Ghost Wanted

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A Wild Hare	Patient Porky

Airdate:
10 August 1940

Series:

Merrie Melodies

MPAA Number:	Production Number:	Vitaphone Number:
5993	MM-2-10	9537

Runtime:

7 minutes, 36 seconds

Copyright Renewed:

21 May 1968^[1]

Crew

Voice Characterizations:

Tex Avery (uncredited)

Character Design:

Bob Givens (uncredited)

Layout Artist:

John McGrew (uncredited)

Background Artist:

Paul Julian (uncredited)

Film Editor:

Treg Brown (uncredited)

Musician:

Carl W. Stalling

Ghost Wanted is a 1940 Merrie Melodies short directed by Charles Jones.

Title[]

The title is a pun on "host wanted".

Plot[]

In his house, a little ghost is reading a book titled How to Haunt Houses, which shows various recommended haunting positions that are usually successful for ghosts. He tries out a few of the positions by posing and then reads the Haunt Ads in the Saturday Evening Ghost (dated Saturday 13 December 1939).

He comes across a haunting job that doesn't require experience at the address of 1313 Dracula Drive that he likes. He changes from his white "suit/sheets" into a new light blue-colored "suit" and white hat, and is invisible for the interim between changing "suits". Even though he can pass through closed doors like an ordinary ghost, he prefers opening them while passing through.

He arrives at the house at 1313 Dracula Drive, which is on a mountain, and tries out for the house-haunting job, but winds up getting terrorized by a bigger ghost interviewing him for the position.

The ghost terrorizes him by yelling boo and scaring him, sending him a Ghostal Telegraph that says "Boo!", and dropping a lit firecracker that resembles an M-80 that the little ghost just barely runs away from.

The bigger ghost's plans backfire on him when the fuses of the fireworks he put in his "back pocket" are ignited by the lit match he dropped and send him flying throughout the house after the little ghost and ultimately into a well somewhere outside the haunted house.

Caricatures[]

Chuck Jones - the big ghost is based on him.

Availability[]

Censorship[]

The Cartoon Network and Boomerang versions shown in the United States cut the scene of The Big Ghost offering The Little Ghost a cigarette and a shot of his pack of Old Ghoul Cigarettes. Despite this, the scenes where the Big Ghost smokes the cigarette and blows out a puff of smoke that reads "BOO" were left in.^[3]^[4]

Notes[]

According to the ToonHeads episode "One Toon Wonders", the unnamed little ghost from this cartoon inspired the creation of the Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons by rival studio Famous Studios (formerly Fleischer Studios at the time this cartoon was made) in 1945,^[4] even though the Casper character was originally created by Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo for a 1939 children's book named The Friendly Ghost.^[5]
The little ghost does not speak in this short, instead relying entirely on pantomime, similar to Chuck Jones' other Disney-esque characters, Inki and The Two Curious Puppies.
This is one of the few cartoons not directed by Tex Avery in which he worked as a voice actor.