During the holiday season, Casper and the Ghostly Trio are informed by Kibosh and Snivel that Casper's scare quota is way down this year, and must purposely scare someone before Christmas day. If not, Casper and the trio will be sent to a vast shadowy void called "The Dark" for all eternity. Thus, Kibosh sends the four ghosts to Kriss, Massachusetts in order to fulfill Casper's goal of scaring someone. During Casper's quest, he meets a young human girl named Holly Jollimore who believes that Casper is a snowman that came to life. Meanwhile, the Ghostly Trio hire Casper's cousin Spooky to pose as Casper in order to prevent them from being sent to "The Dark".
See also Casper's First Christmas, an earlier Christmas special featuring the friendly ghost.
The film contains examples of:
- All-CGI Cartoon: The first Casper film to be entirely computer animated.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Holly's view of Noel and Carol, both of whom are aggressively upbeat and in the holiday spirit. Not that it makes them any different than the other adults in this Christmas-loving town, though.
- Animated Actors: The Hilarious Outtakes reel is framed as the characters themselves recording their lines in the booth.
- Batman Gambit: In the end, Casper successfully stops the Ghostly Trio from ruining Christmas and scares them, all by playing on their established fear of Kibosh and faking an appearance of the guy.
- Big Bad: Kibosh, who plans to send Casper to "The Dark" if he doesn't scare someone.
- Big "NO!":
- Snivel says this as he saw Fatso playing with his whistle.
- Upon seeing Kibosh depart, Carol thinks he's another method actor and asks if anyone knows how to contact him. All the ghosts shout this in response.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Kibosh yells "silence" to Fatso in the darkness.
- Canon Foreigner: All of the human characters are created specifically for this film.
- Cassandra Truth: After scaring away the Ghostly Trio with a fake Kibosh, Casper uses the whistle to summon the real deal. Upon realizing down the street that they've been tricked, the Ghostly Trio come back and don't listen to Casper when he tells them Kibosh is here.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Thinking Casper is really Spooky, Poil is livid when he starts talking about a nice girl he met. The real Spooky later remarks he's going to need his cousin to straighten this out.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Casper is facing getting condemned to "The Dark" because of established ghost law, but the Ghostly Trio also get thrown into this and have their haunting licenses revoked until Casper succeeds. Kibosh says it's in part because they failed to set a better example for their charge, but it's also because he really doesn't like them.
- The Dreaded: Kibosh, the one being that even the Ghostly Trio fears. Casper ends up exploiting that for his plan to stop them from ruining Christmas and to actually scare someone.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Poil is a Dumb Blonde, but she can't understand why Spooky looks up to the Ghostly Trio. She thinks they're up to something by inviting him to join up, which they are.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Spooky suggests scaring the Ghostly Trio, Casper says nothing scares them. Then he realizes that someone does scare them and opts to play to that.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Casper and his friends laugh at the very end.
- Everyone Has Standards: Upon learning that the Ghostly Trio stole all the presents in town and plan to blow them up, Spooky is outraged. He thinks scaring can be harmless fun, but he says this is just plain mean.
- Evil Laugh: Kibosh after watching the Ghostly Trio injure themselves.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Kibosh has a deep voice.
- False Reassurance: Stretch assures Spooky that if he does well, the Ghostly Trio will treat him "like one of the family" afterwards. It never occurred to Spooky how they treat his own cousin on a regular basis.
- Fate Worse than Death: This is what being being sent to "The Dark" is like. For failing to meet their scare quota, ghosts are sent to a vast, shadowy dimension where they would spend all eternity having no one to scare to and nowhere to go.
- Ghosts Abhor a Vacuum: Stinky fiddles with the motor of a display Santa to suck Snivel inside. He's unable to escape on his own, and Stretch believes they could leave him there for years with no trouble.
- Graceful in Their Element: After repeatedly washing out while being Casper-like, Spooky points out he's a much more effective scarer when acting as himself.
- Hilarious Outtakes: The end credits features a reel of the characters recording their lines and messing around.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: In addition to stealing the presents, the Ghostly Trio rigged them with booby-traps to cause further harm to anyone trying to take back the goods. This is in violation of their haunting licenses being taken away, so they're in big trouble when Snivel finds out and tells Kibosh. To avoid being punished, the Ghostly Trio have to claim they were going to inflict this harm on themselves as a present to Kibosh. A montage of painful comedic slapstick ensues.
- Hope Spot: Casper actually manages to scare a child on his first try, thus resolving the plot. However, he just feels too bad about it and apologizes to the kid, so it doesn't count.
- How the Character Stole Christmas: Thinking they're doomed, the Ghostly Trio opt to go out with a bang by stealing the presents of everyone in town (to the sound of a Seuss-like narrator, no less), framing the Jollimores for it, and booby-trapping the gifts. They naturally don't learn a thing about the holiday, but they get what's coming to them for this, thanks to Casper, Spooky, and Poil tricking them and Snivel learning what they were up to.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: Casper is very friendly and has blue eyes.
- Irony: Casper the Friendly Ghost is on the hook to scare at least one person. He says he scares people all the time, but Snivel says doing so by accident doesn't count. Meanwhile, the Ghostly Trio have their haunting licenses revoked, making them forbidden from doing what they love the most.
