The Harvey Entertainment Company

The Harvey Entertainment Company (formerly known as Harvey Films and Harvey Entertainment, or simply Harvey, and later named Sunland Entertainment Co.) was the production arm of comic book publisher Harvey Comics. It was founded in 1957.

A majority of the company's assets were purchased by Classic Media (currently owned by NBCUniversal via DreamWorks Animation) in 2001 under the in-name subsidiary Harvey Entertainment, Inc., while the remains of the business including the live-action film division were folded within Echo Bridge Entertainment.

In the early 1960s, the company created Harvey Funnies, the original entertainment company to produce The New Casper Cartoon Show.

On October 28, 1986, Harvey Films filed a lawsuit against Columbia Pictures claiming that the ghost in the logo of the film Ghostbusters was similar to that of the Ghostly Trio from Casper, specifically Fatso. Columbia argued that Fatso was only a portion of Harvey's, at the time, renewed trademark, and there were three ghosts instead of just one. The court argued that the logos are largely dissimilar and that The Ghostly Trio had only the words of the trademark and the three ghosts while the logo for Ghostbusters has a sign for prohibition with only the torso and head of only one ghost. The expressions are different, with their ghosts having mischievous or evil facial expressions, while the other one is bewildered. The court said:

Accordingly, the Court concludes that the claimed likelihood of confusion has no material basis in fact. The sole evidence which Harvey has produced on this issue are excerpts from magazine articles which suggest a general association between the "Ghostbusters" logo and "Casper" comics. It is clear from reading these articles that there was no confusion whatsoever on the part of the authors. A finding of general association, that the "Ghostbusters" logo is reminiscent of "Casper" characters, does not mean that the prospective moviegoer in purchasing a ticket for "Ghostbusters" thinks that he is going to see a "Casper" cartoon. Neither does it mean that he will think that "Ghostbusters" is derived from "Casper" cartoons or that it is sponsored by the same source as "Casper".

The court dismissed the case for not violating their trademark.

In 1989, Jeffrey A. Montgomery purchased Harvey from the Harvey family for $7.5 million. With this, the company became a subsidiary of Montgomery's HMH Communication, based in Santa Monica, California, and was renamed Harvey Comics Entertainment. Universal Pictures secured a 10% stake in Harvey in exchange for producing films based on Casper and select other Harvey properties.

During this period, Montgomery began to re-syndicate the existing animated library as well as reprint older comic book titles. Through Claster Television, Casper & Friends was syndicated to local TV stations for three years between 1990-1994, while the "Harvey Classics" comic books began being published around the same time. In 1991, the company licensed out Richie Rich and Casper to Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures respectively to create films based on the characters.