his pursuers in locating and defeating him.
• The overwhelming majority of spirits in the Necroscope series are not only friendly but delighted to have someone to talk to in Harry Keogh.
• Nina Tanleven: The Ghost in the Third Row features the Woman in White, who never causes trouble for anyone in all her years of haunting the Grand Theater (despite what Lydia Crane would have everyone believe) and goes out of her way to help Nine and Chris find information that, together with some other discoveries, leads to the downfall of the real villain.
• In the short story "Old Applejoy's Ghost" by Frank R. Stockton, the title character befriends his great-granddaughter and, with her help, teaches her uncle (his grandson) to be less miserly.
• Please Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead features the ghost of the main character's aunt. She's not gentle or nice once her niece inherits the home, but she is acting to protect her niece from a great evil, so she can't really be nice about it.
• The Secret of Crickley Hall: The titular house is haunted by several murdered Blitz Evacuees, one of whom briefly comforts one of the grieving protagonists. The ghost of their tutor appears respectively to her co-murderer as a water-rotted corpse; and to her now-elderly boyfriend as her old self.
• In Lois McMaster Bujold's Historical Fantasy novel The Spirit Ring the ghost of Prospero Beneforte isn't precisely what you would call friendly—Beneforte was a proud and rather irascible man in life—but he is helpful (and even ultimately loving) to the protagonists, who include his daughter, and whose first word when he first appears to her is "Papa?".
  When Prospero Beneforte's ghost first manifests to his daughter: I'm glad to see you....Weren't ghosts supposed to be fearful manifestations, instilling terror? But Master Beneforte looked so...himself. Impatient and annoyed, as ever.
• King Verence and King Champot in Wyrd Sisters. Verence seeks vengeance on his murderer, but when he's not doing that is very polite and charming. Champot is the oldest ghost in the castle and helpfully explains to Verence what the rules are.

Live-Action TV

• Angel: Cordelia moves into an apartment in the "Rm w/a Vu" episode that is haunted by Dennis Pearson and his psychotic mother. Once Dennis's body is uncovered and he banishes the mother's ghost, he remains as Cordelia's friendly roommate.
• Being Human (UK) had several of these but primarily Annie Sawyer and Alex Millar, two friendly and helpful young women who just happen to be undead specters.
• Big Bad Beetleborgs featured Flabber, a friendly ghost who grants Drew, Jo, and Roland their powers.
• Many ghosts from Ghosts (UK) are friendly, sometimes too much so for the lead character Alison - as they're usually Invisible to Normals, even the random ones that she encounters away from the haunted house are generally just thrilled to be acknowledged for once.
• The Ghost and Mrs. Muir: The ghost of Captain Gregg pretended at being fearsome and blustery, but he was really rather sweet and in love with Mrs. Muir.
• Ghostwriter is pretty friendly and helpful to those he chooses to interact with. Otherwise, he's Invisible to Normals.
• Jennifer Slept Here. The ghost of actress Jennifer Farrell haunts her former mansion. When a yuppie couple moves in (her former lawyer and his family), she's friendly with the son (the only person who can see her), and tries to help him become cool.
• Half of the main cast of Pataclaun is composed by a trio of kooky ghosts.
• Nearly Departed: All the ghosts in this short-lived series were friendly, if occasionally antagonistic with the people living in the home with them.
• Supernatural: Most of the ghosts on the show are malevolent, given the heroes are ghost hunters. That said, they do meet some friendly ghosts.
  • In Season 1, the Winchesters return to their childhood home, which is haunted. It turns out that there are two ghosts, one is a violent poltergeist and the other is a more protective spirit, who turns out to be their mother Mary.
  • In Season 2, the Winchesters meet a woman being haunted by an angry spirit and assist her in putting the spirit to rest. However, what the woman doesn't know is that she is also a spirit, and they help her go into the light at the end.
  • In Season 4, the Winchesters briefly become ghosts themselves and are assisted in how to move objects by the ghost of a twelve-year-old boy.
  • In Season 7, the Winchesters start working with the ghost of their surrogate father Bobby.
  • In Season 15, Sam meets and works with the ghost of fellow hunter Eileen, who he eventually manages to restore to her body.
• Wizards of Waverly Place has Lucy, the ghost who temporarily moved in with Alex and Harper during the Apartment 3B saga. She's incredibly nice and only haunts the hallways every night to grieve her lost love, not meaning to scare anyone. She even helps them pay their lease and makes friends with them.