- It's Quiet… Too Quiet: After Snivel's whistle is blown at the drive-in, Fatso notices how it just got very, very quiet. Kibosh is about to make an entrance.
- Jerkass: The Ghostly Trio, natch. With Casper being Casper and Spooky washing out, the Ghostly Trio are resigned to being exiled, so they opt to ruin Christmas for the entire town just so that they can spite others on their way out. During the How the Character Stole Christmas segment, the narrator explains why: "They were jerks."
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: After his failed attempt to scare Noel in the shower resulted in him being used as a towel, Spooky absolutely insists on this.
- Meaningful Name: Holly's name comes from her parents absolutely loving Christmas.
- Mirror Routine: When Casper bumps into Spooky (who's been made to look like him).
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Spooky went along with everything because he genuinely believed the Ghostly Trio wanted to add him to their ranks. When he is coldly brushed aside and insulted for failing, he happily teams up with Casper to help get back at them.
- Mythology Gag: Ahead of Spooky's arrival, Stretch gets Snivel to leave by claiming there's a Pauly Shore film festival downtown. Shore voiced Snivel in Casper: A Spirited Beginning.
- No Sympathy: Double subverted. Given his usual character, Casper actually did feel bad about possibly letting down the Ghostly Trio, even being more concerned with their suffering than his own. Upon learning about them stealing all the presents in town, though, he kicks himself for feeling that way and resolves to get back at them.
- Papa Wolf: Noel consoles Holly when she's upset, until he finds out she's upset about a boy. Then he gets authoritative and suspicious, prompting Carol to intervene.
- Pass the Popcorn: Fatso grabs a popcorn bucket at the drive-in.
- Pet the Dog: In the end, Kibosh reminds the Ghostly Trio that they owe Casper for saving them from a Fate Worse than Death.
- Place Worse Than Death: Kriss, Massachusetts for anyone that hates Christmas. That's why Kibosh happily sent the Ghostly Trio there.
- Product Placement: Baskin-Robbins was featured in the film, and it was promoted for a limited Casper based flavor that new copies feature a coupon.
- Punny Name: Mr. and Mrs. Jollimore live up to their love of Christmas by being named Noel and Carol, respectively. They named Holly after the "A Holly Jolly Christmas" song, much to her irritation.
- Race Against the Clock: Casper has to scare someone by the morning of Christmas Day, or else he and the Ghostly Trio will be condemned to "The Dark" forever. He only just narrowly pulls it off, with help from Spooky and Poil.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Kibosh has red eyes and is the villain.
- Reused Character Design: The werewolf in the movie at the drive-in theater is a reuse of Noble from Beast Machines.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: After clearing out the drive-in, the Ghostly Trio tell Casper he should be joining in on the scaring instead of trying to stop it. They're thinking about it in terms of just having fun, but if Casper had deliberately scared just one person, he wouldn't be on the hook for violating ghost law.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The drivers at the drive-in left as they saw the ghosts.
- Shout-Out:
- After accidentally scaring the guy in the ticket booth, Casper quips, "This never happened to Patrick Swayze."
- Casper had previously rented Free Willy 3: The Rescue and was moved to tears by it.
- Early on, Holly reads a magazine that has Richie Rich on the cover.
- A man who sounds suspiciously like Jimmy Stewart keeps wishing everyone and thing in sight a Merry Christmas.
- Spooky attempts to scare Noel with a Psycho-like shower scene, with the scene even turning black-and-white for the effect. He later tries to do a Scream-type phone call to Carol.
- Skewed Priorities: Stretch and Stinky fully intend to kick Spooky to the curb when he's no longer needed. Fatso also doesn't want to let him on their team, but only because he considers "quartet" hard to spell.
- Spanner in the Works: Noel and Carol wreck Spooky's attempts to scare them through sheer dumb luck. Noel was simply drying off in the shower, while Carol left some kitchen equipment on — both of which result in Spooky suffering slapstick.
- Strong Family Resemblance: With Casper a washout at scaring, the Ghostly Trio try to exploit this by calling in Spooky and trying to pass him off as his cousin with some slight tweaking. Snivel is completely fooled.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Stinky and Fatso when they realize they just harassed the real Kibosh, not Casper's puppet.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Due to all the Christmas trappings, Casper is mistaken for a living snowman by Holly, while the Ghostly Trio are just considered method actors auditioning for a production of A Christmas Carol.
- Villain Respect: Much as he dislikes them, Kibosh has to admit that the Ghostly Trio are scaring pros. It's why he doesn't initially believe that Casper scared them.
- Villainous Breakdown: The Ghostly Trio when first threatened with being sent to "The Dark" and again at the end of the movie when Kibosh is ready to send them there for violating his orders.
- Vocal Dissonance: In the Hilarious Outtakes, Kibosh's real voice is much higher compared to when he's performing.
- We Will Meet Again: Kibosh warns the Ghostly Trio that they haven't seen the last of him and that they had best stay out of trouble. Snivel attempting to get in on it leads to him being yanked away by Kibosh.
- Who Dares?: Kibosh's first lines as he gets summoned by Snivel's whistle.
- Your Costume Needs Work: The Ghostly Trio auditions to be ghosts in a production of A Christmas Carol. They're rejected for being too flashy and distracting. Their attempt to point out they are actual ghosts doesn't get them anywhere.
