Casper the Friendly Ghost is a fictional character who has been featured in cartoons, comics, and movies. His backstory has been explored in various adaptations, and there are different explanations for how he became a ghost. According to the 1995 movie "Casper," he died from pneumonia after playing outside in the cold as a child. In the original 1945 cartoon, he was also a little boy whose life was tragically cut short by pneumonia. However, in the 1960s and 70s Harvey comics, it was stated that Casper was a ghost simply because his parents were ghosts, implying that ghosts can reproduce and that they are a separate species. The question of Caspers mortality has been raised over the years, and some adaptations have avoided addressing it due to the grim reality of talking about a dead child.