Music

• Eels has a song called "Friendly Ghost" from their album Souljacker, in which the protagonist wants to meet a friendly ghost to help him.
• Daniel Johnston also wrote a song called "Casper the Friendly Ghost", available on his album Yip/Jump Music.
• In Alan Jackson's song Midnight in Montgomery, the ghost of Hank Williams is friendly, and appreciative of the narrator for stopping by his grave on the anniversary of his death. He's still drunk, though.
  "When the wind is right/you'll hear his songs/smell whiskey in the air.

Pinballs

• Sorcerer's Lair has Whisper, a ghostly friend of the two siblings who investigate the lair. She assists them against some of the Sorcerer's magic, even though the Sorcerer is actually her master.
  Whisper: Leave them alone! I wanna play with them!

Podcasts

• Evelyn from Less is Morgue is a wholesome, early-2000s ghost who wants to be friends with everyone she meets. Partly on account of the fact she can only talk to a handful of people.
• Podcast: The Ride features the Sector Keeper, the ghost of a child who died of a staff infection in Universal Studios Hollywood's City Walk fountain.
• Unwell Podcast has Wes, a ghostly teenager who just wants to help out around Fenwood House, and Tim, who appears occasionally at the local dinner. There's also Norah, who's initially more standoffish, but who slowly warms up to Rudy and later Abbie.

Radio

• Hui-Buh. Hui-Buh is a friendly ghost that "lives" in an old castle somewhere in Germany. He was a knight until he was caught cheating while playing cards and thus was cursed to be a ghost. He is fairly unlucky in his attempts at being spooky, which makes him a tragicomedic figure. He often helps or is helped by the current owners of the castle, and he is also the only "officially licensed ghost" in the country.

Tabletop Games

• In Dungeons & Dragons, ghosts are one of the few varieties of The Undead that aren't Always Chaotic Evil, usually being driven by Ghostly Goals rather than malice or hunger.
• Pathfinder's ghosts are similar to D&D's. One notable Good ghost is Ordellia Whilwren, a public servant who was assassinated by a crime gang but who continues to watch over the city district named in her honour. Even her Haunted House has powerful beneficial magic, although Ordellia's Sanity Slippage has begun to cause problems.
• White-aligned spirits in Magic: The Gathering tend to represent benevolent ancestors looking after the living; this is particularly true in the Gothic Horror set of Innistrad, where the white ones are benevolent and those of other colors (usually) are not. Even there, however, there are exceptions, as it is noted that some white-aligned spirits can be evil.

Video Games

• D from Another Code is a nice enough kid who really just wants his memories back so he can pass on. Kelly in the second game ain't so bad.
• The protagonist of Avenging Spirit is an adorable little ghost, who is on a rescue mission to save his (former) girlfriend from gangsters, who also shot him.
• Battle Princess Madelyn features Fritzy, the ghost of the protagonist's deceased pet dog. He is your constant companion and helps you out by attacking monsters.
• Candies 'n Curses takes place in a mansion full of ghosts. Most of them are hostile, but a few are willing to help Molli. This includes Bunber, the mansion's butler, Goober, a ghost puppy, and Churra, a ghost bat.
• Dark Fall The Journal has a few of these in and around the Dowerton train station and Hotel.
  • Timothy Pike, a ghost child who likes to play in the train tunnels and the station footbridge, whom mysteriously died at the age of 11 in 1947. He is the first ghost you meet in the game, who helps you get started with the game, and also can give you hints for puzzles later on.
  • Edith Penfold, the station's landlady also counts. She leaves you a message for how to find her piece of the Dismantled Macguffin, and feels sorry for your brother's death that brought you here in the first place.
• Donkey Kong 64 has Wrinkly Kong, who's died since Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, but she still kindly gives the player hints about acquiring the many golden bananas in the level.
• In Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates, the mournful ghost of a young girl appears to protagonists Yuri and Chelinka several times when they are young. Chelinka is terrified of her, while Yuri doesn't even notice she's a ghost, but the girl simply watches over them. Later, she offers her cloak to heal Yuri after he overclocks his crystal power at which point it is revealed that she is Princess Tilika, who was killed by the Crystal Temple a number of years prior to the game.
• Nina from The Forest Quartet is a spirit who wants to help her friends overcome grief and depression from beyond her grave. Of course, the player controls her to fulfill her quest.
• In Ghostbusters: The Video Game, the Ghostbusters contend with harmless echoes when they return to the Sedgewick Hotel. They look just like normal, everyday people milling about. Considering what they normally have to deal with, these "ghosts of ghosts" are the closest thing to "friendly" they've ever seen.
• Zigzagged in Haunting Starring Polterguy: Poltergeist Polterguy is this towards the player (he speaks towards the audience a lot between levels), but not towards the Sardinis (he scares them out of their houses).
• Moshi Monsters:
  • The Marooned Five are a pirate crew of ghosts. They can be quite mischievous (as expected of pirates), but they're actually benevolent.
  • Zoinks and his little cousin are two ghosts that haunt Goosebump Manor, who are pranksters but not cruel and are actually friendly.
  • Baby Ghosts are a species of small, spectral creatures. They aren't scary at all, they're just shy and cute.
  • Fancy Banshees are a species that resemble ghosts and, while they do have some creepy superpowers, they're actually very friendly.
• Mother 3: The ghosts in Osohe castle who don't have red eyes and actively chase you. They offer you stuff to buy, offer food to you at their party, and when Osohe Castle is invaded by Fassad's troops, they lock themselves up in the kitchen, sad that they don't get to party more. One of the mice in the castle lampshades their friendliness.
• Quest for Glory IV features the ghost of Pyotir, a paladin who helped stop the Cult of the Dark One the first time around. He acts as a minor Quest Giver (albeit only for a fellow paladin Hero — other classes simply cannot see or hear him), instructing the player to release the Rusalka from her curse and to restore Pyotir's own honor in Mordavia, the latter of which accidentally grants the paladin Hero the best set of weapons he can find in the game (Pyotir's magical sword and shield). All-in-all, there is little doubt that Pyotir is one of the most morally upright characters and by far the friendliest ghost in the game.
• Ghosts in The Sims 3 and The Sims 4 can be made friends with like any other Sim, and made playable. They can even have WooHoo with normal Sims, and in The Sims 3, produce "ghost babies", which look like ghosts and have some special abilities.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario Odyssey has Cappy. He and his fellow ghostly Bonneters are eager to help Mario rescue Peach and Cappy's sister Tiara from Bowser, with Cappy himself letting Mario "Capture" NPCs and perform various platforming techniques.
  • Super Mario RPG: The Three Musty Fears run the inn at Monstro Town, but since they're always out, Mario is allowed to rest for free. While he sleeps, Greaper Guy, Big Boo, and Dry Bones appear. They give cryptic clues as to where they're going to hide their flags, and if Mario can find the items, he'll get an accessory for free.
  • Paper Mario 64:
    • Paper Mario 64 has the Boos, who like to scare people but are otherwise harmless. Of special note is Bow, who becomes a very helpful partner.
    • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has Ghost T. Scary music aside, he's pretty cool... unless you read his diary.
  • Luigi's Mansion (Series):
    • Luigi's Mansion: Madame Clairvoya is the only portrait ghost who is friendly with Luigi. She helps him find out more about Mario's plight using the latter's dropped belongings, and once finished with this role she allows Luigi to vacuum her up with the Poltergust without a fight.
    • Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon has Polterpup. While all the other ghosts in Evershade Valley were friendly until the Dark Moon was shattered, Polterpup remains a Big Friendly Dog even afterward, reviving Luigi if he has a Gold Bone. Luigi even adopts him at the end.
    • Luigi's Mansion 3: Polterpup is now officially Luigi's pet and helps him out in various ways. Also in this game is Morty, a film director who is the only non-hostile ghost in the hotel. He makes Luigi into the star of his latest feature film and even pays him some pretty flattering compliments.
• In Tun Town, Lele's Cool Uncle, John, died several years in the backstory, but happily offers Lele a place to stay in his Haunted Castle. Lele even tries hugging John after seeing him for the first time in five years, only to comically phase through.
• Undertale has Napstablook, who is friendly and considerate, though they do seem to suffer from depression as well. The other ghost you meet is... less than friendly. And the other other ghost is Mettaton.

Web Animation

• Google's 2017 Halloween Doodle centers around a Friendly Ghost named Jinx. He just wants to go trick-or-treating and make friends with the kids of the neighborhood.
• The only friendly thing that the kids of Camp Camp encounter on Spooky Island is also the only explicitly supernatural thing: the friendly ghost Jasper.

Web Comics

• In El Goonish Shive, the pirate ghost haunting the library turns out to be one of these as he is mollified simply by being offered orange juice to treat his scurvy.
• The titular character Erma is a Half-Human Hybrid of an onryo, a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl like Sadako/Samara of The Ring; however, the worst she does is scaring people for fun and is normally a sweet-hearted child who loves her (human) friends and family. Her mother Emiko, a full onryo, is also on friendly terms with humans as well, certainly enough to marry her human husband Sam and have a child.
• The Fox Sister: Yun Hee is possessed by her dead sister's spirit, who saves her life.
• Gunnerkrigg Court: Mort is a cheerful ghost whose job is to scare people with his Shapeshifting powers. Chapter 47 reveals he was a young boy who was killed in The Blitz and also sees him move on to the afterlife.
• Homestuck's "dream bubbles" are full of ghosts, who can visit players in their sleep, or physically if players physically pass through the bubbles. They tend to be pretty kind, sometimes due to being AU versions of players' friends, and sometimes because they still act by their pre-death nature.
• Wispy from Marble Gate Dungeon appears to be this. Notably, this is specifically stated to be contrary to the normal rules of undeath: normal undead in this setting are animated by the power of the dark god Noxius and Always Chaotic Evil. Precisely what Wispy is and where she came from is still a mystery.
• My Life as a Background Slytherin: In stark contrast to his canon portrayal, the Bloody Baron is depicted as a rather amicable (and eloquent) ghost, at least with Slytherin students. However, he puts on a Monster Façade, complete with Nightmare Face, towards the other students.
• Scandinavia and the World. Denmark flips out upon meeting a tiny, adorable ghost, but Greenland reminds him that many ghosts are helpful, and asks the ghost for its purpose. Turns out it's actually terrifying after all, it drinks your beer!
• Undead Friend is full of these, as all ghosts are allowed to make friends with a human in order to be seen.
• Unsounded:
  • Timofey is a ghost mostly formed from the khert sounded memories of a poet, and those of Bastion's dead sister. He's quite friendly and aids children when he can, though his morals are a bit odd at times given that Bastion is his master.
  • Squishes are ghosts formed from happy and good memories, and though they rarely leave the khert they are generally kind if a bit mischievous when they do.
• Wilde Life: Sylvia the ghost has been unfriendly in the past when she didn't like the tenants. When she likes them, she is not only friendly but helpful: finding lost items, making sure the porch light was on when it was dark, making sure they never woke up late for work or school. She is friendly to the current tenant of the house, who reciprocated once he realized she was amicable.

Websites

• RPC Authority: The Notebook Acquired From The Assembly Hall, a notebook seemingly written by children about RPCs has an entery about RPC-049 describing her as "really nice and funny, and she sometimes says scarry storys, she's the best ever 4ever and 5ever."

Web Video

• BlastphamousHD: From his BHD Storytime series, Maurice recounts the time he used to live in a haunted house as a child. He recalls the sensation of being watched from within the kitchen when he slept on the couch every night, and he comes across an old picture of a young Amish girl inside the crawl-in attic. This seems to border on Stalker with a Crush territory, which is further emphasized by the fact that once the effects of NyQuil are beaten by the ghost girl, her stalking presence allows Maurice to notice the next-door House Fire only five feet away and get his family out of the house. The firefighter says he's unsure as to how Maurice woke up, but his family would've died of smoke inhalation if he had gotten up a mere 5-10 minutes later, meaning that the ghost girl helped saved his family's life.
• The Cry of Mann: Ghost Lady is a friendly, well-meaning ghost that has no ill-intentions towards the Mann family.
• Dream SMP: Ghostbur, the ghost of Wilbur Soot, is extremely friendly, and trusting to a fault. The fact that he can't retain any negative memories contributes to his cheerful, childlike personality, and it says something about him that the only thing that has ever made him genuinely angry is [[spoiler:his father, Philza, helping Techno and Dream carpet-bomb his home into the ground, killing his pet sheep Friend in the process, and showing zero remorse when Ghostbur confronts him].
• Unwanted Houseguest: The spirit of the Owl Head Lighthouse Keeper helps the Houseguest defeat the Shadow Demon.

Western Animation

• The Amazing World of Gumball: Carrie is "Emo" (although she's really more of a goth) but she's still one of the more friendly characters.
• Beetlejuice: In stark contrast to his villainous movie self. Here, instead of terrorizing the Deetzes, he's Lydia's best friend, and while he's mischievous and likes to play tricks on her family, he also protects them from any real danger.
• Warner Bros. created a Casper rip-off in the form of Spooky, a one-shot character in the Cool Cat cartoon "Big Game Haunt."
• Casper the Friendly Ghost is the trope namer and codifier. Where the other ghosts are spooky and really mischievous, Casper just wants friends and is very polite and kind. Somewhat deconstructed (comically) in that most people are still terrified at the mere sight of ghosts like him even if he tried his darnedest not to be frightening, and so he only makes a few friends, but they all love Casper very much.
• The ghosts in City of Ghosts are friendly with Zelda and her friends.
• Danny Phantom:
  • This show has The Dairy King. The Dairy King outright says not all ghosts are evil and helps the protagonist. All he wants is to be left alone in peace.
  • Hell, Danny Phantom himself qualifies. Although he possesses the power to become a ghost (beings that tend to be the source of most misfortune in the Danny Phantom universe), he is generally a pretty outgoing, Book Dumb kid who can be a bit of a Butt-Monkey. Being a growing-up teenager, though, he still can sometimes be a prankster.
• Dude, That's My Ghost!: The "ghost" Billy Joe Cobra was a famous pop star when he was alive, died of unknown reasons, and as the ghost he is right now, he's a chatty, friendly, humourous guy that gets along very well with his closest friend Spencer. His only flaws are his ego and vanity but those are mostly Played for Laughs.
• In Mike Tyson Mysteries, the ghost of the Marquess of Queensbury convinced Mike Tyson to become a (relatively) peaceful person, and he hangs out as a member of Mike's mystery-solving team. Oddly, the fact that he's dead doesn't actually come up that often in the episodes.
• Frankelda's Book of Spooks has the titular Frankelda. Although it's clear she has ulterior motives for the viewers cooperation in listening to her tales? She's very bubbly and excited, always happy to share her stories with the audience. In the final episode she even warns the viewer to save themselves from Porcustes as she goes back to the house to save Herneval.
• Jonathan "Mudsy" Muddlemore from The Funky Phantom by Hanna-Barbera died a coward while hiding in a standing clock from British soldiers during the American Revolution. Augie, Skip, and April awaken Mudsy's ghost from the clock when they cause it to chime. Mudsy is still cowardly, but affable and polite while visible.
• Johnny B. Dead from Monster by Mistake is a wise-cracking trumpet-playing ally to the human heroes.
• Several friendly ghosts appear in the Monster High franchise, one movie has an entire school of friendly ghosts.
• As part of their Adaptational Heroism, the four members of the Ghost Gang from Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures are Pac-Man's friends who serve as moles who warn Pac of many of Betrayus' schemes.
• A Pup Named Scooby-Doo: In "Ghost Who's Coming To Dinner," Bartholomew Byfard Boo is, to the team's surprise, a real ghost, and a friendly one. A rather small fellow with a voice like Droopy's, he's actually the one who hires the gang to catch the Monster of the Week, who is trying to coerce the homeowners of the old house Mr. Boo haunts into selling. Because if the house is destroyed, Mr. Boo will poof out of existence.
• Razzberry Jazzberry Jam: Herschel, the titular spirit in “Phantom Of The Jam”, turns out to be completely nice once the Jazzberries finally meet him, and even performs with them for that episode's song number.
• The Real Ghostbusters: Slimer is one of these, acting as their Team Pet and Plucky Comic Relief.
• Regular Show: In "Terror Tales of The Park II", Mordecai thinks his uncle is haunting him because he accidentally caused his death. Really, his Uncle Steve just wants to pay Mordecai back for the $5 he borrowed from him at the bowling alley.
• Nugget Nose, the Galloping Ghost from Yogi's Space Race, was generally friendly unless overtaken with gold fever.

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